Robert Dahl's Democracy and its Critics
Schwartz, Joseph M.
DEMOCRACY AND ITS CRITICS, by Robert A. Dahl. Yale University Press, 1989. 397 pp. $29.95. Democracy and Its Critics is a rigorous summary of the life work of one of America's premier political...
...Even a reformist social democratic government is dependent upon capitalist investment to provide the economic accumulation needed to fund social programs...
...Believing that electoral majorities in Western "polyarchies" consist of ever-shifting coalitions of minority interests, Dahl still holds to the insight of Preface to Democratic Theory that competitive elections "increase . . . the size, number and variety of minorities whose preferences must be taken into account by leaders in making policy changes...
...Dahl'ss analysis touches on a fundamental but partial truth about democratic capitalism...
...Surprisingly, Dahl's discussion of the extension of democracy does not focus on the need for international labor cooperation and democratic, multilateral economic institutions if democracy is to regulate transnational capital...
...Dahl's work over the past twenty years on the integral relationship between economic and political democracy generously responds to the radical criticisms made of his work in the 1960s, which held that his theory underestimated how class, racial, and gender inequalities undercut the promise of liberal democracy...
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...The importance of the African-American northern vote to the Democratic coalition of the 1960s helps to explain civil rights victories...
...This presumption of personal autonomy is critical to Dahl's rejection of all conceptions of "guardianship...
...Solidarity" —the least analyzed of democratic values—is the value most threatened by the crisis of the postwar Keynesian order...
...Implicit here is the idea that there exists one best way to lead our lives or one set of true universal interests...
...In a reasoned yet passionate tone Dahl defends democracy as a system of political equality that promotes the freedom of individuals to live under laws of their own choosing...
...These constraints grow more severe with the globalization of capital...
...If the common good consists of those goods necessary for full and equal democratic deliberation (quality public education, universally accessible child care, health care, and so on) then the common good becomes both a vibrant political life and extensive egalitarian public provision...
...Dahl contends that the small, export-oriented democracies' (that is, the Scandinavian countries and Austria) creative use of labor-market and industrial policies to sustain international competitiveness proves that national responses to the globalization of capital remain possible...
...Meritorious as this idea may be, an average public would still be overly deferential to (and dependent upon) "expert" advice if our educational system and division of labor were not altered to reduce the gap between "mental" workers and "manual" laborers...
...As the work force of advanced industrial society is increasingly divided by race, gender, ethnicity, and skill, the (often romanticized) solidarity of male, industrial trade unionism becomes a thing of the past...
...The subsequent worry on the part of Democratic party elites that white blue-collar and southern voters were abandoning the presidential party explains the current silence of the Democratic leadership on issues of racial inequality and urban decay...
...Excluded groups, if mobilized, can use the power of their numbers to win social gains when political elites need votes to hold state power...
...The mere threat of capital flight or capital strike severely limits the power of democratic governments to implement redistributive reforms...
...Concluding that the greatest barrier to the extension of democracy is not economic inequality but the gap between public policy intellectuals and average citizens, Dahl proposes to narrow that gap through the creation of "alternative publics" of a thousand randomly selected citizens who would deliberate over key policy issues for a year, assisted by technical staff and experts...
...But Dahl's use of the principles of personal autonomy and strong equality to justify worker ownership of firms demonstrates that a radical conception of liberal democracy is not neutral in regard to social institutions...
...Dahl does not touch on the peculiar ways in which American political life further violates the conditions of autonomous deliberation...
...In the past decade American political theory has been consumed by a debate between Rawlsian liberals, who believe that rights rest on the individual capacity for free choice, and "communitarian" critics, who stress the primacy of the community as shaper of individual moral capacities...
...It is also a timely antidote to the right's equation of democracy with the "freedom" of an unrestrained capitalist market...
...But Dahl distances himself from many liberals by rejecting the notion that rights are best defended by an independent judiciary and a written constitution...
...He contends that democracy rests on adherence to a strong principle of equality that holds that all adults subject to the binding collective decisions of an association must have potentially equal decision-making power...
...Dahl bridges these excessively counterposed positions by holding that it is precisely our belief in a democratic community that necessitates our commitment to individual rights...
...Dahl nevertheless maintains his faith, even during the Reagan-Thatcher era, that "polyarchies" will grow more democratic and egalitarian over time because competing political elites ultimately have to respond to voters' preferences...
...What he fails to recognize are the severe pressures placed on even these nations' social programs by the race for "global competitiveness...
...Because workers are bound by management decision, the principle of strong equality requires that workers should have a voice in management...
...Democracy, in Dahl's view, is the only system for arriving at collective decisions that respects the moral equality of human beings...
...Conceiving of human beings as moral equals, Dahl contends that support of universal suffrage rests on a belief that each person is likely to be the best judge of his or her own interest...
