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Democracy May Not Exist, But Well Miss It When Its Gone
Democracy May Not Exist, But Well Miss It When Its Gone
300 pages, Hardcover
First published May 7, 2019
188 people are currently reading
3894 people want to read
About the author
Astra Taylor
23 books202 followersAstra Taylor is a writer, documentary filmmaker, and activist. Her films include Examined Life, and her books include The People’s Platform.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 113 reviews
January 23, 2019
Democracy May Not Exist, But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone is a romp through the thought processes of Astra Taylor. I found it less disciplined than her previous The People’s Platform, and it doesn’t take a position, much less propose a course of action. It is nonetheless a well written, engaging and nearly comprehensive look at what we like to call democracy. She has watched the failure of democracy in modern Greece and America, first hand. And she has given great thought as to how it all falls together. The result is a compelling overview of a misunderstood practice.
Democracy, as we now employ it, is nothing like democracy as the Ancient Greeks invented it. To Americans, democracy means freedom and nothing else, she says. And freedom means the right to be left alone, and nothing else.
But democracy is not about independence; it is about interdependence. Taylor points out how the Greeks lived it, and how various societies throughout history either adapted it or invented it for themselves. It meant governing as an obligation, not a career. It meant serving, not getting rich and staying in power to milk it. It meant co-operation, not isolation. And it did not mean constant, lying, cheating elections.
In the USA, democracy is a shadow of what even the founders envisioned. She quotes John Adams, who along with James Madison, did everything he could to prevent political parties from soiling their American invention: “The division of the republic into two great parties, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our constitutions.”
American political parties are private organizations, not government bodies, yet they get to hold government-run electoral primaries and their candidates are automatically entered on election ballots. Independents and third parties have to navigate a thicket of bureaucratic entanglements and outsized expenses to make it onto a ballot. The fix is in, and parties have entrenched themselves, not to the benefit of democracy.
One of the solutions she touches on is proportional representation, desperately needed in North America. Those who do not vote for the winning party have no representation, even though up to 49% voted in their favor. But proportional distribution of seats can’t function effectively when there are only two parties on the ballot, and that is the case in the USA. Canada could still do it, but the party in power never seems to want to, for some reason.
On elections, she does give the excellent example of a black college in North Carolina that has been split in two for voting purposes. This gerrymandering helps ensure the black vote, the student vote and the millennial vote will have minimal impact on results, and the elected representatives will remain white male Republicans. It proves the point that elections should not be a democratic ideal. Party politics is not democracy.
Democracy May Not Exist bleeds out in all directions, way beyond its scope. There are top line surveys of child rearing, marriage, women's rights, property tights, animal rights, ecological rights, school rules, climate change, Occupy Wall Street, and much else that takes attention away from the issue of whether democracy even exists.
On the other hand, Taylor gives loving attention to co-operative companies and how worker satisfaction can rise sky-high when workers are respected. She dwells on the Six Nation (Haudenosaunee) pact that laid out both rights and responsibilities for native North Americans, giving themselves a far truer democracy than the whites did in their constitution 40 years later. The whites, like Benjamin Franklin, took notes and credited the natives for their influence in the US constitution. But electeds clearly had no respect for the natives, placing cash bounties on their scalps rather than copying their democratic solution.
There are other examples of truer democracies Taylor did not examine, like Burning Man in Nevada, where everyone is equal, no one is paid to rule, and everyone takes pride in their privilege and their legacy. It is still possible for Americans to participate in genuine democracy. Given the chance.
There is too much blue-sky talk of equality and democracy in the book. Democracy was never about equality; it was about service. In America, it was simply about white supremacy. She touches on this from time to time, but never focuses there.
Towards the end of the book, Taylor examines the nefarious effects of corporations on democracy. She points out that the Geneva School of economics saw democracy as a threat to business, and set out to minimize its effect. As a direct result, corporations now have all the rights of citizens, and far more. They can sue governments for loss of potential future profits, and governments cannot sue back. This abrogation of sovereignty is astonishing and goes largely unnoticed in society.
Companies can sue because their activities have been curtailed by new environmental laws or because of a change in government and therefore policies. The vehicle for this is the web of so-called free trade agreements, which set out those rights, and special courts of their own making, held in secret and unappealable. She also stops short of condemning the spread of democracy by war on behalf of those corporations. Let there be no doubt, corporations rule the world. Globalization is the fruit of their efforts.
Yet (to my surprise) she stops way short of saying that democracy and capitalism are incompatible concepts. And she doesn’t call for a democratic re-evaluation of treaties and relationships that give companies these superpowers beyond the rights of people in those democracies.
Taylor does have some excellent observations along the way, though. My favorite is “If we are ever to equitably and democratically remedy the problem of mass stupidity, we will first have to deal with elite cupidity.” That’s a quote for all time.
David Wineberg
Democracy, as we now employ it, is nothing like democracy as the Ancient Greeks invented it. To Americans, democracy means freedom and nothing else, she says. And freedom means the right to be left alone, and nothing else.
But democracy is not about independence; it is about interdependence. Taylor points out how the Greeks lived it, and how various societies throughout history either adapted it or invented it for themselves. It meant governing as an obligation, not a career. It meant serving, not getting rich and staying in power to milk it. It meant co-operation, not isolation. And it did not mean constant, lying, cheating elections.
In the USA, democracy is a shadow of what even the founders envisioned. She quotes John Adams, who along with James Madison, did everything he could to prevent political parties from soiling their American invention: “The division of the republic into two great parties, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our constitutions.”
American political parties are private organizations, not government bodies, yet they get to hold government-run electoral primaries and their candidates are automatically entered on election ballots. Independents and third parties have to navigate a thicket of bureaucratic entanglements and outsized expenses to make it onto a ballot. The fix is in, and parties have entrenched themselves, not to the benefit of democracy.
One of the solutions she touches on is proportional representation, desperately needed in North America. Those who do not vote for the winning party have no representation, even though up to 49% voted in their favor. But proportional distribution of seats can’t function effectively when there are only two parties on the ballot, and that is the case in the USA. Canada could still do it, but the party in power never seems to want to, for some reason.
On elections, she does give the excellent example of a black college in North Carolina that has been split in two for voting purposes. This gerrymandering helps ensure the black vote, the student vote and the millennial vote will have minimal impact on results, and the elected representatives will remain white male Republicans. It proves the point that elections should not be a democratic ideal. Party politics is not democracy.
Democracy May Not Exist bleeds out in all directions, way beyond its scope. There are top line surveys of child rearing, marriage, women's rights, property tights, animal rights, ecological rights, school rules, climate change, Occupy Wall Street, and much else that takes attention away from the issue of whether democracy even exists.
On the other hand, Taylor gives loving attention to co-operative companies and how worker satisfaction can rise sky-high when workers are respected. She dwells on the Six Nation (Haudenosaunee) pact that laid out both rights and responsibilities for native North Americans, giving themselves a far truer democracy than the whites did in their constitution 40 years later. The whites, like Benjamin Franklin, took notes and credited the natives for their influence in the US constitution. But electeds clearly had no respect for the natives, placing cash bounties on their scalps rather than copying their democratic solution.
There are other examples of truer democracies Taylor did not examine, like Burning Man in Nevada, where everyone is equal, no one is paid to rule, and everyone takes pride in their privilege and their legacy. It is still possible for Americans to participate in genuine democracy. Given the chance.
There is too much blue-sky talk of equality and democracy in the book. Democracy was never about equality; it was about service. In America, it was simply about white supremacy. She touches on this from time to time, but never focuses there.
Towards the end of the book, Taylor examines the nefarious effects of corporations on democracy. She points out that the Geneva School of economics saw democracy as a threat to business, and set out to minimize its effect. As a direct result, corporations now have all the rights of citizens, and far more. They can sue governments for loss of potential future profits, and governments cannot sue back. This abrogation of sovereignty is astonishing and goes largely unnoticed in society.
