Thompson Theory of Social Democracy 07

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Te Teory of Social Democracyby Tomas Meyer with Lewis Hinchman, Polity, 2007, 279 pp.

Michael J. Tompson

I.

For the past 60 years, democratic theory has more than held a central place at the

core o political theory. Te collapse o European ascism as well as the opposition

to Soviet communism produced a robust discourse about the nature o democracy

not only as a theory o politics, but as the very ground o legitimacy or modern

government and the overall structure o modern society. rue, libertarians tried

overzealously to use political democracy and the ethic o human liberation to the

market and to capitalism, but more inuential were those thinkers who sought to

tame the excesses o laissez aire economics and create a modern, social liberalism

rom L. . Hobhouse, . H. Green, Walter Weyl, John Dewey, and many others.

oday, democratic theory has been largely dominated by a more narrowed liberalism

and, on occasion, other rival theories o democratic lie such as communitarianism

and republicanism. But on the whole, no one doubts that traditions such as

socialism have become irrelevant to theoretical justications o democracy.

As an amalgam o semi-socialistic ideas and theories, social democracy has becomea tradition which seeks to hold its own against the Anglo-American brand o

liberal capitalism that has come to dominate western political, economic and social

lie. O course, social democracys roots were always revisionist in character. Eduard

Bernstein had argued as early as 1898 in his book Te Preconditions o Socialism

that some o the theses most undamental to Marxism were empirically alse. Ideas

such as the law o the alling rate o prot, o the increasing immiserisation o the

working class, o the large-scale pauperism o capitalist societies, and the irrelevancy

o liberal democracy, were all nonsense. Central to the theory o social democracy

was the idea that the political, legal, and ethical spheres o modern society had to bedeveloped to counter the harshness o capitalism. But even more, these spheres had

gained autonomy precisely because capitalism had developed society to such a large

extent, enabling a parallel maturation o civil society. It was not a transormation

o the production process or the democratisation o the workplace the republic

o the workshop in Bernsteins words which should be the ultimate goals o the

socialist movement, but the urther democratisation o the institutions o modern

society. For Bernstein, one could call socialism organising liberalism, or when


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one examines more closely the organisations that socialism wants and how it wants

them, he will nd that what distinguishes them above all rom the eudalistic

organisations, outwardly like them, is just their liberalism, their democraticconstitution, their accessibility. [1]

II.

Tis revisionism has only continued to drive the theories o social democracy

away rom its more radical roots in Marxism and its critical account o capital

as the source o the contradictions within modernity. But even in its present

orm, social democracy has been under attack rom an ascendant neoliberalism.

Te pressures o globalisation, the increased dependency o modern societies on

capitalist institutions, and the great integration o legal and technological lie tothe globalisation o these institutions have posed a threat to the older theoretical

justications o social democracy and its institutions. As a response to this, Tomas

Meyers Te Teory o Social Democracy (written with Lewis Hinchman) is an

attempt to organise a theory o social democracy which will speak to the new

concerns over globalisation and the threats it poses to social democratic practice. It

is a continuation o the notion, also espoused by Bernstein, that liberalism needs to

be transcended while also being incorporated into a broader theory o democracy.

Tis is a book which tackles a plethora o issues, but all within a single theoreticalramework. Social democracy, as opposed to liberal democracy, is a theory o

democracy which overcomes the contradiction between the theoretical articulation

o political and human rights and the means necessary to realise them in the world.

Whereas liberal theory provides a ramework or civil and human rights, its internal

logic by no means makes demands on the state to provide the means necessary

material and otherwise to make these rights concrete in the world.

For Meyer, social democracy diers rom this theoretical paradigm by seeking to

overcome two core philosophical contradictions existing within political liberalism:

the linking o reedom with property and the distinction between negative and

positive liberty. Meyer argues that these constitute two dilemmas within liberal

theory. Te rst derives rom Lockes linking o reedom and property. For Meyer,

this is problematic as it was or the entirety o the socialist tradition or the

simple reason that there exist those who depend or their very existence on the

property o others, thereby negating their access to reedom. Property becomes the

dividing point o modern society rather than its path to universal emancipation,

hompson | Teriig scial Decracy


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something which has hardened into an ideology or modern libertarianism.

