Democracy, Liberalism and Capitalism: a Mysterious Trinity?

I believe the relation between democracy and capitalism should be revisited in account of the recent incorporation of democracy in the communist discourse –not to be confused with the discourse of social-democracy, unlike communists they accept capitalism with social oriented interventions by the state–. This new communist discourse is arising in electoral democracies (Chávez' Venezuela, Ahmadinejad's Iran, etc.) and their strategy is to attain power through the suffrage. I identify at least two origins for this new turn: an un-democratic discourse as the one held by traditional communism wouldn't have reception in a society which is not against democracy but against social discrimination. Another factor is the need to legitimate their power against the "international opinion", in particular to the coalition of western democracies which exerts not only economic power –through mechanisms such as the UN's power of veto or the IMF– but also military force –through the OTAN–. The literature exploring the relations between democracy and capitalism is ill-fated by the anti-communist propaganda having its biggest expression during the Cold-War, where still the combined model was more a flag than a real tradition. In view of this I encourage studying the relation between democracy and liberalism which has been explored in greater depth by contemporary authors such as Jürgen Habermas and Norberto Bobbio, and to later review the productive relation between liberalism and capitalism as accumulated by recent history –by productive I don't mean cheerful–. It is my impression that the relation between liberalism and capitalism hasn't been treated rigorously enough; often seen as obvious or natural. As a democrat, my call is to approach these relations without giving them for granted; the historical moment exposed is motive enough. As these communist governments attain power, they declare war on capitalism. Will real democracy survive in a communist regime? or will it become a mere ritual, an euphemism for autocratic regimes? –the latter question should also be answered by liberal economy–. Based on the historical evidence of illiberal democracies and of liberal nondemocracies, both concepts are seen as independent from each other [1]. Nevertheless authors such as Norberto Bobbio have emphasized their complementarity. The relation between democracy and liberalism has been approached in several ways. In contrast with Bobbio's synchronic approach, Fareed Zakaria shows a more diachronic version defending the thesis that liberalism is a historic precondition for democracy [2]. The latter thesis as defended by Zakaria even stands that a legitimate international policy for the coalition of western democracies is to promote liberal autocracies whenever there is a risk of an illiberal democracy. I believe that this is opposed to liberal ideals. In my opinion the sin of Zakaria and others alike is to overweight economic rights over civil rights in the liberal discourse. Democracy should be seen as an implication from civil rights; we cannot have civil rights without democracy. Because of this distortion we are giving the right to illiberal socialism to tag the defense of liberalism as a bourgeois enterprise instead of a humanist one. This doesn't means that we should find electoral democracy sufficient to legitimate power. I agree that electoral democracy don't have to engender real democracy. I refer to real democracy to differentiate it from electoral democracies, the latter characterized by the absence of many of the additional mechanisms necessary for the exercise of a democracy as suggested by its etymological interpretation: the power of and for the people. Most if not all of these mechanism are present in the liberal ideals. This is precisely what the complementarity between democracy and liberalism should stand for; democracy should be seen as an implication of civil rights while the whole of liberal rights and duties should be seen as the medium for real democracy. We should not fall again into the misleading conception where democracy does not longer aspire to be an act of demographic choice but an idea of what is good for the people, a misconception in which are prone the radical liberals, the communists and the neocolonialists [3]. Finally I advice that the goal of a synthetic definition of democracy cannot prescind from its analytical approach even at the risk of never achieving their ultimate components. To most if not all of these questions only the coming history will answer, but historical insight and serious debate should bring, either hope for heterodox democracies or prevent them from going too far in the wrong direction.

Related links and references: Liberalism and Democracy: Can't Have One Without the Other by Marc F. Plattner published by Foreign Affairs (1998). The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad by Fareed Zakaria.

[1] Authors such as Fareed Zakaria see examples of liberal autocracies in monarchic England, current Hong Kong and even Pinochet's Chile. I believe that this examples show the prevailing conception where liberalism is equated with capitalism (the limitation of state power on economy) letting aside other characteristics of the liberal ideals such as the limitation of state power on civil rights.

[2] Zakarias takes England as the case example. What does he has to say about the French revolution where constitutional democracy and liberalism took place at the same time? perhaps it could be argued that political liberalism preceded constitutional democracy.

[3] Take for example the liberal autocracy preceding Iran's revolution. Despite the inner and external conflict released after the revolution, western democracies should keep pursuing a democratic agenda for Iran by supporting liberal initiatives and without giving a step back into the wrong direction; that of supporting allied dictatorial regimes.