The Modern Predicament: Capitalism, Democracy, and the Extended Division of Labour.

9781658491853

Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2019

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This dissertation explores a tension between two aspects of modernity: first, since “God is dead” (Nietzsche 1883, p. 5), man the source of all value, the moral order of modernity tends to valorise both freedom and equality. Democracy is thus a uniquely legitimate political order for modern societies. Second, however, politics in modernity must fit around an extended division of labour; a polity that fails at this will be too poor to be legitimate at home, too backwards to defend itself internationally. Since the only mechanism capable of coordinating such an extended division of labour over time is market exchange, politics in modernity must also fit around commercial society. The moral and material revolutions of modernity thus create pressures for social orders to be simultaneously democratic and capitalist. This is the modern predicament.In the first part of the dissertation, I ask whether this predicament can be resolved through combining capitalism and democracy within the same social order. Does not the twentieth century show that democratic capitalism is a viable, even a powerful regime form? Is not democratic capitalism, if not the end of history, a viable social order for modernity? No, is what I argue in chapters 1-4. In particular, capitalism is constituted by private sovereignty over the division of labour. In ideal-typical capitalism, owners of capital decide where railroads and telecommunications lines, airports and harbours are built; how much housing is constructed, and at what rent it is let out; what crops are grown and which chemicals are used; which great works, expeditions, and research projects are funded; and, generally, how the division of labour is arranged. If convincing arguments could be made to majorities that capitalists, constrained by competition, will make these decisions in the interest of all, or at least in the interest of each feasible majority, this arrangement could coexist with a democratic state. However, I show that none of the arguments for capitalism—neither the argument from freedom, nor the argument from prosperity, nor the argument from natural right or justice—can be expected, on its merits, to be reliably convincing to broad majorities. This creates a Hobbesian dynamic: given that coercive power is a natural monopoly, and given the cumulative and cascading nature of power struggles, majorities and capitalists both have incentives to aim at non-reformist reforms, to entrench private sovereignty (or majority rule) over the division of labour, against majority rule (or private sovereignty) over it. The relationship between capitalism and democracy is thus like that of water and oil: capable of temporary mixing, as under the special circumstances of the post-WWII era, but tending towards separation over time.If capitalism cannot durably be tamed through democracy, i.e. if the post-WWII coexistence of capitalism and democracy was the exception, not the rule, what about resolving the modern predicament via charging through it? Perhaps what the French call a fuite en avant—a flight forward—is possible, through accelerating the inner logic of modernity? No, is what I argue in chapters 5-8. While it exhibits real crisis tendencies, none of the canonical arguments for why capitalism (allegedly) points beyond itself succeed: neither will its economic engine unavoidably break down; nor will it fatally de-legitimize itself; nor will it necessarily destroy the political and social exoskeleton on which it depends; nor will it inevitably generate a successful revolution against itself. As far as we can know, no historical logic will inevitably or even likely dissolve the modern predicament; like capitalism, it cannot be consigned prospectively to the dustbin of history.Politics in modernity therefore takes place against the backdrop of a potentially perennial problem: only democratic politics can be lastingly legitimate; but only a state whose politics fit around commercial society can last. This predicament will not solve itself through a dialectic of history or capitalism; nor through a reformist accommodation of capitalism with democracy, democracy with capitalism. In the conclusion, I explore another possible resolution, different from the two explored in the main text: arguing that commercial closure allows markets to be separated from capitalism, I advocate for commercially closed market democracy as a potentially legitimate social order in modernity. While I cannot prove its viability, I give reasons in its support and make a case for exploring it further, both practically and theoretically. I conclude that political theorists could do worse than consider, once again, the link between economic self-sufficiency and democracy; more generally, “if modern politics cannot ignore the economy, neither should political theory.” (Hont 2005, p. 2).

Dissertations & Theses @ Yale University.

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English

July 15, 2020

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Yale University, 2019.

Yale University. Political Science.