Companies can sue because their activities have been curtailed by new environmental laws or because of a change in government and therefore policies. The vehicle for this is the web of so-called free trade agreements, which set out those rights, and special courts of their own making, held in secret and unappealable. She also stops short of condemning the spread of democracy by war on behalf of those corporations. Let there be no doubt, corporations rule the world. Globalization is the fruit of their efforts.
Yet (to my surprise) she stops way short of saying that democracy and capitalism are incompatible concepts. And she doesn’t call for a democratic re-evaluation of treaties and relationships that give companies these superpowers beyond the rights of people in those democracies.
Taylor does have some excellent observations along the way, though. My favorite is “If we are ever to equitably and democratically remedy the problem of mass stupidity, we will first have to deal with elite cupidity.” That’s a quote for all time.
David Wineberg
June 9, 2019
While democracy can be difficult to define and challenging to implement, the primary purpose can be stated as the prevention of minority powers from dominating majorities. The rule by one (monarchies and dictatorships), or the rule by few (aristocracies and oligarchies), gives disproportionate power to one person or a small group, allowing the minority group to impose their preferences on the majority, often at the majority’s expense.
Democracy, under the ideal of “one person, one vote,” is established to prevent this tyrannical rule. However, the introduction of democracy introduces its own challenges, the main one being the inverse problem of the “tyranny of the majority” imposing its preferences on minority groups. Democracy, unabated, can result in disastrous consequences for minorities and moral atrocities, the earliest example being the execution of Socrates by Athenian democracy for his crime of “corrupting the youth,” i.e., teaching people how to think for themselves.
That’s why constitutional protections and bills of rights are critical; they prevent democracies from being able to, through majority preference, dissolve themselves, install dictatorial leaders, or rescind the political rights of minority groups. Not all decisions, therefore, can be made via majority preference, even in a democracy, if the democracy is to last. Democracy, left to itself, sows the seeds of its own destruction, as Plato recognized long ago.
Democracy is, therefore, perpetually in tension between majorities and minorities each vying to impose its preferences. Voting, at least in theory, can prevent the tyranny of minority power while constitutional protections prevent the reverse. But the situation gets complicated: the majority often want more equality and freedom from want, while the wealthy minority quite naturally want more liberty and freedom to conduct economic transactions without interference or taxation. How do you balance these competing forces? Which freedoms should be prioritized, positive or negative? Where on the continuum between equal distribution versus maximum individual freedom should society lie?
These perpetual tensions define democracy, and are brilliantly captured in all of their complexity by Astra Taylor in her latest book, Democracy May Not Exist, But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone. Taylor examines the tensions that arise in democracies, and shows that political philosophy must always balance the competing interests of different people and groups.
The danger is not, however, that democracy must make trade-offs; the danger is that the voting public fails to recognize that any trade-offs are being made at all. The status quo can blind the majority to the possibility that things could be different, and to the fact that current arrangements, which benefit the minority at the expense of the majority, are NOT natural and inevitable. The current advantages the wealthy enjoy, along with the disproportionate power money has in politics, are not natural or inevitable or even preferable for most people. We accept it only because it’s been this way for so long that it seems inevitable, natural, or, because of incessant propaganda, preferable.
We live in a political environment where most people acquiesce to the power of corporations, which under current laws are granted the same rights and constitutional protections as people. We allow corporations and executives an almost tyrannical control over most of our waking lives, and never stop to question whether or not corporate interests and market forces align with our higher social goals and aspirations.
Taylor’s latest book, beautifully written, does not provide much in the way of answers, but offers something even more valuable—disillusionment to the status quo. The first step in solving our political problems must be an awareness that the problems exist in the first place. By exploring the complexities of and tensions within democratic rule, we come to understand that every political decision involves trade-offs, and with that recognition, that the current arrangements are skewed too far to the benefit of the 1 percent, a tyranny of the minority if there ever was one. Democracy cannot prevent the tyranny of the minority if the minority convinces the majority that their interests are in fact aligned, with the result that people vote against their own interests in service of a fabricated ideology. This remains the biggest challenge to democracy we currently face, and reveals a deep irony; that the very thing democracy is meant to prevent is something that can also infect and destroy it.
Democracy, under the ideal of “one person, one vote,” is established to prevent this tyrannical rule. However, the introduction of democracy introduces its own challenges, the main one being the inverse problem of the “tyranny of the majority” imposing its preferences on minority groups. Democracy, unabated, can result in disastrous consequences for minorities and moral atrocities, the earliest example being the execution of Socrates by Athenian democracy for his crime of “corrupting the youth,” i.e., teaching people how to think for themselves.
That’s why constitutional protections and bills of rights are critical; they prevent democracies from being able to, through majority preference, dissolve themselves, install dictatorial leaders, or rescind the political rights of minority groups. Not all decisions, therefore, can be made via majority preference, even in a democracy, if the democracy is to last. Democracy, left to itself, sows the seeds of its own destruction, as Plato recognized long ago.
Democracy is, therefore, perpetually in tension between majorities and minorities each vying to impose its preferences. Voting, at least in theory, can prevent the tyranny of minority power while constitutional protections prevent the reverse. But the situation gets complicated: the majority often want more equality and freedom from want, while the wealthy minority quite naturally want more liberty and freedom to conduct economic transactions without interference or taxation. How do you balance these competing forces? Which freedoms should be prioritized, positive or negative? Where on the continuum between equal distribution versus maximum individual freedom should society lie?
These perpetual tensions define democracy, and are brilliantly captured in all of their complexity by Astra Taylor in her latest book, Democracy May Not Exist, But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone. Taylor examines the tensions that arise in democracies, and shows that political philosophy must always balance the competing interests of different people and groups.
The danger is not, however, that democracy must make trade-offs; the danger is that the voting public fails to recognize that any trade-offs are being made at all. The status quo can blind the majority to the possibility that things could be different, and to the fact that current arrangements, which benefit the minority at the expense of the majority, are NOT natural and inevitable. The current advantages the wealthy enjoy, along with the disproportionate power money has in politics, are not natural or inevitable or even preferable for most people. We accept it only because it’s been this way for so long that it seems inevitable, natural, or, because of incessant propaganda, preferable.
We live in a political environment where most people acquiesce to the power of corporations, which under current laws are granted the same rights and constitutional protections as people. We allow corporations and executives an almost tyrannical control over most of our waking lives, and never stop to question whether or not corporate interests and market forces align with our higher social goals and aspirations.
Taylor’s latest book, beautifully written, does not provide much in the way of answers, but offers something even more valuable—disillusionment to the status quo. The first step in solving our political problems must be an awareness that the problems exist in the first place. By exploring the complexities of and tensions within democratic rule, we come to understand that every political decision involves trade-offs, and with that recognition, that the current arrangements are skewed too far to the benefit of the 1 percent, a tyranny of the minority if there ever was one. Democracy cannot prevent the tyranny of the minority if the minority convinces the majority that their interests are in fact aligned, with the result that people vote against their own interests in service of a fabricated ideology. This remains the biggest challenge to democracy we currently face, and reveals a deep irony; that the very thing democracy is meant to prevent is something that can also infect and destroy it.
July 29, 2019
I’ve read a lot of books about democracy, but this is easily one of the best.
July 28, 2019
This book took me longer to read than most, because it's so dense--dense with ideas. Each sentence is pure and clear, but also packed with meaning. I finished it last night and woke up with two thoughts:
1) Either Astra Taylor is brilliant/well informed or I am woefully uneducated/ ill informed or, most likely, both.
2) I grew up hearing people say communism was a good system in theory but we had just never seen a good instance of it--they were all corruptions of the original idea. What this book made me realize is that the same could--indeed must--be said about democracy.
