Weintraub - Democracy & the Market: A Marriage of Inconvenience

8/9/2019 Weintraub - Democracy & the Market: A Marriage of Inconvenience

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From Leninism to FreedomThe Challenges of Democratization

I]DITIID BYMargaret Latus Nugent

Westview PresslJOLil.l)l]R . SAN ITIiANCISC() . ()XF()ltl)

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Democracy and the Market:A Marriage of Inconvenienceleff Weintraub

It already seerns clear that the 1980s will prove in retrospect to have beena landmark decade in the history of democracy, worthy perhaps to becompared to the "age of the democratic revolution" which closed theeighteenth century.r They brought to a climax the remarkable wave ofdemocratic openings and transitions that began in the 1970s with thepolitical transformations of Greece, Spain, and Portugal; witnessed the fallor gradual abdication of military regimes across latin America; produceddemocratic pressures or even breakthroughs in countries as disparate asthe Philippines, Mexico, and South Korea; and culminated in the.annusnriraltilis of 1989, with the general collapse of the neo-Stalinist order inEastern (or Central and Eastern) Europe, marking the effective bankruptcyof the grand Leninist project which has absorbed so much of the politicalenergy and idealism of the twentieth century.Nor has the current age of democratic revolution necessarily run itscourse. If the disintegration of the Soviet Union is followed by theconsoliclation of political liberty in Russia, the Ukraine, and otherfragments of the former Soviet empire; if South Africa, implausibly,manages a successful passage to a multi-racial democratic regime; if thereis serious movement toward detrrocracy in China -- then the 1990s mayalnrost overshadow the 1980s.The hopeful side of this scerrario is the continued existence of pressttresfor democracy and the prospect of new and intportant democratic open-irrgs. Its sobering side is the fact that the long-term success of currentefforts toward denrocratizatiorr is far from guaranteed. The weakening orcollapse of an autlroritariarr reginre is trot necessarily the same thing as thet1


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48 leff Weintraubslrccessful institutionalization of denrocracy -- olle need only considcr theconsequences of 1,917, or even of 1789. One of the hard lessons of history,as Edward Friedman enrphasizes in his contribution to this volume, is thattransitions from despotism to denrocracy are rarely quick or smooth andare often painful, even when they eventually succeed. A few fortunatecountries may hope to repeat the extraordinary success story of post-Franco Spain; but in most cases -- and this certainly applies to almost allof the post-Leninist world -- what we are witnessing is only the beginrringof a difficult and dangerous drama whose last act cannot be taken forgranted.This is, in sl'rort, an historical moment when denrocracy presents itselfwith special urgency as both a theoretical problem and a practicalchallerrge. It is therefore appropriate to try to evaluate carefully thetlreoretical resources available to address the issues involvecl, and tr:consider how they calr best be brought to bear on current developnrents.And, on the other hand, this remarkable moment provicles an auspiciousoccasioll to reconsider some of the central issues regarding the relation-ships among denrocracy, the market, and the state which have been on thetheoretical and practical agenda of the modern West, and then of rnuch ofthe rest of the world, since the early nineteenth century -- the unsettledquestiorrs of the political sociology of modernity, to put it Gernranically.Tlre present clrapter will atternpt to contribute to this clotrble enterprise.It will sketch sonle elenrents of an orienting tlreoretical franrework wlrichcan provide a guide for approaching, and integrating, certain key issuesregarding the problem of democratization. In the process, it will try tocorlvey two larger nlessages tlrat go beyond the specific topics acldressedhere.The first is the need for a considerable degree of refinement, and ofwhat nriglrt becallecl "conrplcxification," in the Iheoretical paracligrns useclto address issues of den'rocracy and denrocratization. Current discussions,as I will try to illustrate, often tend to pose both theoretical and practicalalternatives irr overly easy and simplistic ways that can be unhelpful atbest, nrisleading at worst.The second is the need to do justice both to the essential continuity ofsonre of the fundamental issues and to tlre lristorical particularity of tlreways that they currently present themselves. The challenges facing thosesocieties now enrerging from under the nrbble of the Leninist project arein certain respects unique and unprececlented. -l'lre atternpt has neverbefore been made to move simultaneously from a state-socialist comntandeconomy to a market economy arrd from post-totalitarian despotism to ademocratic regime. But, at the sanre time, many of the most inrportantunderlying issues are not entirely new; they have, in fact, been a sourceof continuous perplexity since the onset of what Karl Polanyi callecl theGreat Transformation in the West.z On tl.re one hand, despite the exas-

Denrocracy and the Market 49perated serrtiment of "no more experiments!" often founcl iIl EasternEurope, those societies are unavoidably engaged in a great leap into theunknown. On the other hand, there is an important sense in which thepost-Leninist world, having passed through a gigantic world-historicaldetour, is now re-encountering the central dilemmas of the great trans-formation (though not, of course, in precisely the same form).T-|rc Prescnt Monrcttt