Similarly with the distinction between negative and positive liberty: ownership o

private property itsel the province o the minority within society enables anunequal access to positive liberty, thereby creating a material inequality which itsel

becomes unequal at the level o rights.

Te limitations o classical liberalism thereore need to be transcended because

they are inherently inadequate to protect society rom the economic orces o

capitalism. But more importantly, classical liberalism ails to provide an adequate

normative justication or a democratic society. Meyers argument is thereore

organised around grounding the normative orientation o the theory o social

democracy on the de acto validity o universal basic rights (p. 21). Given the actthat social citizenship is now a positive legal norm (p. 21) it can serve as a guiding

principle or modern social democracy. At its base, what needs to be deended is

the ethical-political ideal o the ee human being, liberated om ear and want, an

ideal that ought to be realised in and or every single person. (p. 23) For Meyer, this

constitutes social democracys core normative principle and it is one that avoids the

problems o competing religious world-views and conceptions o the good. Social

democracy provides, in Meyers reading, a substantive set o social and economic

rights which rest on thoroughly democratic principles.

Hence what Meyer calls the general theory o social democracy: a theory which

orients its statements and conclusions to all o the politically optional risks

that signicantly impair the ull enjoyment o the undamental rights o some

members o society (p. 30). Tereore, the theory o social democracy holds or

itsel a theoretical justication or individual human reedom, but also at the same

time considers the empirical-analytic question o what would have to be done so

that people could take advantage o their ormally guaranteed rights in everyday

lie (p. 31). Within a context o deliberative democracy, this becomes a crucial

argument or Meyer since it is a way to extend crucial democratic controls to the

entire community rather than to elites or to a particular party or class. Workersneed to be protected rom the warp and woo o the market, the environment

needs to be shielded rom the destructive orces o expanding industrialisation and

consumption, the gap between the rst and third worlds needs to be narrowed in

short, there is a real need or social democracy to come to terms with the act that

since capitalism cannot be abolished or overcome, it must be tamed and brought

into line with democratic principles. Social democracy should place emphasis on

the democratic needs o society; it must protect society rom the corrosive eects


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o modern capitalism, reign in its excesses, and nd institutional solutions which t

the unstable nexus o modern risk society.

In this sense, Meyer integrates something new to what would otherwise look

like a modern, twenty-rst-century extension o Bernsteins core philosophical

and political arguments rom a century ago. Indeed, instead o taking Marx as

the core gure in the socialist theoretical ramework something Bernstein did

out o necessity the real sub-theory which gives coherence to Meyers general

treatment o social democracy seems to be that o Karl Polanyi and his concept

o the double-movement. In his book, Te Great ransormation, Polanyi argued

that the emergence o the sel-regulating market put orth innumerable problems

or modern society, chie among them was that it could not exist or any length otime without annihilating the human and natural substance o society; it would

have physically destroyed man and transormed his surroundings into a wilderness.

[2] As a result o the destructive nature o the modern market economy, society

sought to protect itsel rom this destruction and reel in the excesses o the utopian

aspirations toward a sel-regulating market. But the pressures o the market system

come back again and again to threaten mans social and natural environment, and

thus the back and orth between these two tendencies make up the essential nature

o the modern world. In many ways, Meyers theory o social democracy is designed

with this double-movement in mind: it is a theory o how social democracy canpush back against the tide o neoliberalism and an economic system which has

sought to swallow society and nature whole.

But just as Polanyi was ambiguous about overcoming this modern system o economic

coordination, Meyer accepts many o the core institutions o modern capitalism. It

is not the task o social democracy to overcome capitalism, but to empower the

political organs o society to counter its destructive eects. Tis can be done by re-

embedding participatory orms o decision making into the unctional spheres o

society: Social democracy ought to avor a orm o participatory decision-making

in the unctional systems o society that would enable both universalistic criteriaand unctional logics specic to each case to operate simultaneously (p. 90). But

this poses a crucial problem: what happens when participatory orms o decision-

making threaten unctional logics? Te answer is clear: what is normative about

this theory is not the content, but the orm: decision-making processes must be

democratic and participatory, but only to the point where they do not endanger the

unctional logics o social institutions. What can be legitimised normatively and

unctionally . . . is a orm o participatory decision-making that would not disturb



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unctional eciency (p. 91). As Bernstein more eloquently put it, the ultimate

aim o socialism is nothing, but the movement is everything. [3]

III.

