According to many economists and political theorists, there may be a calculus between economic well-being and democracy. A Gerschenkron was not the first to identify this possible relationship. Others include K Polanyi and, further back, JM Keynes. Its most celebrated example is Germany’s headlong slide into fascism in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
This raises an important set of problems. Democracy—a procedure that should empower the demos—is not predisposed to favor any particular demos. It might favor an anti-democratic demos. In which case it is self-defeating. But when does the demos choose not to be democratic?
The demos chooses not to be democratic when it feels powerless to enact needed systemic changes, such as a more equitable distribution of wealth or the amelioration of some other hardship.
But this begs two near opposite responses. In the face of spreading fascism and totalitarianism, JM Keynes recommended that western democracies do all in their power—including deficit spending—to reestablish full industrial capacity and full employment. And there is no question but that the Eastern Europeans questioning democratic procedures are tired of the lack of social security, consumer goods, and common wealth. If private investors are not responsive to their needs, the reasoning goes, perhaps they need a heavier, more authoritarian hand.
The other response—the response of most of western Europe until now—has been to reinforce institutions that empower citizens to act effectively: making sure, for example, that all citizens enjoy cheap, affordable, universally available health care; making sure that citizens are cared for irrespective of the disposition of their employment; making sure that all citizens enjoy a bare minimum of cultural, political, and industrial literacy. This solution goes further than JM Keynes’, recognizing as it does that the surest barrier against fascism and authoritarianism is a public that values not simply things—full employment, full capacity use of the industrial plant—but the institutional arrangements and values that mediate political and social relations.
The conclusion is that while the shortage of social security and consumer goods is surely a formula for anti-democratic sentiment, the mere provision of consumer goods and employment (generally identified with free markets) is no formula to ensure democracy. As good Ben Franklin might have told us, what we need is to all be healthy, wealthy, and wise; but it is not merely going to bed and rising early that wins us these benefits.
Pro-democracy feeling wanes in parts of E.Europe-EBRD | Reuters
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