This book is philosophical, but it's also historical and political and revolutionary. It turns out she IS brilliant, and it also turns out that she has had almost no formal education. And not only is she a brilliant self-taught historian-philosopher but she is also an activist. She quotes everyone from Plato to Alicia Garza in this book. She is not only writing about how and why our democracy went awry (spoiler: a lot of it is baked into the constitution) but she is actively working to change things for the better.
What I don't know is whether this would be a good book for On the Same Page. It's so dense that some students might give up. But if we can't trust our students to be smart and diligent enough to read a book by a self-educated person who was smart and diligent enough to WRITE a book like this, maybe the whole enterprise is doomed?
And they would learn so much if they would only stick with it. I know I did.
Let me know what you think.
1) Either Astra Taylor is brilliant/well informed or I am woefully uneducated/ ill informed or, most likely, both.
2) I grew up hearing people say communism was a good system in theory but we had just never seen a good instance of it--they were all corruptions of the original idea. What this book made me realize is that the same could--indeed must--be said about democracy.
This book is philosophical, but it's also historical and political and revolutionary. It turns out she IS brilliant, and it also turns out that she has had almost no formal education. And not only is she a brilliant self-taught historian-philosopher but she is also an activist. She quotes everyone from Plato to Alicia Garza in this book. She is not only writing about how and why our democracy went awry (spoiler: a lot of it is baked into the constitution) but she is actively working to change things for the better.
What I don't know is whether this would be a good book for On the Same Page. It's so dense that some students might give up. But if we can't trust our students to be smart and diligent enough to read a book by a self-educated person who was smart and diligent enough to WRITE a book like this, maybe the whole enterprise is doomed?
And they would learn so much if they would only stick with it. I know I did.
Let me know what you think.
April 14, 2020
Quite surprised by the good reviews this has received. Without wanting to speak against Astra Taylor, who I know is a very acclaimed director and worthy activist, it is pretty basic and breaks very little new ground. The subject is worthy enough; democracy has fallen out of favour somewhat in socialist discourse in recent years. Given democratic victories for reactionary and authoritarian forces despite worsening inequality, a climate crisis, and at the time of writing, a global pandemic, leftists have been much more focused on the role of the state in the economy than promoting democracy for democracy’s sake.
Taylor clearly wants to argue that democracy is a worthwhile end in itself. But instead most of the book is spent focusing on that one reliable facet of American exceptionalism, state sanctioned voter suppression along class and racial lines (American is no democracy, but in a distinctly American way) and not much arguing about why leftists should defend democracy for its own sake in the context of 2020’s multiple and overlapping crises. There is almost no interrogation of the Chinese model, for example. And it’s only the last two chapters that really touch on the novel challenges the next century will pose for democracy. Her use of quotes are confusing (Taylor clearly has libertarian socialist sympathies, but quotes several socialists who had a very different conception of he state approvingly when useful) and her critical sociological lense is applied unevenly. If we want to convince socialists that democracy is something worth defending, let alone expanding, in the face of multiple setbacks which threaten humanity’s very survival, then it’s going to need a much stronger defence than this.
Taylor clearly wants to argue that democracy is a worthwhile end in itself. But instead most of the book is spent focusing on that one reliable facet of American exceptionalism, state sanctioned voter suppression along class and racial lines (American is no democracy, but in a distinctly American way) and not much arguing about why leftists should defend democracy for its own sake in the context of 2020’s multiple and overlapping crises. There is almost no interrogation of the Chinese model, for example. And it’s only the last two chapters that really touch on the novel challenges the next century will pose for democracy. Her use of quotes are confusing (Taylor clearly has libertarian socialist sympathies, but quotes several socialists who had a very different conception of he state approvingly when useful) and her critical sociological lense is applied unevenly. If we want to convince socialists that democracy is something worth defending, let alone expanding, in the face of multiple setbacks which threaten humanity’s very survival, then it’s going to need a much stronger defence than this.
June 27, 2019
6 out of 5. Astounding, astounding stuff.
I finished it, in terms of reading it front-to-back, about ten days after I started it -- but I've been paging through it again, over and over, since then. I'm not sure that I'll ever truly be 'done' reading it, and it's a testament to Taylor's insights and intelligence and just the sheer joy of her writing that the book was never a struggle to return to. This book radically restructured the way I think about the world. The bell cannot be unrung. I urge you all to read it, to better know how we may take up arms and fight for what freedom we might be able to claw back from the hands of all forms of tyranny.
I finished it, in terms of reading it front-to-back, about ten days after I started it -- but I've been paging through it again, over and over, since then. I'm not sure that I'll ever truly be 'done' reading it, and it's a testament to Taylor's insights and intelligence and just the sheer joy of her writing that the book was never a struggle to return to. This book radically restructured the way I think about the world. The bell cannot be unrung. I urge you all to read it, to better know how we may take up arms and fight for what freedom we might be able to claw back from the hands of all forms of tyranny.
February 25, 2019
Summary: Explores what we mean when we speak of democracy, argues that real democracy has never existed, and explores the balance of paradoxes or tensions inherent in the idea of democracy.
All kinds of people toss around the language of democracy. We may contend that part of American greatness is its democratic institutions. A movement toward democracy has offered hope for many countries. The official name of North Korea is The Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Astra Taylor poses the question in this book of what it is we mean when we speak of democracy. On its face, it seems simple, the word is a compound of the Greek terms for "people" (demos) and "rule" (kratia), hence the idea of the rule of the people. Taylor's argument in this book is that a perfect democracy has never existed, that the best we have are approximations, but that striving for closer approximations is worth the struggle and something significant would be loss if we yield to the forces that diminish democracy.
Taylor resorts to an analysis of tensions within existing democracies that reflect the struggle between its ideals and its shortcomings. The book explores eight tensions:
1. Freedom versus equality. Often some have been free-er than others, who sometimes are losers in the system, sometimes branded as inferior and marginalized.
2. Conflict versus consensus. Rule of the people seems to imply deliberation leading to consensus, yet on many things people conflict, and "consensus" simply reflects what those in power enact.
3. Inclusion versus exclusion. The question here is, "who are the people?" Often, supposed democracies have excluded or marginalized groups of people within a state. Women, blacks, LGBTQ persons, those of lower economic status may argue that they have lacked a voice in the deliberations of democracy.
4. Coercion versus choice. While we speak of government exercising its power by the consent of the governed, this often results in behavior that is coerced in subtle and not so subtle ways. There are roadways I would be crazy to try to navigate on a bicycle or as a pedestrian. The rule of law reflects ways we have structured our economic life that shape our behavior in certain directions. At times, acts of civil disobedience are the only choice one has in the face of an unjust coercive law.
5. Spontaneity versus structure. Often existing structures (for example gerrymandered districts, or restrictions of voting rights through efforts thwarting voting registration or voting) only change in consequence of spontaneous actions uprising against structures that are apparently "democratic."
6. Expertise versus mass opinion. Can a "Socratic mob" rule? Don't we need experts for the complicated decisions that must be made in a society? Shouldn't parents just defer to "trained educators" on what is best for their children?
7. Local versus global. We live in an increasing global village, and yet, is not democracy most achievable at the local level? Do not local decisions have ripple effects all the way up to a global scale?
8. Present versus future. What are the rights of those yet to be born in our democratic system, weighed against those currently alive, or even those who lived in the past whose influence may still be felt (for example, the limiting of inheritance taxes to all but the wealthiest estates that concentrate wealth among a few). Likewise, our environmental policies have implications for generations we will not see.
While Taylor distinguishes her analysis from a strictly Marxist approach of identifying contradictions leading to the collapse of the system, her solution seems to rely on Marxian and Gramscian analysis, and in fact, a kind of uprising of the proletariat, that is a reform from below and admits that her economic vision is one of socialist redistribution of resources. There are suggestions in this book that it is time for a new form of constitution. I find all of this troubling, in some ways a modern equivalent of the French revolution of 1789. Democracy can disappear in a variety of ways, whether through nationalist plutocrats or liberal revolutionaries with their own statist solutions.
