Democracy
We are told we live in a democracy, but in reality our democratic system has been hollowed out.
Michael Lind writes 'a new democratic pluralism is needed to bring today’s class war to an end in the way that the power-sharing pluralism of the 1950s and 1960s ended the first. This is a challenge far greater than merely revising trade or immigration or social welfare policies to win over populist voters. It requires compelling corporate executives, media tycoons and high-ranking civil servants who have grown accustomed to a lack of pressure from below to show deference to less-educated people in the national heartlands beyond a few economic, cultural and administrative capitols. This, in turn, requires creating the functional equivalents of yesterday’s trade unions, local political machines and civic pressure groups, in forms suited to the twenty-first century. This would allow those citizens who today are alienated and atomised members of an anomic population, disconnected from the centres of national power, to once again belong to organisations that can pool their numbers and amplify their influence.
With their own lesser, local tribunes to represent their interests and values, members of the working-class majority are likely to be less attracted to Caesarist demagogues who claim to speak for the virtuous people as a whole against the treacherous few.
The details of a new democratic pluralism cannot be specified in advance, and by nature must be negotiated by different actors in society, rather than drawn up in advance in 10-point plans by intellectuals or committees. These new class peace treaties will also vary among Western democracies, depending on local conditions and cultures.'
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