...Such institutions may serve as evidence of democracy's commitment to civil liberties, but for liberties to be secure they must be embodied in the day-to-day practices of a living political community...
...But his preference for analyzing social institutions through individual relationships leads Dahl to underestimate the ways in which democratic capitalism structurally favors corporate power...
...And the division of labor in childrearing would have to be radically altered if political equality were to be achieved between men and women...
...Resurgent racism serves as the major weapon against all forms of public expenditure...
...In the United States, although the majority of people dependent on means-tested public provision (AFDC, food stamps, 314 • DISSENT Books Medicaid) are white, a disproportionate minority of the poor are people of color...
...Sustaining a commitment to such provision requires a commitment to the liberal democratic values of liberty, equality, and solidarity...
...Dahl contends that modern pluralist societies are composed of such diverse interests that the only common good they can agree upon is the democratic process itself...
...Even if in a just society some division of labor between mental and manual tasks would remain, only by radically restructuring work and educational opportunities could the currently class-based recruitment to these tasks be eliminated...
...As a result Dahl may be too optimistic about the immediate possibilities for democratic transformation...
...Firms, Dahl contends, are today authority structures subject to the binding decisions of management...
...Although Dahl recognizes that underorganized or underfunded constituencies (the medically uninsured, nonunionized workers, the poor) can lose out in the pluralist competition where "votes count, but resources decide," he still has an implicit faith that "overlapping membership" between these groups and other, more empowered, constituencies will eventually lead to social gains...
...If, however, moral choice often involves a trade-off among competing values, then it is best to construct a political system in which each has an equal chance to express his or her desires...
...Dahl's Preface to Economic Democracy (1985) develops a compelling justification for workers' control of major firms...
...But personal autonomy—the capacity to make informed decisions in one's own interest—needs to be socially nurtured...
...From Plato to Lenin, the major theoretical challenges to democracy have relied on the contention that ordinary people cannot know their true interests and that "guardians" should rule in their interest...
...The right-wing assault on public provision has relied heavily on the myth of an "undeserving" minority poor...
...Radical theorists who have recently discovered the centrality of "pluralism" and "civil society" owe a considerable debt to Dahl's work...
...p_ wommunitarian" critics of liberal democracy such as Alasdair MacIntyre allege that its neutrality regarding "the good life" relegates it to an uncritical relativism that cannot remedy the absence of participation in public life...
...This structural analysis ("the weight of existing institutions and ideologies") of popular support for corporate prerogatives notably runs counter to Dahl's otherwise "pluralist" belief that the divided nature of American political elites limits their ability to control the political agenda and to shape voter preferences...
...Dahl recognizes that his belief in the workers' moral right to democratically control large firms clashes with the dominant belief in private shareholder and management prerogatives: "Because of the overwhelming weight of existing institutions and ideologies, probably most people, including many thoughtful people, will find it hard to believe that employees are qualified to govern the enterprise in which they work...
...Still, Marx's insight that structural inequalities of power limit the value of political democracy remains true...
...In the 1970s Dahl and his frequent collaborator Charles Lindblom began to analyze the other SPRING • 1991 • 315 Books fundamental truth about democratic capitalism: that corporate control of investment provides capitalists with a "privileged position...
...Yet Dahl's own emphasis on the economic and cultural prerequisites for democracy implies that the common good may come to more than simply a commitment to formal democratic procedures...
...Political mobilization by small farmers or the elderly prove that in a competitive electoral system nondominant interests can often win on issues that are not of essential interest to dominant elites...
...Privately financed campaigns and television advertisements have engendered a politics of salesmanship so blatant that even the mainstream media comment upon the debasement of political discourse...
...Their report to representative bodies would indicate the considered judgment of a sample, informed public...
...While upholding "polyarchy" (a society of autonomous interest groups, civil liberties, and competitive political parties), Dahl recognizes that inequitable distribution of economic and intellectual resources limits the democratic claims of these regimes...
...As Dahl's work eloquently demonstrates, the moral values of liberal democracy can only be realized if our economic institutions are shaped by the values of political equality...
...But the inequalities in economic and ultimately political power that the unregulated market engenders will eventually refocus the East European political agenda upon the proper balance between the autonomy of economic actors and democratic state regulation...
...Essential to a full-fledged democracy are the social and economic goods necessary to ensure each individual the possibility of an "enlightened understanding" of his or her interest...
...Democracy and Its Critics is a rigorous summary of the life work of one of America's premier political scientists...
...Thwarted by the statism of a command economy, East Europeans intellectuals celebrate "the market" as a metaphor for autonomous civil society, economic rationality, and a politics of choice...
Vol. 38 • April 1991 • No. 2