What this points up however is that these ideas become popular precisely when supposedly democratic leaders move away from democratic ideals--the importance of all of our citizens, a determined focus on social inequities and the limiting of rapacious capitalism. Books like Taylor's are a wake up call to those who may least like what she is saying to take a hard look at how well all "the people" are served by our government. It is also a challenge to every one of us who calls themselves a citizen to take a hard look at what is taking place in our democratic institutions, and what it means for us to exercise responsible citizenship in this present time.
_____________________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this an advanced review copy of this book from the publisher via LibraryThing. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
All kinds of people toss around the language of democracy. We may contend that part of American greatness is its democratic institutions. A movement toward democracy has offered hope for many countries. The official name of North Korea is The Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Astra Taylor poses the question in this book of what it is we mean when we speak of democracy. On its face, it seems simple, the word is a compound of the Greek terms for "people" (demos) and "rule" (kratia), hence the idea of the rule of the people. Taylor's argument in this book is that a perfect democracy has never existed, that the best we have are approximations, but that striving for closer approximations is worth the struggle and something significant would be loss if we yield to the forces that diminish democracy.
Taylor resorts to an analysis of tensions within existing democracies that reflect the struggle between its ideals and its shortcomings. The book explores eight tensions:
1. Freedom versus equality. Often some have been free-er than others, who sometimes are losers in the system, sometimes branded as inferior and marginalized.
2. Conflict versus consensus. Rule of the people seems to imply deliberation leading to consensus, yet on many things people conflict, and "consensus" simply reflects what those in power enact.
3. Inclusion versus exclusion. The question here is, "who are the people?" Often, supposed democracies have excluded or marginalized groups of people within a state. Women, blacks, LGBTQ persons, those of lower economic status may argue that they have lacked a voice in the deliberations of democracy.
4. Coercion versus choice. While we speak of government exercising its power by the consent of the governed, this often results in behavior that is coerced in subtle and not so subtle ways. There are roadways I would be crazy to try to navigate on a bicycle or as a pedestrian. The rule of law reflects ways we have structured our economic life that shape our behavior in certain directions. At times, acts of civil disobedience are the only choice one has in the face of an unjust coercive law.
5. Spontaneity versus structure. Often existing structures (for example gerrymandered districts, or restrictions of voting rights through efforts thwarting voting registration or voting) only change in consequence of spontaneous actions uprising against structures that are apparently "democratic."
6. Expertise versus mass opinion. Can a "Socratic mob" rule? Don't we need experts for the complicated decisions that must be made in a society? Shouldn't parents just defer to "trained educators" on what is best for their children?
7. Local versus global. We live in an increasing global village, and yet, is not democracy most achievable at the local level? Do not local decisions have ripple effects all the way up to a global scale?
8. Present versus future. What are the rights of those yet to be born in our democratic system, weighed against those currently alive, or even those who lived in the past whose influence may still be felt (for example, the limiting of inheritance taxes to all but the wealthiest estates that concentrate wealth among a few). Likewise, our environmental policies have implications for generations we will not see.
While Taylor distinguishes her analysis from a strictly Marxist approach of identifying contradictions leading to the collapse of the system, her solution seems to rely on Marxian and Gramscian analysis, and in fact, a kind of uprising of the proletariat, that is a reform from below and admits that her economic vision is one of socialist redistribution of resources. There are suggestions in this book that it is time for a new form of constitution. I find all of this troubling, in some ways a modern equivalent of the French revolution of 1789. Democracy can disappear in a variety of ways, whether through nationalist plutocrats or liberal revolutionaries with their own statist solutions.
What this points up however is that these ideas become popular precisely when supposedly democratic leaders move away from democratic ideals--the importance of all of our citizens, a determined focus on social inequities and the limiting of rapacious capitalism. Books like Taylor's are a wake up call to those who may least like what she is saying to take a hard look at how well all "the people" are served by our government. It is also a challenge to every one of us who calls themselves a citizen to take a hard look at what is taking place in our democratic institutions, and what it means for us to exercise responsible citizenship in this present time.
_____________________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this an advanced review copy of this book from the publisher via LibraryThing. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
March 1, 2020
From being the triumphant winner of the confrontation with the authoritarian socialist block and expecting a peaceful & prosperous forever present in the supposed “end of history”, not only the image of liberal democracy has deteriorated rapidly & has come under heavy assault from the anti-liberal & anti-democratic forces it’s harboured since (at least) the founding of the United States. With Astra Taylor’s book you learn that Trump is not an unfortunate accident, but a consequence of anti-democratic, feudalist & elitist elements & processes imbedded into the specific form of a liberal democracy under market capitalism the US presents. But explaining Trump is not the goal of her book, it’s just something it does by thinking through what democracy could be, if we abandon the idea that the liberal democracies we know now are all there is to the idea of a workable democracy. Taylor takes the readers through all the dilemmas & complexities radical democratic or emancipatory projects (& political theories) have faced & still face - and the theoretical & practical solutions people have come up with. Her range of sources & examples is (at least for this reader used to rather stuffy german political theory clinging to Habermas & Luhmann) exhilaratingly divers: Think Plato & Gramsci meet First Nation communal political theory and school children organising better lunch. The diversity is part of the point she wants to make: rescuing the critique of (liberal) democracy from neo- & palaeo-conservatives and Trumpism while rescuing the idea of democracy from the hapless, liberal / centrist defenders of the status quo as the best form of (self-)government we can get. Taylor shows us that democracy is the result of a constant struggle and a constant struggle in itself, not something that just works the right way, if only people where more rational and would stop listening to fake news. (She argues that this is one of the fundamental argumentative tropes to discredit people demanding changes to the system.) By working through the classical canon of political theory, the history of the struggle for democracy and human rights & still almost forgotten or sidelined democratic traditions outside the liberal narrative, she opens up new horizons for thinking about what democracy could look like - and how we will get there one step at a time. She convincingly argues that millennialist activism will get us only so far, but is a vital point to get radical ideas (like universal healthcare) back into the public conversation and political process, where it has to transform into grass roots organisations & unions to really get things moving politically. I learned a lot from the book. It’s highly readable & you don’t have to bring a doctoral degree in political theory to understand Taylor’s arguments.
April 28, 2024
I loved the way that each chapter in this book digs into a different tension of democracy (freedom/equality, conflict/concensus, inclusion/exclusion, coercion/choice, spontaneity/structure, expertise/mass opinion, local/global, present/future) without pretending there is an answer. I would love to design a high school government class around those tensions.
This was also the first time I learned about the phenomenon of Investor-State Dispute Settlement, which I now want to learn a lot more about.
This was also the first time I learned about the phenomenon of Investor-State Dispute Settlement, which I now want to learn a lot more about.
March 7, 2019
I received an Advance Reader's Edition of this in January for review from the publisher, though it was published in January, 2019 (systems being systems, my approved request was in November but it didn't arrive until the end of January.) My copy had numerous editorial errors of missing words and similar, and the Notes section was incomplete, but I hope the former were corrected in the final copy and I expect the latter completed. Right from the start in her Introduction, Ms. Taylor hits her main thesis that the meaning of democracy "taken as self-evident, is rarely given much serious consideration. Though the headlines tell us democracy is in 'crisis', we don't have a clear conception of what it is that is at risk." She thinks "perfect democracy" may not exist and may never will (my take is that in a super-populated world, it can't) but it may still be worth working toward. She nails part of the problem of defining democracy as it is "something people rarely encounter in their everyday lives..." Hello light bulb moment. Sometimes things intuitively obvious need saying out loud, or written out loud.