Let me begin by noting some key features of the intellectual andideological landscape within which contemporary discourse aboutdemocracy takes place, both in the context of academic debate and in therealm of political action. Three elements, taken together, seem to bedecisive in defining what is distinctive about the present moment.The first of these elements is, of course, the unprecedented world-widepower and prestige of the democratic idea. It is worth remindingourselves how exceptional, even surprising, this situation is. Irr particular,this is probably the first moment in the twentieth century when the idealclf "democracy" (in some sense that does not actually mean revolutionarydictatorship) has had something like ideological hegemony amongintellectuals and political activists in both Europe and the westernhemisphere -- and, to a striking though uneven extent, in much of the restof the world as well. Of course, hegemony does not mean unauimity. Butfor tlre moment, at least, almost all the maior principled alternatives todemocracy thrown up by the twentieth century -- Leninisnr, Stalinism,fascism, authoritarian corporatism -- are discredited or in disarray.(lslamic "fundamentalism," in its different varieties, constitutes the mostdramatic exception to this pattern.) How long this situation will last is anopen question. But, whatever the outcomes of current efforts towarddernocratization, the strength and pervasiveness of democratic ttsltirationis one of the grand facts of our time'The second of these grand facts is that this flowering of dernocraticaspiratior-r coincides with - and, indeed, is very often linked to -- a waveof increased enthusiasm, or at least respect, for the magic of the market.This is, again, not at all a localized phenomenon. h'r Latin America as wellas Eastern Europe, if one speaks of "economic reform" this will irnnredi-ately be understood to mean marketization, iust as "political reform" willbe taken to refer to democratization--something that would hardly havebeen true a decade ago.A third grand fact - which to some extent brings the previous twotogether - is the degree to which, in the last decade of the twerrtiethcentury, tl.re societies of Western Europe and North America representoverwhelu-ringly, for much of the world, the model of successful nrodern-ity - particularly since the collapse of the maior nlternaliue nrodel of

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50 let'f Wcittraubindustrial society in Eastern Europe. Over half a century ago LincolnSteffens captured a very different mood when he said, after a visit to theSoviet Union, that he had seen the future and it worked. For mostcontemporary Eastern Europeans -- and not for them alone -- it is Westernsociety that "works." The contrast with the West played a major role incorrvincing them that their own societies did not work, and tl-re Westernmodel now is a central point of reference guiding their attempts at socialreconstruction. The market economy and democracy are two centralelements of the package that this model represents.Modernity and Complexity

I emphasized earlier the need for considerable tlreoretical "conrplexifi-cation" in nrarry current approaches to the pr


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52 Jet'f WcintraubThere is a good deal more to be said about the nature and requiretTrentsof democracy - and some of it will be said later in this chapter -- but theforegoing should be enough to establish the basic contours of the concept.Witn the market economy I will be even more brusque. A market is asystem of relationships based on the exchange of commodities for gain.A market ecorlomy is an economic system in which the nrarket is the

predontinant mechanism coordinating production and distribution (in nosocio-economic system has it ever been the exclusiue mechatrisnr). Thisentails, not only that most social production be exchanged as comnloditieson the market, but also that the means of production antl labor beeffectively treated as commodities. The commoditization of labor meansirr practice that large-scale, coordinated production is carried out primarilyby means of wage labor.'Ihe significance of the wage-labor relationslrip is that the itrclivicltralproductive enterprise is a command system, with inequality of powerbetween workers on the one hand and capitalists and/or marlagers on theother. It is possible in principle to imagine an economy in which overallcoorclination was achieved by the market but specific enterprises were notbased on wage labor -- in which they were organized, for example, asdemocratic cooperatives. One would then have a market econollly, butnot a capitalist one. However, it is hard to see such arrangenlellts as thewave of the forseeable future; and, at all events, as lolrg as cliffereutenterprises are coordinated by the nrarket, this change would not affectmost of the dynamics of the market system on which my discussion willfocus.It is irnportant to emphasize that capitalist economies can be organizedin a variety of ways and -- even more important -- can be articulated invery different ways with other social institutions. swederr, tlre UnitedStates, a1d Ctratenrala are all societies with capitalist ecorttltnios; but itwotrlcl be hard to nraintain seriously that identifying the three as"capitalist societies" told us everything important we wanted to knowabout them.

A Marriage of InconvenienceOne of the central questions posed for Western social thought by theinterplay of the French and industrial revolutions (one which is agair-rbecoming a burnirrg issue in the post-Leninist world) may soundsurprising to sottte readers at this mornent: Is democracy conlpatible withthe capitalist market economy? lt is easy to forget how genuinelyuncertain the answer appeared before 1945. The answer provided byhistory seems to be "yes," but it is inrportant to consider the weight andcogerlcy of the qualifications. A variety of figures -- ranging frorn Karl

