How can the people be against democracy, when democracy means the power (kratos) of the people (demos)? If a king is against monarchy, and it is his will to resign, then it is consistent with the monarchy to end the monarchy. [...] So likewise, if the people deign to elect authoritarian rulers who will undermine democratic values, then, paradoxically, the weakening of democracy is at the same time the enactment of the democratic will. [...] What is really at stake here is exactly what we mean by the word “democracy.” In my own work, I suggest that this splitting between the demonstrable will of the empirical people (represented by the mass popular support of politicians like Trump), on the one hand, and the ascribed values of real democratic power, on the other, indicates the limits of “democracy” as a coherent and meaningful politic. [...] The opening sentence of Jerry Harris’s Global Capitalism and the Power of Democracy reads: “Can the power of democracy overcome the power of global capitalism?” Certainly not if actually existing popular majorities have no interest in overcoming capitalism. [...] The solution is an intellectual and rhetorical magic trick that identifies democracy with a particular political ideal and then, when the will of the people does not correspond to this ideal, announces that the people are behaving antidemocratically.
- Pages
- 8
- Published in
- Netherlands