This is an indictment of a trope. Common terms used to attempt definition in the past - freedom and equality - are now at odds, especially in the political dichotomous extremes of modern America. But that is not uniquely American...Ms. Taylor says that in making her documentary "What is Democracy?" She asked dozens of people what democracy meant to them, with "freedom" being the overwhelming majority of replies. She says that "[n]o one, not a single soul in the United States or elsewhere, told me that democracy meant 'equality'." Think on that and add it to your toolbox. US origins may have claimed that all people are created equal, but the government based on the Constitution and its entire history have clearly shown that some people are more equal than others. The myth of democracy is a sham, and tying it to "freedom" is more than problematic. Taylor quotes Orlando Patterson who asked, "Who were the first persons to get the unusual idea that being free was not only a value to be cherished, but the most important thing a person could possess." He continues, "The answer, in a word, slaves." Yeah. Freedom is not equality. But the "disparaged and dispossessed" imagine what democracy could be by connecting both freedom and equality, something Taylor says that "the powerful aim to shatter to ensure that most people are neither."
Taylor observes a UN General Assembly tenet that flies in the face of what is at least in the US political status quo: "When you adopt resolutions by a vote, you only need to get a simple majority to agree ... This process is divisive. When you adopt resolutions by consensus, you have to be concerned about the viewpoint of everyone and engage in negotiations that often result in compromises so that different points of view are taken into consideration." I've maintained for many many years that I will not see consensus again in US politics in my lifetime since any potential for it was destroyed by Gingrich in 1994. Taylor paraphrases a quote of John Adams (“[T]he division of the republic into two great parties is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”) to suggest that Adams believed two parties would lead to conflict. Her para-quote is uncited and might be misleading as it is from 1780 and refers to the Massachusetts Constitution “There is nothing I dread So much, as a Division of the Republick into two great Parties, each arranged under its Leader, and concerting Measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble Apprehension is to be dreaded as the greatest political Evil, under our Constitution.” Regardless of reference, her point is that a Founder saw potential conflict in a dichotomy. That his fears manifested 200 years later is no surprise. Without consensus, that illusion of democracy is pierced.
Democracy may aspire to be inclusive, but every manifestation has exclusion in different forms. Exclusion is human, primate, even as base as mammalian in nature (my observations, not in the text.) Taylor quotes from an interview with political theorist Wendy Brown: "To have democracy there has to be a we. You have to know who we the people are. It can't just be a kind of vague universal thing." (Italics hers) Such a simple thought, and yet so uncommon a thought. Ask anyone to define "the people." You'll get any number of answers, some mutually exclusive, but for any democratic process to work, "we have to decide who's in and who's out..." Exclusions too often evidence as discrimination and pecking order. Even more...racism. Another aspect of exclusion is citizenship. To participate in a democracy, one of the rules usually requires citizenship. And there is a term for becoming a citizen that comes with an overlooked by most subtext: "naturalization"; as if being not a citizen is un-natural, less than, unworthy. And yet, the term is accepted. Embraced by those who attain it; then there is inclusion. And then there are the digital sentries, the algorithms, accessing risk of those included and excluded. Reliance on them is a problem, as Cathy O'Neill's Weapons of Math Destruction (not cited by Ms. Taylor, just something I read recently) describes in detail, and as Ms. Taylor notes, they can be hacked (ICE agents hacked the risk assessment system to recommend detainment of immigrant 100% of the time.)
People tend to think of democracy as a choice, as if the participants have choices, but that is largely an illusion as well. Ms. Taylor describes the aspects of coercion that people are subject to blatantly, surreptitiously, blindly (we "choose" to accept the terms and conditions, but 45 pages are too much to actually read thoroughly...) We are sold politicians, and the "choices" are limited. If the choices of democracy were invented to oppose the "divine right" of kings such that the government is legitimized by the consent of the governed, the irony of the limits of choice - a two party choice - is lost among the influence of a few (über rich and corporate "citizens") who can buy the choices. Aggregate votes might average to mitigate the extremes of the few, but when the choices are limited... (This is obviously not limited to politics and governance...workplace, medical care, classrooms and the material being pushed, for some examples...even in politics, primary votes in the US nearly always require membership in the club to vote for the party rep)
As if the choice limits weren't enough, there are other obstacles: gerrymandering, stacking, and in the a United States, the biggest system game of them all...the electoral college. The odds are stacked against a real democracy. But, even if they weren't, there is the even bigger problem that while we think we don't want exclusion, suppression, coercion, Ms. Taylor nails it with: "The idea of empowering ordinary people can seem terrifying today because there is so much stupidity on display." Bam. Eighteen words. Truth. And worse, as she points out, digital technologies "are used to spread myths and lies and empower hucksters." The savvy and subversive take advantage of that stupid so prominently on display. ( My words.) " Taking advantage of and perpetuating human idiocy is a profitable enterprise." (Hers.)
In a democratic society, education should be paramount, right? As Ms. Taylor says, "the solution to inequality", right? She observes what John Taylor Gatto saw: Carnegie and Rockefeller capitalizing (accidental pun on my part) on the Horace Mann wagon and compulsory education to churn out compliant ... that can't be understated ... factory workers. Class suppression of the working sort. (And if you doubt that, unless you were ho e educated surely you can recall the forming of lines, silence by all before proceeding, marching smartly , "pencils down",...oh, and mountains of useless homework...)
A "free market" is supposed to be the cornerstone of capitalism and capitalism is considered an essential manifestation of democracy. Well... Capitalism is an "ideal" that couldn't be less democratic. It is manipulated by the few, sold to the masses as an ideal end state, and profited by the few. Once corporations became "citizens" with few restrictions, they became the "democracy". And it is t limited to the US...corporations pretty much dictate the world economy so there are plenty of world democracies that are influenced and controlled by corporation. Obvious once you see it; sobering once you think it through. And the world is more connected today than ever..."the Internet may be global,..." - yes, it is, and as Ms. Taylor observes, there is a price for that: ", but the profits are disproportionately localized." Who run Barter Town? The attack on Net Neutrality illustrates who has control. Further, all of the "free speech" platforms have exclusive rights to censor. [Or not... Violate the terms of Twit-ter and get put in "jail", unless you make them a ton of money like a certain executive Twit user who gets away with attacks, slurs, defamations, lies, libel...my observations to back up hers.]
What happens when a current generation takes away the democratic choices of future generations? Ms. Taylor's last chapter looks at that. Human caused climate change is a prime example - the choices of today (and keep in mind they are not choices of democracy - the oligarchy, corporate "citizenry", the monied profiteers make the choices for the demos) will have devastating effects for the future, who will have no choice as to what they inherit. There are no other historical comparisons of the same magnitude, but I could argue that genocides have deprived us of rich cultures lost to the past. Elected leaders work to stay in office and pass the future on to future elected leaders who will do the same.
Taylor concludes observing the [fallout from 2016 sparking an] uprising of citizens "debating the anti-democratic structure of the American political system." So it is finally known...but what happens from here? She finishes with "[i]nstead of founding fathers let us asp[ire to be perennial midwives, helping always to deliver democracy anew." Good point...if what doesn't really exist lasts long enough for us to create it.
[There were several passage quotes throughout the book without citations - I do not know if they were sourced in the final edition.]
This is an indictment of a trope. Common terms used to attempt definition in the past - freedom and equality - are now at odds, especially in the political dichotomous extremes of modern America. But that is not uniquely American...Ms. Taylor says that in making her documentary "What is Democracy?" She asked dozens of people what democracy meant to them, with "freedom" being the overwhelming majority of replies. She says that "[n]o one, not a single soul in the United States or elsewhere, told me that democracy meant 'equality'." Think on that and add it to your toolbox. US origins may have claimed that all people are created equal, but the government based on the Constitution and its entire history have clearly shown that some people are more equal than others. The myth of democracy is a sham, and tying it to "freedom" is more than problematic. Taylor quotes Orlando Patterson who asked, "Who were the first persons to get the unusual idea that being free was not only a value to be cherished, but the most important thing a person could possess." He continues, "The answer, in a word, slaves." Yeah. Freedom is not equality. But the "disparaged and dispossessed" imagine what democracy could be by connecting both freedom and equality, something Taylor says that "the powerful aim to shatter to ensure that most people are neither."