Much o this is nothing new or those even mildly versed in the tradition o social

democracy. Te main aim o this book is the integration o the many themes

o modern society into this ramework. Put another way, Meyer wants to re-

read modern democratic institutions through the lens o this version o social

democracy, and it is here that the limits o the theory or actual politics can be

sensed. On its own grounds, the theory seems comprehensive and, rom a moral

point o view, persuasive. Progressive advocates or an expanded role o the state

in economic institutions will nd a compelling set o moral, legal, and politicalarguments or expanding the powers o the state to steer the private sector toward

more public ends. Social movements unions in particular will nd a similar set

o arguments to make the workplace more democratic and participatory, as well as

an appeal to the state to include them in a broader coalition against the excesses o

market orces. Environmentalists will also nd here a more pragmatic approach to

the protection o the natural world. But there is something that ails at both the

empirical and theoretical levels and this is ultimately atal to the overall argument

o the book the underestimation o the extent to which capitalism undermines

society as a progressive orce against capitalist market imperatives.

o be more precise, I think that the theory o social democracy and Meyers

account is no exception in this regard misses what the Critical Teorists saw

all too well: that there is a corrosive eect upon the consciousness o individuals

as a result o the ways that modern capitalism constitutes society. I use what at

rst looks like an awkward phrase, constitutes society, on purpose because society

and the individuals within it are, in this reading, constituted by the processes, the

institutions and the culture within which they indiiduate themselves . Tis means

that we cannot assume that the political will and consciousness will be there to

move into the various orms o institutional lie supposed by Meyer and this is

because capitalism has more than only political and social eects: it has eects upon

consciousness as well. [4] Tis act is ignored at the peril o any theory o democracy

within the context o modernity. Critical theorists were able to see the various ways

in which social domination pervaded modern lie not only rom Marxian sources,

but also by integrating the theories o Max Weber into their various analyses. Tis

was combined with the theory o reication put orth by Georg Lukcs in 1923


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in his groundbreaking book,History and Class Consciousness. Te central thesis o

the core essay o that book was that capitalism places the commodity orm at the

centre o modern society allowing it to penetrate into all aspects o modern cultureand consciousness. Te problems with modernity could thereore not adequately

be addressed by ocusing on the structural-unctionalist aspects o capitalism alone

(as the orthodox Marxists o the time did), but rom the ways in which this orm

o society shaped the consciousness o individuals. Working people no longer saw

themselves as possessing the means to ree themselves democratically; they began

seeing themselves as part o the capitalist system which itsel was becoming part

o their second nature. Critical political consciousness was thereore hindered

since capitalism was ceasing to be an object o critique. As working people were

beginning to reconcile themselves to the capitalism, then there could be no relianceon the agency o social actors to join politically or their own social liberation.

Weber made a similar, but also very dierent argument. For him, modern societies

which possessed a complex division o labor also needed a rationalised bureaucracy.

Tis required new orms o domination (Herrschaf) specically orms o

domination which were legitimated by subordinates themselves through the dual

processes o routinisation and obedience. Tis was not coerced as in pre-modern

societies, based on charismatic or traditional orms o authority. [5] Instrumental

rationality (Zweckrationalitt) was thereore the core mechanism o modernsociety, one that held it together even as it eroded individual autonomy and created

wholly new orms o obedience and control. Tis rationality was internalised by

social actors, embedded in their consciousness; it was not simply a set o rules

obeyed because o external orce. Hierarchies were rationalised, individuals within

them de-individualised, and there emerges a new orm o social relationship:

the authority relation (Herrschfserhltnis) which guaranteed institutional and

unctional eciency. [6] Modernity embodies the iron cage within which the

individual was imprisoned; it would begin to take away the classical orms o

autonomy envisioned by Enlightenment moral philosophers such as Kant, and the

ideal o an authentic modernity where individuals could be sovereign over theirown choices and be truly autonomous and ree was quickly evaporating. [7]