Detnocracy aril the Markt 53Marx and Karl Polanyi to Augusto Pinocl'ret -- have answered "no" forquite intellectually reipectable reasons; and it is worth bearing in mindtirat European history from the nineteenth century through the 1940sprovided a good deal of evidence to render this verdict plausible'' The termi of the question, however, have been decisively changed bytwo crucial developments since world war II. The first is the consolida-tion of stable repreientative regimes based on a mass franchise throughoutwestern Errrope -- an astonishing achievement in light of previous_history,which people are now inclined to take too much for 8ranted.. Thissuggests that denrocracy and the market economy can cohabit. And theseJond is the accumulation of evidence that no one has come up with anadequate, let alone superior, alternative to capitalism-as a-Yay of orga-nizing a modern economy -- certainly not one which holds out morea,trpiiiour prospects for democracy. Man's vision of socialism and the"ac[ually existing socialism" of Leninism and Stalinism differ in quiteclrastic ways. But, for both, the transcendence of the market is at the heartof socialism; and it is precisely the idea that this goal is practicable anddesirable that l'ras ceased to be credible.Much of the theoretical debate and political conflict of the last twocenturies has been colored by the widespread belief - which took avarietv of forms - that a fundamental alternative to the market economyexistei and could be readily put into practice. The general collapse offaith that such an alternative is available is thus a world-historical eventof the first magnitude. It eliminates any easy way out of confronting thedilemmas invoived in the relationship between democracy and the marketeconomy.These dilemmas are real, however, and continue to exist. It has alwaysbeen clear tl.rat we can have capitalism without democracy. But thecontrary now seenrs unlikely (and is certainly undemonstrated). -At thispoint iir history, any serious consideration of democracy must take it asi prernise that, if democracy is to exist, it will have to be in co-existencewith some version of the capitalist market economy (and, over the longrun, probably or.rly in co-existence with a fairly healthy market economy).But ii is unwarranted to leap to the conclusion, often expressed in the easyuse of the phrase "denrocratic capitalism," that the relationship betweena capitalist socio-economic system and a democratic regime is straight-forward and urrproblematic. In fact, they remain two quite differentsystems, with a permanent potential for disharmony; and this is notacciclental, since (among other reasons) their organizing principles are inprofound tetrsiou.

To state this contrast somewhat ideal-typically: In the market, collectiveoutconres emerge from the relatively spontaneous operation of inrpersonalforces, the systemic "discipline" of the "invisible hand." Ancl thisinrpersonal constraint is not an irrcidental feature of the market system,

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54 lct'f Weitiraubbut is inseparable from what is potentially aaluable about the Inarket. Itrtlre individual capitalist enterprise (as in the administrative dimension ofthe modern state), coordination is enforced by authority from above, andincreasingly by what Alfred Chandler calls the "visible hand"o of bureau-cratically administered formal organization. But the central premise ofdemocracy is that collective outcomes are subject, in some importantdegree, t_o tl-re conscious consideration and collective decision of the peopleaffected.'The two systems may be compatible in practice -- even, urtder the rightconditions, mutually supportive - but they remain analytically distinct;each runs according. to a different inner logic and generates a differenttheoretical problenil'' The laissezJaire utopia of the fully self-regulatingmarket is no nrore'equivalent to democracy than is the "mono-organi-zatiorral" -utopia (to use Rigby's apt phrase) of post-Stalinist statesocialisrn.d Thus, attempts to collapse democracy theoretically into themarket (often the import of analyses deriving from utilitarian liberalism,which currently go under the name of "rational choice") are fundamental-ly n'riscor.rceived and misleading.Nor is this distinction important only at the level of formal abstraction.It has inrportant practical implications, which are likely to manifest them-selves with particular urgency precisely when the attempt is made tonrove simultaneously toward bollr democracy and the market econonly.The heart of the tension between them is obvious but profouncl (Polanyi'saccount remains the most penetrating): (1) The essence, and the rttarvel,of the rnarket is that it is a (more or less) spontaneously self-regulatingsystem of interdependence, which is coordinated^by the inrpersonal cort-strnhrt it exercises over the actors in the system.' It is not the case thatany irrterfererrce with the "magic of the market" is necessarily destab-ilizirrg; brrt it is tlre case tlrat there is a linrit to how tnttt:lt blockage attciinterference lhe market system can withstamd before starting to short-circuit and malfunction. On the other hand, (2) the dynanrics of thenrarket system (which Schumpeter, who loved capitalism, called a "contin-uous gale of creative destruction"lo) are inherently disruptive both to theinterests of particular groups and to the more general fabric of culturalcontinuity, so that they provide continual inducements for interference inthe fornr of collective action and state intervention. And denrocraticenlpowerment (where it is genuine and not merely formal) gives an ever-wider range of social groups the means (as well as the right) to act polit-ically so as defend themselves against the unhanrpered operation of thenrarket and to try to influence collective outcomes to their own advantage.'Iherefore, the two systems can coexist only if democracy is willirrg tobe (to a degree yet to be determined) "selfJimiting" with respect to the:rtrtononrc'rtrs dynanrics of the market. Arrd this will recprirc., anrong otlterthings, a cultural framework which includes at least a miniural acceptarnce

Denrocracy and the Market 55of nrarket-oriented values and activities, and also a basic acceptance of theneed to defer to the market's impersonal discipline- In the long run,maintaining this coexistence probably also requires some minimum rateof economii growth, as well as the buffering effects of various non-marketphenomena: policies which are able to contain or offset the market's mostiocially disruptive effects without short-circuiting the system; eloug!urrderiying soiial solidarity to keep conflicts from getting out of-hand; andso on. -Otherwise, what results is economic decline at best, and, at worst,escalating crisis and social conflict and, eventually, some fornr of politicalauthoritaiianism (or worse) when the going gets rough.This sort of deference is necessary to maintain the health of the market.But, from the point of view of democracy, this deference cannot amountto abdication. Democracy may be able to coexist with the market, but itcannot be expected to surrender entirely to the logic of a fully self-regulating market. This is not only utopian from.a,practical point of view;it woul