Taylor observes a UN General Assembly tenet that flies in the face of what is at least in the US political status quo: "When you adopt resolutions by a vote, you only need to get a simple majority to agree ... This process is divisive. When you adopt resolutions by consensus, you have to be concerned about the viewpoint of everyone and engage in negotiations that often result in compromises so that different points of view are taken into consideration." I've maintained for many many years that I will not see consensus again in US politics in my lifetime since any potential for it was destroyed by Gingrich in 1994. Taylor paraphrases a quote of John Adams (“[T]he division of the republic into two great parties is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”) to suggest that Adams believed two parties would lead to conflict. Her para-quote is uncited and might be misleading as it is from 1780 and refers to the Massachusetts Constitution “There is nothing I dread So much, as a Division of the Republick into two great Parties, each arranged under its Leader, and concerting Measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble Apprehension is to be dreaded as the greatest political Evil, under our Constitution.” Regardless of reference, her point is that a Founder saw potential conflict in a dichotomy. That his fears manifested 200 years later is no surprise. Without consensus, that illusion of democracy is pierced.
Democracy may aspire to be inclusive, but every manifestation has exclusion in different forms. Exclusion is human, primate, even as base as mammalian in nature (my observations, not in the text.) Taylor quotes from an interview with political theorist Wendy Brown: "To have democracy there has to be a we. You have to know who we the people are. It can't just be a kind of vague universal thing." (Italics hers) Such a simple thought, and yet so uncommon a thought. Ask anyone to define "the people." You'll get any number of answers, some mutually exclusive, but for any democratic process to work, "we have to decide who's in and who's out..." Exclusions too often evidence as discrimination and pecking order. Even more...racism. Another aspect of exclusion is citizenship. To participate in a democracy, one of the rules usually requires citizenship. And there is a term for becoming a citizen that comes with an overlooked by most subtext: "naturalization"; as if being not a citizen is un-natural, less than, unworthy. And yet, the term is accepted. Embraced by those who attain it; then there is inclusion. And then there are the digital sentries, the algorithms, accessing risk of those included and excluded. Reliance on them is a problem, as Cathy O'Neill's Weapons of Math Destruction (not cited by Ms. Taylor, just something I read recently) describes in detail, and as Ms. Taylor notes, they can be hacked (ICE agents hacked the risk assessment system to recommend detainment of immigrant 100% of the time.)
People tend to think of democracy as a choice, as if the participants have choices, but that is largely an illusion as well. Ms. Taylor describes the aspects of coercion that people are subject to blatantly, surreptitiously, blindly (we "choose" to accept the terms and conditions, but 45 pages are too much to actually read thoroughly...) We are sold politicians, and the "choices" are limited. If the choices of democracy were invented to oppose the "divine right" of kings such that the government is legitimized by the consent of the governed, the irony of the limits of choice - a two party choice - is lost among the influence of a few (über rich and corporate "citizens") who can buy the choices. Aggregate votes might average to mitigate the extremes of the few, but when the choices are limited... (This is obviously not limited to politics and governance...workplace, medical care, classrooms and the material being pushed, for some examples...even in politics, primary votes in the US nearly always require membership in the club to vote for the party rep)
As if the choice limits weren't enough, there are other obstacles: gerrymandering, stacking, and in the a United States, the biggest system game of them all...the electoral college. The odds are stacked against a real democracy. But, even if they weren't, there is the even bigger problem that while we think we don't want exclusion, suppression, coercion, Ms. Taylor nails it with: "The idea of empowering ordinary people can seem terrifying today because there is so much stupidity on display." Bam. Eighteen words. Truth. And worse, as she points out, digital technologies "are used to spread myths and lies and empower hucksters." The savvy and subversive take advantage of that stupid so prominently on display. ( My words.) " Taking advantage of and perpetuating human idiocy is a profitable enterprise." (Hers.)
In a democratic society, education should be paramount, right? As Ms. Taylor says, "the solution to inequality", right? She observes what John Taylor Gatto saw: Carnegie and Rockefeller capitalizing (accidental pun on my part) on the Horace Mann wagon and compulsory education to churn out compliant ... that can't be understated ... factory workers. Class suppression of the working sort. (And if you doubt that, unless you were ho e educated surely you can recall the forming of lines, silence by all before proceeding, marching smartly , "pencils down",...oh, and mountains of useless homework...)
A "free market" is supposed to be the cornerstone of capitalism and capitalism is considered an essential manifestation of democracy. Well... Capitalism is an "ideal" that couldn't be less democratic. It is manipulated by the few, sold to the masses as an ideal end state, and profited by the few. Once corporations became "citizens" with few restrictions, they became the "democracy". And it is t limited to the US...corporations pretty much dictate the world economy so there are plenty of world democracies that are influenced and controlled by corporation. Obvious once you see it; sobering once you think it through. And the world is more connected today than ever..."the Internet may be global,..." - yes, it is, and as Ms. Taylor observes, there is a price for that: ", but the profits are disproportionately localized." Who run Barter Town? The attack on Net Neutrality illustrates who has control. Further, all of the "free speech" platforms have exclusive rights to censor. [Or not... Violate the terms of Twit-ter and get put in "jail", unless you make them a ton of money like a certain executive Twit user who gets away with attacks, slurs, defamations, lies, libel...my observations to back up hers.]
What happens when a current generation takes away the democratic choices of future generations? Ms. Taylor's last chapter looks at that. Human caused climate change is a prime example - the choices of today (and keep in mind they are not choices of democracy - the oligarchy, corporate "citizenry", the monied profiteers make the choices for the demos) will have devastating effects for the future, who will have no choice as to what they inherit. There are no other historical comparisons of the same magnitude, but I could argue that genocides have deprived us of rich cultures lost to the past. Elected leaders work to stay in office and pass the future on to future elected leaders who will do the same.
Taylor concludes observing the [fallout from 2016 sparking an] uprising of citizens "debating the anti-democratic structure of the American political system." So it is finally known...but what happens from here? She finishes with "[i]nstead of founding fathers let us asp[ire to be perennial midwives, helping always to deliver democracy anew." Good point...if what doesn't really exist lasts long enough for us to create it.
[There were several passage quotes throughout the book without citations - I do not know if they were sourced in the final edition.]
July 18, 2023
Very thorough and very interesting! Useful look at historical examples and those of other cultures. Much of it premised on the ability to "live in the tension" between two or more competing ideals, which to me is an essential approach to life. All in all, excellent.
Read
August 5, 2021Still lots of highlights and notes and thoughts to process, but overall this is really great. I loved the approach Astra Taylor took to tackling some of the tensions that exist when we think of democracy and how we'd like to push the direction of our political institutions and policies.
There are times when the tensions seem irresolvable, though I think Astra Taylor does an effective job of arguing that some of these tensions are false dichotomies. To her credit, Taylor maintains an elegant equipoise between assessing our dire situations (including climate disaster, inequality, white supremacy, ethno-nationalism, and neo-liberal capitalism's dark shadow over democracies the world over) and instilling some sense of hope that we can wrestle control over our fates back from unfettered capitalism through collective action. She's still bullish that if progressives organize and take real action (beyond just posting online) we might yet be able to create places of equality, with less disparity in wealth and care, with less private business incentives manipulating the rules, and with more everyday people having the power to affect their polities.
Note to self: You read this through Libby and that's where all your highlights are. -with love, your younger self
------------------------------
Some random unfinished notes:
Freedom / Equality
By 1989, with communism all but written off and free-market liberalism crowned king, Freedom became reduced to the right to be left alone... negative liberty, or "freedom as non-interference."