What this means in the present discussion is that two o the core arguments made

by Meyer seem to me to be deeply problematic and gloss over these critical accounts

I have briey summarised above. First is the emphasis on the need or participatory

decision-making as the means by which social institutions can be democratised;

and second, the condition that what really matters is nding ways to institutionalise



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participation that respects unctional imperaties. (p. 92) By resting a broader, more

general theory on these assumptions, Meyer runs into a problem i the critical

accounts o thinkers such as Weber and Lukcs are to be even briey considered.Declining social capital, the culture o consumption, and the lack o democratic

practices in everyday lie all conspire to erode not only the will, but the capacities

necessary to produce an adequate orm o participation. In this sense, the production

process itsel can be, in many senses, to blame: the constant search or opening

up new domains or extracting prots means real shifs in economic, sociological

and psychological lie. For one thing, it means more working hours, less worker

organisation (a result o de-industrialisation), less time or political participation,

and a more inantilising cultural lie. Other institutions crucial or democratic

will-ormation, such as the educational system and publishing industries, succumbto the orces o commodication. Te imperatives o the business community

shape the imperatives o those institutions within society. Tese things gradually

rob individuals o democratic capacities and practices. In this sense, I see the two

assumptions o both democratic, participatory decision-making and an avoidance

o overcoming i not transorming the unctional logics o capitalist institutions as

contradictory: the lack o the ormer is produced and reinorced by the prolieration

o the latter. [8]

As Meyer lays out his case, it becomes clear that this book is the product o a skilulmind. But it simply reproduces many o the great problems which continue to

prolierate in capitalist societies: declining political participation, a cheapening o

intellectual and moral debate, the debasing o our educational institutions, and, as

a result, a general lack o critique when it comes to the mechanisms o capitalism.

Meyer, just as Bernstein did beore him, believes that the democratic legacy o

social democracy and its moral justication can be conceived separately rom the

deep structures o the production process under capitalism. But without a ull

conrontation with the ways that our economic system has shaped and continues

to transorm modern lie, I think that this looks more and more like an increasingly

bleak prospect.

Michael J. Tompson is assistant proessor o Political Science and is on the aculty

o Urban Studies at William Paterson University (USA) and is also the ounding

editor oLogos: A Journal o Modern Society & Culture. His most recent book

is Te Politics o Inequality: A Political History o the Idea o Economic Inequality

in America (Columbia University Press, 2007). His next book, Fleeing the City:


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Studies in the Culture and Politics o Antiurbanism is orthcoming in the all o 2009

rom Palgrave Macmillan.

ReferencesBernstein, Eduard (1961) [1898]Eolutionary Socialism trans. Edith Harvey, New York: Shocken

Books.

Fromm, Erich (1941)Escape om Freedom, New York: Rinehart and Co.

Fromm, Erich (1955) Te Sane Society, New York: Rinehart and Co.

Honneth, Axel (1995) Te Fragmented World o the Social, Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Lierbersohn, Harry (1988) Fate and Utopia in German Sociology, 1870-1923 , Cambridge, MA:MI Press.

Marcuse, Herbert (1972) A Study on Authority, Studies in Critical Philosophy, Boston: Beacon

Press.

Polanyi, Karl (1957) Te Great ransormation, Boston: Beacon Press.

Weber, Max (1978)Economy and Society vol. 1., Berkeley, CA: University o Caliornia Press.

Notes[1] Bernstein 1961 [1898], p. 154.

[2] Polanyi 1957, p. 3.

[3] Bernstein 1961 [1898], p. 202.

[4] For an important discussion in this regard, see Fromm 1955, pp. 22-65.

[5] For the relevant discussion on domination, see Weber 1978, pp. 212-5.

[6] For a urther discussion, see Marcuse 1972.

[7] A good discussion o this theme in Webers work is Lierbersohn 1988, pp. 78-125. For a morein-depth analysis o this problem within modern social psychology, see Fromm 1941, pp. 136-206.

[8] Meyer is not alone in turning away rom the structural-unctional critique o modern capitalism.For a similar turn in the area o Critical Teory, see Honneth 1995, pp. 61-91.


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