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56 lct'f Weintraubl-Iowever, the essential foundation for all these positions is the premisethat there exists a superior, and readily available, alternative to the marketeconony. Therefore, the intellectual collapse of this premise has beendevastating in its impact. There are some who see the results leading tothe demise, not only of Leninism, but of socialism more generally. Thisoutcome seems to me unlikely; but it is certainly true tlrat, for the for-seeable future, no credible socialism can conceive itself in terms of theabolition of the market.There is, of course, a third possible response to the tension betweendemocracy and the market: the Chilean or South Korean route ofcombining a capitalist socio-economic system with an authoritarianregime. f'he Chilean example is a particularly pure case of using theterroristic power of a despotic regime to break the population's resistanceto the self-regulating market. While the economic corrsetluences ofdespotic regimes are generally disastrous, it is clear that in certain casesthe authoritarian/market strategy has yielded genuine results in tern-rs ofeconomic development. But the successes of this model are hardlycheering for those committed to democracli they have been more likelyto encourage, for example, those Chinese "reformers" who hope to escape

economic stagnation while avoiding any concessions to democracy.l2But in recent years this model has also lost some of its aura of prestigeand inevitability. The case for this strategy relies too muclr on assuntp-tions about the iuherent impossibility of stable democratic regirtres whichnow appear to be overdrawn. And it is clear that this strategy eventuallygenerates important socio-political contradictions of its own, including, ifit is economically successful, increasing demands for democracy, as PeterTournanoff argues in a later chapter.In short, we can have capitalism without democracy but not, it appears,clemocracy witlrout capitalism; and a recognition of this fact nrust frlrn'r thestarting-point for any serious thinking about den.rocracy and clernocratiza-tion in our era. Bul, at the same time, the combination of democracy withcapitalism requires living with a permanent tension. The relationshipseems to be at once inextricably interdependent and inescapably contradic-tory, and it will be necessary to recognize its irreducible ambivalence.

Political Society, Civil Society, and the StateThus far the discussion has focused primarily on the recluiremer.rts ofthe market economy. But what are the requirements of democracy, andhow are they affected by the impact of the market econonry?One rrecessary step toward elucidating this relationship is a complexifi-cation in the theory of democracy itself. In this respect, I would proposea refornrulation and refinement of one of the most significant concepl.ual

Denncracrl and the Markct 57distinctior.rs in modern social and political analysis, one which has becomeubiquitous in receut discussions, including those in this volume: thedistinction between civil society and the state. The concept of "civilsociety" has a long and checkered history in Western thought, in thecourse of which it has been given a range of different and even contradic-tory meanings.l3 With the sudden and sweeping increase in the popu-larity of this notion during the last decade or so--in both scholarly andpolitical circles -- it has become increasingly hazy and ambiguous. (Thenrain comnton denominator is that alnrost everyone now agrees that,whatever it is, "civil society" is a Good l'hing - as opposed to, say, Marx,who wanted to abolish it.)This is not the place to survey the different usages or enter into therelevant controversies. Let me simply say that the valid intuition behindthe fascination with "civil society" is the recognition that denrocracy is notsimply a matter of how the state is organized, but has to do above all withthe reltttiotrship between state and society. One basic recluirement ofdemocracy is that members of the society have the capacity to organize inorder to exert control over the state, and this in furn requires the existenceof a sphere of activities and institutions indePendent of the colrtrol of statepower. However, the usual dichotomous distinction between state andcivil society, in which "civil society" often tends to serye as a more or lessunclifferentiated residual category, is both inadequate and misleacling foraddressing the relevant issues.Lessotr s from Tocqueaille

One element in building up a more effective theory of democracyshould be a conceptual framework that distinguishes analytically betweenthe stntc (in the sense of the more or less centralized apparatus ofclorlination and administration), civil society (the moclern sp|ere ofindividualistic relations centered above all on the market arrd private life),and political society (the sphere of collective action, conflict, and coopera-tion whicl-r mediates between the two), so as to be able to trace theirinterplay and interpenetration in a systematic and historically specificway.l4 In making this suggestion, I draw in particular on my under-standing of Tocqueville's political sociology, which he intended to be asociology of liberty -- that is, one whose central problem was thepossibility and social conditions of liberty in the modern world' Tocque-ville's decisive contribution lies in his insistence that genuine clemocraticself-government must rest on more than legal mechanisms and fornralpolitical institutions, though these are of course indispensable' It requires,in addition, the existence and vitality of a wider political conrr.rlunitysupported by a political culture of .citizenship -- which, as we will see, isa rather special and delicate thiug.''

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58 leff WeiilraubOne point of terminological clarification before proceeding: We canavoid some common confusions by reminding ourselves of the ways thatTocqueville uses some of the key terms involved, beginning with"democracy" itself. Although Tocqueville's terminology is not absolutelyconsistent here, he generally uses "democracy" to mean, not a particularkind of political regime, but rather a certain kind of social order -- that is,one based on fundamental equality and individualism. The term he