Contemporary freedom is, above all, the freedom to compete in the economy without intervention from meddling government... in other words, being free to be unequal.
"Freedom breeds inequality" - William F. Buckley in 1968
the French Revolution, like the end of the Cold War, was a democratic watershed... when the idea of political equality entered the popular imagination and when the word democracy was recued from the disrepute that had long stalked it.
Equality is rarely used for propaganda purposes... we visit the Statue of Liberty, not the Statue of Equality.
Athens system of government used a rotation by lottery as opposed to election for key public offices (on the grounds that elections were not democratic enough, as the well born and well spoken tended to win). Ancient Athens's signal breakthrough was that it gave real political power to poor people. See Solon's cancelling of debts legislation and freeing enslaved Athenians.
Taylor addresses two things that I'd not encountered before: 1. that the American Revolutionary War fought against the British was in part due to the British having intended to protecting territorial rights of native tribes with whom it had treaties (see Royal Proclamation of 1763) and 2. that the self-government of indigenous peoples in the Americas played an instrumental (though unacknowledged) role in informing the political philosophy of folks like Rousseau, folks who are often credited with influencing the American system profoundly. (note to self to read more about The League of Six Nations)
The 1772 Somerset decision declaring slavery odious and incompatible with English common law only added to the settler's sense of imperial persecution... Seen from this perspective, the American Revolution was arguably conservative, aimed as much at maintaining the status quo than ushering in a radically different, more democratic epoch.
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the phoor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."-Anatole France
Women and enslaved people have throughout history led the call for freedom, as they have been the ones who have not had access to it.
We rarely call the March on Washington by its official name: the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
Under immense pressure from activists at home and Communists abroad (whose propagandists made hay of America's failure to live up to the basic democratic tenet of equality by condoning segregation), Lyndon B. Johnson adopted the cause of civil rights as his own. "Freedom is not enough.... We seek...not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and as a result."
Winners and losers are therefore the natural outcome of a fully marketized democracy. - Wendy Brown
"Freedom for private enterprise" facing off with "an equitably shared abundance"
FDR and Frances Perkins, the nation's first female cabinet member and principal engineer of the New Deal, attempted to push more egalitarian policy, but couldn't overcome Dixiecrats and northern industrialists. Later Truman would pass the Taft-Hartley Act, breaking the power of trade unions and handing power back to employers.
Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek as thought leaders and antagonists of equality. "Millions have benefitted from nature's unfairness." Then, with equality decanted from liberty, a dash of social Darwinism was added to the mix. "economic eugenics", Nancy MacLean has dubbed it. Hardcore capitalists simply maintain that those who can't afford necessities such as food and shelter don't have any right to them... Survival of the fittest has mutated into survival of the richest.
Even liberals have responded to the marketization of everything with a privatization spree: subsidies to private insurers instead of expansion of public health care programs; school vouchers for private charter schools, not defending public education; modest carbon taxes in place of green infra.
Marx was as much a theorist of leisure as he was of work... Real communism, then, would. not be a crude leveling, but rather full equality, a way to liberate every individual to experiment and develop their true capacities.
But there are still challenges and questions in the tension between freedom and equality in a communist or socialist system.
Should capitalism as we know it cease to be, the conflict between freedom and equality will linger on.
Conflict / Consensus
This chapter started talking about the Occupy movement, specifically how it tried for a consensus model and ultimately couldn't overcome some of the challenges that come from really trying to run everything with unanimity. "Arguably more unstable and a good measure more ridiculous than [the ills of mainstream democracy]." "the reckless exercise of the veto is also the model's fatal flaw.
There is something—and Astra Taylor does a good job of addressing it—good and egalitarian in their commitment to consensus. But the point of this chapter is to talk about the tension between reaching unanimity vs other models that leave room for moving forward without some people on board.
The joke, 'freedom is an endless meeting.'
Two types of democracy discussed: 'adversary democracy' (people have conflicting interests and majority rules) and 'unitary democracy' (assumes common interests and there is face-to-face deliberation attempting to reach unanimity).
There's a part of this chapter that discusses the US founders's disdain for political parties. But it's not out of especially good-will for others—'We rarely comment non the irony that the initial overwhelming concern for the rights of minorities stemmed from the fact that a small group of wealthy, pale-skinned, land-hungry, slave-holding aristocrats were jealous of their fortunes... The primary goal of government, Madison said, is "to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority."' Eeek!
Then we're reminded that the two-party system of the US are actually in many ways standing together to keep themselves in power.
There's a super cool part of this chapter about pirates!! and their governing practices to ensure a baseline of economic and social equality. She refs Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age
Antonio Gramsci describes hegemony as the 'everyday ideas and cultural habits that make power structures and pecking orders appear natural and immutable.'
This chapter ends by reminding us that economic inequalities continue to be justified by those in power, but they are not—as history has shown with the righting of other injustices—how it has to be. 'Those who declare these disputes and disparities eternal, hard-wired into humankind's selfish nature, are probably invested in one side of the status quo. A new democratic consensus... will come about only through conflict—through the very sort of struggle the powerful would prefer to see suppressed.
Inclusion / Exclusion
This chapter starts with the story of Bhutan's monarch transitioning power to a democracy and the people kind of saying, 'Awww, but it was good with the monarch leading!' But there's a catch. Decades before there was an ethnic/religious minority (Lhotshampas) calling for changes and branded as terrorists. Oppressed and ousted from Bhutan, the fairy tale of Bhutan's transition to a united democracy has an underbelly.
Premise: We can't practically include everyone in a world-wide democracy... Decisions must be made by and accountable to a specific people and community. No need for me to weigh in on Nordic library budgets or priorities of worker-run factories in South America...
But there's a resurgence of exclusionary ethnonationalism around the globe.
'The history of self-rule is a catalog of the struggle to define the collective.'
Astra Taylor dives into some including in our democracies more than just humans: Animals, rivers, trees, robots, AIs. We already afford businesses tons of legal rights. Extending rights to these sorts of things and having humans arbitrate on their behalf would simply be a balance against some effects of neo-liberal capitalism. See her references to Leland Stanford's Southern Pacific Railroad Company case.. Ecuador included the rights of nature in their constitution and it has been cited to halt two industrial projects. But what about invasive species? Where does a watershed end if ecosystems are interconnected?
'A more democratic world is not one where the extremely rich are more diverse but one where the pyramid levels and no one has to struggle to survive.' ***
'Democracy, in my view, cannot be reduced to majoritarian preferences and popularity contests, but requires a more robust framework that protects minority rights from intolerant illiberal prejudices, however widespread those prejudices may be.'
Again, Astra Taylor reminds us that there are ways to make exclusion less cutting. 'Creating conditions of general economic equality- domestically and internationally—would blunt the harshest edge of exclusion at home and abroad.'
Coercion / Choice
When is coercion legitimate? There's a lot that we as citizens don't even see or know about, let alone consent to explicitly. That's OK—ideal really—when it comes to potholes or providing electricity. I don't want to spend my time on that. That's the benefit of choosing representatives..
Story of the anarchist crossing the street. The anarchist doesn't jaywalk and someone asks him why he doesn't if he's so opposed to government. "Because a small child might see us and get the idea that it's okay to run out into the road."
'The distinctions between incentive, persuasion, influence, manipulation, and coercion constantly blur... our choices rarely qualify as free."
Reading chapter 7 - New World Order (local vs global) this week and it might be the most interesting chapter yet.
Supranational, regulations-exempt, finance rules the day. Cold War + Reagan/Thatcher/Friedman + big finance/big tech lobbying in politics = a system where governments are at the beck and call of bankers. The "golden straightjacket" certainly makes some winners, but it chafes the rest, democracy included.
