The Fragility of Liberal Democracy

After the Second World War, the liberal democracy we know today emerged. After the trauma caused by fascism in Europe, by the economic crises and by the political radicalization in the beginning of the 20th century, the capitalist elites understood that they could no longer maintain the system only through repression. It was necessary to create a social agreement that would prevent the advance of the working classes and the influence of socialism, mainly after the rise of the Soviet Union. Thus, what we call the “welfare state” appears, which was created mainly in Western Europe and in some parts of the United States.

This agreement worked like this: the workers accepted to resolve their issues through elections and, in exchange, they would have some basic guarantees of stability, employment, labor rights, public healthcare and the chance to improve their lives. It was an attempt to neutralize the conflict between the social classes without changing the reasons that cause it. Thus, liberal democracy seemed to be the end of historical conflicts, as if capitalism had finally found a way to function in a peaceful and rational manner.

However, this stability had a very fragile foundation. Welfare in Europe and North America did not come only from the production of wealth within those countries, but also from colonial exploitation, from the economic dependence of the countries of the Global South and from the intense exploitation of immigrant workers. While some people in developed countries gained rights, the poorer regions of the world faced dictatorships, hunger, wars and economic exploitation. Liberal democracy was based on an unequal division: rights for some and suffering for others.

The social pact only emerged because of fear. The elites feared strikes, workers’ revolts and the growth of revolutionary groups. In France, there was May 1968, in Italy, the workers’ struggles and several social revolts showed that capitalism still faced many problems. Liberal democracy managed to control these conflicts for a time.

From the 1970s and 1980s onwards, this structure began to collapse with the growth of neoliberalism. Governments such as those of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan attacked the unions, eliminated social rights and dismantled the agreements made after the Second World War. The market began to replace the idea of support between people, while the government started to abandon its social obligations. The hope of improving one’s life disappeared, giving way to instability, constant unemployment and insecurity.

It is at this point that the main weakness of liberal democracy emerges, because it needs basic expectations of social stability in order to be recognized as legitimate. When these expectations disappear, the system loses its ability to mediate. People stop believing that the institutions represent their interests and begin to see politics as something meaningless, controlled by economic elites.

In the face of this, fear becomes the main instrument of government. Fear of crisis, unemployment, violence, the “internal enemy,” the immigrant, poverty and social collapse. And when politics begins to operate primarily through fear, the far-right tends to occupy this space more efficiently, because it transforms social insecurity into collective resentment and authoritarianism.

Liberal democracy was never a strong or equal foundation for everyone. It emerged from a specific historical agreement, made under social pressure, supported by global exploitation and dependent on constant economic growth to sustain itself. When these foundations enter into crisis, their contradictions violently reappear. What we are seeing today is that a model is becoming exhausted because it can no longer fulfill the promises that made it legitimate.

It was based on: 

— MACFARLANE, L. The Unmaking of the British Working Class. Available at: https://jacobin.com/2019/06/the-unmaking-of-the-british-working-class.

—DEAN, A. Neoliberalism Was Built on Anti-Worker Repression. Available at: https://jacobin.com/2022/10/crackdown-labor-repression-neoliberalization-poor-countries-global-south-trade-liberalization.

— MONBIOT, G. Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot.

— MILWARD, B. The Crisis of the Welfare State. Marxian Political Economy, p. 167–182, 2000.

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