generally uses to denote a regime based on self-government and collectivedecision-making is politiail liberty. A system of political liberty rnay bebased on a restricted franchise, like England's in the eighteenth andnineteenth century; or it n'right come to incorporate (more or less) thewhole adult population. In the latter case, political liberty becomes demo-cratic ar-rd can be called, as a shorthand, democratic liberty. But a"democratic" social order is also con.rpatible with a distinctively clemocrat-ic dupotism (of which the former People's Democracies would be goodexamples). Following common usage, I will ofter-r speak of democracywhere Tocqueville would say democratic liberty, but it is worth keepingTocclueville's corrceptual vocabulary in mind.Tocclueville's starting point is the decay of those fomrs of organiccommunity and independent authority which, in a more traditionalsociety, serve to limit and counterbalance state power. The kind of"aristocratic" liberty that they strpported, rooted in tradition ancl a spiritof resistarrce, is not viable uncler nrodern conditions. The lxtlilicol libertypossible in a democratic age is different in form and requires a new theory("a new science of politics").Tocqueville is often misinterpreted as either a nostalgic conservativearistocrat or a liberal exponent of a purely "negative" liberty. In fact,Tocqueville's "new science of politics" centers on a theory of politicalconrnrunity deve.loped witlrin the framework of what I call the republicanvir'tue traditiorr,'' a tlreory which focuses on the iltteraction betweenpolitical institutions and political culture. What I mean by the republicanvirtue tradition is that broad current of modern Western social thoughtorierrted above all to the idea of citizarship.Now, citizenship is not a word to be used lightly. The defining markof den.rocratic citizenship, in any strong sense of the term, is the capacityof individuals to enter, directly or indirectly, into a process of collect.ivedecisiorr-making and collective self-determination, involving the consciousconsideration and resolution of public issues. This process may bemediated through a variety of institutional mechanisms. But its effectiveoperation requires a certain degree of active and responsible participationin a decision-making conrmunity based on fundamental equality andmaintained by fundan-rental solidarity and the exercise of what used to becalled repubfican virtue.tz The prictice of citizenship thus recltrires adistinctive ethos, and involves a distinctive set of skills and orientations,

Danocracy and lhe Markct 59different from those pertaining to, for example, the market or bureaucraticadministration.As I indicated above, the key to Tocqueville's position is that he doesnot draw his crucial distinction between the state and civil society butinstead distinguishes -- at times implicitly, sometimes explicitly -- amongtlre state, civil society, and plitical society.'o Political society is the wholerealm of activities oriented toward voluntary concerted action, conscioussolidarity, and the discussion and collective resolution of public issues.As an analytical category it cuts across the more obvious division betweengovernmental and non-governmental, excluding much administration andincluding -- to give some well-known examples -- local self-government,voluntary associations, trial by jury, some aspects of religion, and so on.The heart of Tocqueville's approach is precisely that he analyzespolitical society as a system, as a distinctive sphere of social life with itsown special dynamics and requirements. For example, the self-governingtownslrip analyzed in Democracy in America is only one of a range ofdemocratic "secondary" or "intermediate" powers basecl on the active par-ticipation of citizens as equals in collective decision-making (as opposedto the "secondary" powers of aristocratic society, which rest on traditionand dependent ties). The guiding insight here is that political liberty isabout the exercise of puuer -- meaning not simply power over others but,nrore funclarnentally, the capacity to get things done -- and that politicalpower is constituted by the ability to act in concert. The moral isolationof individuals, on the contrary, makes them not autonomous, but weakand powerless.Such "secondary" powers serve two, mutually reinforcing, functions ina system of democratic liberty: (1) They serve as centers of resistanceagainst, and as bocially workable alternatiaes to, centralized or arbitrarypower. And (2) tlre experience of participating in the exercise of politicalliberty is a crucial element in the formation and "practical political educa-tion" of citizens - that is, it contributes to the process throtrgh whichindividuals (and groups) develop the values, skills, and commitmeuts (i.e.,the "mores") which render them willing and able to make political libertywork. And these "secondary powers" can do this, of course, only if theyform elements in a larger natiorral polity in which political libelty isinstitutiorralized and exercised.Wl-rat defines a democratic political society is tltis active interplay ofpower and culture, and not any fixed or invariant set of institutions ororganizations. In some societies, for exanrple, we can see the labormovenrent as a crucial element in political society (to use an exan'rpleabout which Tocqueville might have been ambivalent) -- arrd in otl'rercontexts it may simply consist of some narrowly defensive organizationsin civil society. The political significance of voluntary associatiorts (even,frequently, those without explicitly "political" aims) is that they serve as


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60 Jet'f Wcintrauba series of poirrts of medinliotr between civil society and political society,and contribute to the political education of citizens.re Parties can alsoplay this role, of course -- but not necessarily. And Tocqueville famouslysaw religion as, in a sense, the most important political institution inAmerica -- rrof because it had any direct influence over government, butbecause of the (rather subtle) role it played in forming the political cultureof citizenship.The mores of citizenship -- or, as Tocqueville also puts it, the spirit ofthe citizen -- require a delicate, and in some ways difficult, balance of twocomplementary elements. On the one hand, the citizen must be active andassertive (as well as competent) in insisting on his participation in thecollective exercise of political power, both to advance his own interestsand beliefs and to resist arbitrary or illegitilnate power; orr the other hand,the spirit of the citizen requires a willingness and capacity for self-discipline and self-restraint which grows out of a sense of responsibilityfor the collective results of his actions. And this combination of activismand responsibility rests, in turn, on a sense of fundamental solidarity withother citizens, and of commitment to the political community and to theregime of political liberty itself.

By contrast, the spirit of the subject combines habitual political passivitywith, from tirne to time, periodic outbtrrsts of riot or clisorder in nrornentsof outrag,e or of the weakening of arrtlrority. Wlrat marks both siclcs of thespirit of the subject, Tocqueville emphasizes, is the absence of alry senseof responsibility for the management of social affairs -- wltich are someoneelse's concern. Of course, rulers would like subjects to be responsible andself-disciplined as well as passively obedient (this attitude has certainlynot passed from the historical scene). But it is futile (certainly in a derno-cratic age) to expect people to develop a sense of responsibility unless theyare also accustonred to having power -- not just fornrally, but in terms ofthe experience of actually participating in its exercise. The reader willrecall Acton's famous aphorism that absolute power corrupts absolutely;Tocqueville would certainly agree, but he would add that the absence ofpolitical power - of the active exercise of political power -- can a/so becorrupting.Tocqueville's analysis of political liberty is of course mirrored by apenetrating, though hostile, analysis of the modern centralized state. 'Ihecentralized bureaucratic state is potentially quite threatening to politicalsociety, Tocqueville emphasizes, not only in terms of direct repression, butalso because the pervasiveness of centralized administration chokes off the enetgiesI of political life at their source and smothers political society. Ifparticipation in political liberty is part of a process of political educationwhich helps generate the spirit of the citizen, then we can say that tl-reexperience of subordination to bureaucratic despotism furthers a kind ofpolitical mis-education which strengthens the spirit of the subject. Thus,

Danocracy anil the Market 6"1everr if a despotic regin're is overthrown, its legacy will help to insure that,after an interlude of instability, it will be replaced by another despoticregime.But the threat posed by the state is otrly one side of Tocqueville'sanalysis. Tocqueville argues tlrat civil society can also pose a tltreat topolitical society. This is because the central tendency of modern civilsociety - if left to itself - is precisely to isolate individuals, to disrupt tiesof comnrunity, and to encourage a single-minded focus on purely privateconcerns -- above all, on making money. That is, the nrores of the marketare not the mores of citizenship. If these atomizing tendencies of civilsociety are not counterbalanced by an active political society based ondemocratic citizenship -- as they were, he believed, in the America of the1830s - then they will help produce a society incapable of politicalcon'ununity and self-determination, in wl'rich the despotism of a cen-tralized bureaucratic state will be irresistible. In an important sense, itwill also be indispensable, since society will have lost the capacity to runitself. Historically, a despotic centralized state and a privatized civilsociety actually reinforce each other in various ways; the danger, from thepoint of view of political liberty, is that political society will be squeezedout between them.Tocqueville's picture of the relationship between state and society in thenroclerrr world is thtrs dominated by two polar alternatives: Irr the first,society is both active and cohesive, capable of self-organization and ofboth resisting and controlling state power. In the second, society is aninert and passive mass of isolated individuals (or small intimate circles)dominated by a centralized state that surmounts it like a foreign body.And both these situations are, to a certain extent, self-reinforcing.Tocquevillc and Transitions from Lcninism

It is clear that these themes have a strong and immediate resonancewith the key issues thrown up by the experience of Leninist state-socialistregimes. In particular, one might well say that a whole gerreration ofEastern European critical intellectuals (beginning in Poland ancl Flungary)went -- quite unconsciously -- through a process of painfully rediscoveringTocqueville's problematic. However, they did so under the fornrula --which I have been arguing is in some ways quite nrisleading -- of "civilsociety against the state." Since this line of thought helped stimulate therevival of concern with "civil society" in the West over tlre last fewdecades, and was then re-imported into the political and intellectualdebates of other state-socialist societies (among others), it is now of farmore than merely Eastern European relevance.While orre aspect of (say) the Hegelian approach is tl're failure to focttssufficiently on the distinction between tlrc state and political society, in

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62 let'f Weintraubmany current usages certain key issues are obscured by collapsing cioilsociety and political society. Let me give one concrete example of thedistinction: In both Hungary and Poland the state increasingly lost itsgrip on society during the last decades of the post-Stalinist regime. Butthe l"Iungarian pattern centered on the gradual building up of ciuil society,based on the growth of the "second economy" and the leaching-away ofsocial energies into privatization (as Elem6r Hankiss once put it, wlrat wasemergirrg was not sirnply a "secotrd ecorromy" but a "seCorrcl society"2o).This was partly the result of a deliberate Kadarist strategy of finding anEastern European mode of coexistence between the state and civil society,based on the effective suppression of political society - but it was astrategy that went awry. Poland, however, saw the dramatic eruption(tlrough not, in the short run, the successful institutionalization) of politicalsociety, based on conscious collective action, social self-organization, and(of course) active solidarity. The dynamics, as well as the long-termeffects, of these two processes are very different.zl It is therefore in-rport-ant to have a conceptual vocabulary which brings out sharply, rather thanblurring, the key analytical distinctions. And this recluires markirrg offpolitical society as a distinctive and coherent (though complex) object ofinalvsis.2Tocqueville's sociology of political liberty can Ilterefore offer usespecially valuable guiclance in approaching sorne of the challenges ancldilemn'ras of post-Leninist democratization, both because of the conceptualresources it provides and because of the orienting moral courmitment thatinforms them. Let me sum up some particularly crucial lessous that arehighlighted by Tocqueville's perspective.While "anti-politics" -- to quote a resonant East European phrase --represented a significant and often honorable fornr of resistatrce to thedespotisrn of the party-state, the cclnstruction of a dernocratic altemativerequires something else: a "counter-politics" of gerruitre citizel'rship. Aswe have seen, "politics" and the political realm should not simply beidentified with the state. As Tocqueville observes inTlrc OId Regi rrre, whenthe absolutist state had reached its apogee, political life reached its nadir.And observers of state-socialist regimes have noted over and over that theattempt at total state control of society, which supposedly "politicizes"everything, actually leads in the long run to massive de-politicization andprivatization, in tl're sense of a profound cynicism and disillusionmentabout public life and an emotional retreat to tl're world of intimaterelations and personal ties. This was, in nlany cases, a healthy reaction toa rnendacious and ritualized pseudo-public life, but it is not a healtl'rybasis for a democratic polity. What is now required is precisely the re-politicization of social life - but in a democratic rather than a totalitarianway. In this respect, civil society (in the strict sense) carl serve either as

Democracy anil the Market 63a cornpler-rrent or as an alternative to the vitality of political society. Inorder to consolidate a democratic order, both have to be rebuilt.It is thus important to be reminded of the crucial sigr-rificance of thepolitical culture of citizenship for the maintenance of political liberty. Thisrealization drives honre the dangers inherent in some current strategies ofall-out marketization that disregard or even undermine the distinctive, andin some respects, countervailing, requirements of reconstructing politicalsociety. As Anclrew Arato notes in his chapter for this volurne, now tl.ratthe governments of post-Leninist societies are in place and have to grapplewith the overwhelming problems of social reconstruction, there is adangerous temptation to believe that politics should be the business ofpolitical elites and trained technocrats, and that between elections ordinarypeople should go back to private life. This temptation is particularlystrong because of the enormous social pain that n-rarketization willnecessarily cause; the response is to conclude that it will be best for themasses to be demobilized while the bitter medicine is administered.However, this is likely to be a false realism. If the pain contir-rues, short-run passivity and political withdrawal -- something which has alreadybecome noticeable in several East-Central European countries -- could turnrapidly into support for demagogic and anti-democratic movements ableto mobilize a politics of helpless rage. On the other hand, if one wants toappeal to a sense of social responsibility and cooperation, one is morelikely to get it from a population who think of themselves as activecitizens. And they are more likely to think of themselves in this way if itaccords with their actual experience.This point suggests a final, indispensable lesson. lt is not airy idealismbut hard realisrn to say that democracy rests in the end on virtue, on thecapacities and commitments of its citizens. And, as Tocqueville insists, thespirit of the citizen necessary to maintain democracy must embody aconrrnitnrent whicl'r goes beyorrd narrow self-interest or the purelyinstrumental use of political institutions. Underlying the conflicts and disa-greements of political life, there must be some fundamental civiccommitment, some aspiration for denrocratic liberty for its owtr sake, somesense of common membership and shared responsibility which cannot bereduced to the moral logic of the market. As Tocqueville's InentorMontesquieu puts it in The Spirit of the Inws, in a fornrulation whichstrikes me as especially topical in connection with current efforts atdemocratization: "ln [democracies] alone the government is entrusted toeach citizen. Now, a government is like everything else: to preserve it wemust love it."23 This admonition is especially conrpelling at a momentwhen political liberty must not simply be maintained but be created, andcreated in circun.rstances of dislocation and economic crisis that will putcivic commitments and capacities to the most denranding test.

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64 leff WeittraubDemocracy as a Permanent Challenge

To those engaged in the difficult struggle for democratization in the restof the world, Western societies are likely to stand out as spectacularsuccess stories. And there is good reason for this. The argument thatdemocracy in the West has been simply a sham, whether advanced fromthe standpoint of Marxism or elite theory or deconstnlctiotr, is wrolrg andpernicious. Democracy has been, to a greater or lesser extent, a gettuitteachievement of a number of (mostly but not exclusively Western) societies;and this degree of success is not part of the "superstructure" of modernsociety, but part of what defines modernity itself. But it would be equallymisleading to assume that "democracy" in the West is an accor.nplishedfact, which can simply be taken over as a model (by other societies) andcomfortably enjoyed (by those of us here). Rather, it should be seen as auongoing project which is still only partly accomplished ancl permanentlyprecarious. In that respect, Western societies and post-Leninist societiesare now - for all their differences -- in the same boat.

Notesl. I lrrrrrow tlris plrrasr'fronr R.R. Palrncr,'I-lrc Aga of llrc Dcnwcntlic llcuolttlittrr:A lrolitical Ilistory of Europe and Anrcrica,1760-1800,2 vols. (l,rinccton: I'rincctorrUnivcrsity Prcss, 1959, 1964).2. Karl Polanyi, Thc Creat Transt'onnation: The Political arul Econonic Origins ofOur Time (Boston, Beacon Press, 1957; originally published in 1944).3. Thus, few phrascs have becn more mislcading tlran "capitalist mciety"when it is taken to mcan, not that a capitalist socio-economic system is a crucialdefining characteristic of "modern society," but that it is lfte dcfinirrg fcature.4. This is not sirnply an argument about the "structural differentiation" ofmodern socie ties -- at least, as that idea is often conceived. The term "differentia-tion" is often used to convey the image of "subsystems" that are scparated butharmoniously coordinated or mutually indifferent. I want to stress the potcntialfor lensbn between certain of these systems.5. For a more extcnded discussion of the rule of law and its importance, seeAlice Erh-Soon Tay's clrapter in this volume.(r. Affred D. Chandle.r, Jr., Thc Visible Flanil: The Managcrial Rnolution inAmerican Business (Cambridge: Harvard Univcrsity Press, 1977).7. Thc conce,ptual discussion in tlris section is extractcd in part frorn tlreargumerrt of my forthcoming book, Freedom and Conmrunity: The lTelntblicarr VirlueTradition and the Sociology of Liberty (University of California J'ress), where thc

ideas are developcd more fully.8. T.H. Rigby, "Stalinism arrd the Mono-Organizational Socicty," in RobertTuckcr, ed., Stalinistrr: Essays ir Hislorical lntcrltrctaliorr (Ncw York: Norton, 1977).

Democracy and the Markel 559. Thrrs, onc of Smith's most prominent and sophisticatcd currcnt disciplcs,thc l-lrrngarian ccotromist Janos Kornai, spcaks of tl're cxistcncc of a "hard budgctconstraint,' on individual firms as the dccisive reason for thc supcriority ofcapitalist over state'-socialist economies. Janos Kornai, The Economics of Shortage,2 vols. (Amstcrdam: North Holland, 1980).10. foscph Schumpetcr, Capitalism, Socialism, and Donrcracy (Ncw York:Harpcr Torchbooks, 1942).11. T'hcv: argumcnts arc dcvcloped irr a numbcr of his works, but sccparticularfy The Constitution of Libcrty (ch icago: univcrsity of Chicago Prcss, 1960)and Law, Legislation, and Liberty,3 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,'1973, 1976, 1980). For Hayck, liberty is tied to the "spontaneous orde/'of themarket, which is incompatible in principle with attempts at conscious control overcollective outcomes. The health of the market thus requires rather drasticrestrictions on the scope of democratic decision-making. In the second volumetrf tlre latter work (Tfte Mirage of Social lustice), Hayek argues that it is not onlyillegitimate but, shictly speaking, meaningless to question the "fairncss" or "un-fairness" of market outcomcs, as long as everyone has played by the rulcs.12. As Kjeld Erik Brddsgaard r.rotes in his contribution to this volume, thisattempt ,,to combine political authoritarianism with economic libcralism" is ratherlaughably called "socialism with Chinese charactcristics-"

1 3, Sornc of the basic references are provided by Eugene Kamcnka and KjeldErik Brddsgaard in their chapters.14. For a more comprehensive treatmcnt of thc logic of modcrn societies, Ithink it is important to distinguish civil xrciety analytically, not otrly from thernore "public- rcalln of political zuciety, but also from ilre morc "private" or"personal" realm of the family and other intimate relationships. (For moredetails, see my paper on 'The Theory and Politics of the Public/Private Distinc-tion,,, noted bclow.) But I also think the conceptual rheme advancecl here is atleast a useful first step in the direction of analytical complexification.15. My discussion here is drawn, again, from my larger argumentin Freedomand Connriurrily. The organizing conceptual framework is laid out primarily inchs. I-ll. The direct examination of Tocqueville is primarily in ch. VII. Elcmcntsof my argument herc are also to be found in two unpublished p_apers (whichhave, however, circulated in the public domain): "Tocqueville's Conccption ofPolitical Society" (Unpublislred paper, U. of California at San Diego, 1986) and"The Theory and Politics of the Public/Private Distinction" (Paper presented atthe 1990 annual mcetirrg of the American Political Sciencc Association)..i6. What I have tcrnred thc rcpublican virtue tradition ovcrlaps to somedegrce with what other scholars have' studicd undcr tlre rubrics of "classicalrepublicanism" and "civic humanism." But I camc on it from a diffcrent dircctionand have construed it somewlrat differerrtly (in ways I cannot elaborate fullylrcrc), so it rvill be clearcr for nrc to stick to rny own terminology'17. In Tocqueville's tcrmirrology, usually "public spirit," "public virtucs," orthe ,,spirit of citizenslrip." Thcse are pervasive tlremcs in both Detrocracy irrAnrcrica (originally publishcd in 1835 & 1840) and Tfre old Regime and the FrenchRcaolution (originally publishcd in 1856).18. Sce, e.g., Alcxis clc Toctlue'villc,Tha OId Reginrc and the lrurch lltnoluliotr(Gardcn City, Doublcd ay, 1955), 223'


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66 lct'f Wcintraub19. Many of tlrc kinds of groups tlrat T


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ContentsList of Tables and FiguresForanrord, Thomas E. Hachey

1 Introcluction,Margaret Latus Nugent2 To Leninisrn and Back.Marslall I. Goldrnn and Merle Coldmon3 Historical Foundations for Democracy in Russia?

Robert F. Byrne-s4 Denrocracy and the Market: A Marriage of Inconvenience,It'lf Waintraub5 Consolidating Democratic Breakthroughs in Leninist States,Edward Fridman6 Implementing a Market-Oriented Economy,Elizabeth Clayton7 The Role of Law in Democratic and Economic Refornrin Leninist States, Alice Erh-Soon Tay8 Civil Society and Freedom in the Post-Communist World,Eugene Kamenka9 Civil Society in the Emerging Democracies:Poland and Ilungary, Andrau Arato10 Transforming East Gernrany: A New Cerman Question,Stephett F. SzaboI1 Transition to Democracy in Czechoslovakia, I{ungary,arrd Poland: A Preliminary Analysis,Andrzei Korbonski

vrtlx

12 Denrocratization in the MulLinational State of Yugoslavia,Bsrbara lelaaiclr

13 Econonric Decentralization and Denrocratizationin the USSR, Peter Tounnnoff14 Civil Society and Deurocratization in China,Kjcld Erik Br{dsgaard15 1'he Prospects for Transiticlns from Letrinistnto Denrocracy, Su Slnozhi md Margnret Lnlus Nugent 259

About llrc, ConlribulorsSclcclcd BibliographyIndex

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Weintraub - Democracy & the Market: A Marriage of Inconvenience

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