There are times when the tensions seem irresolvable, though I think Astra Taylor does an effective job of arguing that some of these tensions are false dichotomies. To her credit, Taylor maintains an elegant equipoise between assessing our dire situations (including climate disaster, inequality, white supremacy, ethno-nationalism, and neo-liberal capitalism's dark shadow over democracies the world over) and instilling some sense of hope that we can wrestle control over our fates back from unfettered capitalism through collective action. She's still bullish that if progressives organize and take real action (beyond just posting online) we might yet be able to create places of equality, with less disparity in wealth and care, with less private business incentives manipulating the rules, and with more everyday people having the power to affect their polities.
Note to self: You read this through Libby and that's where all your highlights are. -with love, your younger self
------------------------------
Some random unfinished notes:
Freedom / Equality
By 1989, with communism all but written off and free-market liberalism crowned king, Freedom became reduced to the right to be left alone... negative liberty, or "freedom as non-interference."
Contemporary freedom is, above all, the freedom to compete in the economy without intervention from meddling government... in other words, being free to be unequal.
"Freedom breeds inequality" - William F. Buckley in 1968
the French Revolution, like the end of the Cold War, was a democratic watershed... when the idea of political equality entered the popular imagination and when the word democracy was recued from the disrepute that had long stalked it.
Equality is rarely used for propaganda purposes... we visit the Statue of Liberty, not the Statue of Equality.
Athens system of government used a rotation by lottery as opposed to election for key public offices (on the grounds that elections were not democratic enough, as the well born and well spoken tended to win). Ancient Athens's signal breakthrough was that it gave real political power to poor people. See Solon's cancelling of debts legislation and freeing enslaved Athenians.
Taylor addresses two things that I'd not encountered before: 1. that the American Revolutionary War fought against the British was in part due to the British having intended to protecting territorial rights of native tribes with whom it had treaties (see Royal Proclamation of 1763) and 2. that the self-government of indigenous peoples in the Americas played an instrumental (though unacknowledged) role in informing the political philosophy of folks like Rousseau, folks who are often credited with influencing the American system profoundly. (note to self to read more about The League of Six Nations)
The 1772 Somerset decision declaring slavery odious and incompatible with English common law only added to the settler's sense of imperial persecution... Seen from this perspective, the American Revolution was arguably conservative, aimed as much at maintaining the status quo than ushering in a radically different, more democratic epoch.
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the phoor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."-Anatole France
Women and enslaved people have throughout history led the call for freedom, as they have been the ones who have not had access to it.
We rarely call the March on Washington by its official name: the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
Under immense pressure from activists at home and Communists abroad (whose propagandists made hay of America's failure to live up to the basic democratic tenet of equality by condoning segregation), Lyndon B. Johnson adopted the cause of civil rights as his own. "Freedom is not enough.... We seek...not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and as a result."
Winners and losers are therefore the natural outcome of a fully marketized democracy. - Wendy Brown
"Freedom for private enterprise" facing off with "an equitably shared abundance"
FDR and Frances Perkins, the nation's first female cabinet member and principal engineer of the New Deal, attempted to push more egalitarian policy, but couldn't overcome Dixiecrats and northern industrialists. Later Truman would pass the Taft-Hartley Act, breaking the power of trade unions and handing power back to employers.
Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek as thought leaders and antagonists of equality. "Millions have benefitted from nature's unfairness." Then, with equality decanted from liberty, a dash of social Darwinism was added to the mix. "economic eugenics", Nancy MacLean has dubbed it. Hardcore capitalists simply maintain that those who can't afford necessities such as food and shelter don't have any right to them... Survival of the fittest has mutated into survival of the richest.
Even liberals have responded to the marketization of everything with a privatization spree: subsidies to private insurers instead of expansion of public health care programs; school vouchers for private charter schools, not defending public education; modest carbon taxes in place of green infra.
Marx was as much a theorist of leisure as he was of work... Real communism, then, would. not be a crude leveling, but rather full equality, a way to liberate every individual to experiment and develop their true capacities.
But there are still challenges and questions in the tension between freedom and equality in a communist or socialist system.
Should capitalism as we know it cease to be, the conflict between freedom and equality will linger on.
Conflict / Consensus
This chapter started talking about the Occupy movement, specifically how it tried for a consensus model and ultimately couldn't overcome some of the challenges that come from really trying to run everything with unanimity. "Arguably more unstable and a good measure more ridiculous than [the ills of mainstream democracy]." "the reckless exercise of the veto is also the model's fatal flaw.
There is something—and Astra Taylor does a good job of addressing it—good and egalitarian in their commitment to consensus. But the point of this chapter is to talk about the tension between reaching unanimity vs other models that leave room for moving forward without some people on board.
The joke, 'freedom is an endless meeting.'
Two types of democracy discussed: 'adversary democracy' (people have conflicting interests and majority rules) and 'unitary democracy' (assumes common interests and there is face-to-face deliberation attempting to reach unanimity).
There's a part of this chapter that discusses the US founders's disdain for political parties. But it's not out of especially good-will for others—'We rarely comment non the irony that the initial overwhelming concern for the rights of minorities stemmed from the fact that a small group of wealthy, pale-skinned, land-hungry, slave-holding aristocrats were jealous of their fortunes... The primary goal of government, Madison said, is "to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority."' Eeek!
Then we're reminded that the two-party system of the US are actually in many ways standing together to keep themselves in power.
There's a super cool part of this chapter about pirates!! and their governing practices to ensure a baseline of economic and social equality. She refs Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age
Antonio Gramsci describes hegemony as the 'everyday ideas and cultural habits that make power structures and pecking orders appear natural and immutable.'
This chapter ends by reminding us that economic inequalities continue to be justified by those in power, but they are not—as history has shown with the righting of other injustices—how it has to be. 'Those who declare these disputes and disparities eternal, hard-wired into humankind's selfish nature, are probably invested in one side of the status quo. A new democratic consensus... will come about only through conflict—through the very sort of struggle the powerful would prefer to see suppressed.
Inclusion / Exclusion
This chapter starts with the story of Bhutan's monarch transitioning power to a democracy and the people kind of saying, 'Awww, but it was good with the monarch leading!' But there's a catch. Decades before there was an ethnic/religious minority (Lhotshampas) calling for changes and branded as terrorists. Oppressed and ousted from Bhutan, the fairy tale of Bhutan's transition to a united democracy has an underbelly.
Premise: We can't practically include everyone in a world-wide democracy... Decisions must be made by and accountable to a specific people and community. No need for me to weigh in on Nordic library budgets or priorities of worker-run factories in South America...
But there's a resurgence of exclusionary ethnonationalism around the globe.
'The history of self-rule is a catalog of the struggle to define the collective.'
Astra Taylor dives into some including in our democracies more than just humans: Animals, rivers, trees, robots, AIs. We already afford businesses tons of legal rights. Extending rights to these sorts of things and having humans arbitrate on their behalf would simply be a balance against some effects of neo-liberal capitalism. See her references to Leland Stanford's Southern Pacific Railroad Company case.. Ecuador included the rights of nature in their constitution and it has been cited to halt two industrial projects. But what about invasive species? Where does a watershed end if ecosystems are interconnected?
'A more democratic world is not one where the extremely rich are more diverse but one where the pyramid levels and no one has to struggle to survive.' ***
'Democracy, in my view, cannot be reduced to majoritarian preferences and popularity contests, but requires a more robust framework that protects minority rights from intolerant illiberal prejudices, however widespread those prejudices may be.'
Again, Astra Taylor reminds us that there are ways to make exclusion less cutting. 'Creating conditions of general economic equality- domestically and internationally—would blunt the harshest edge of exclusion at home and abroad.'
Coercion / Choice
When is coercion legitimate? There's a lot that we as citizens don't even see or know about, let alone consent to explicitly. That's OK—ideal really—when it comes to potholes or providing electricity. I don't want to spend my time on that. That's the benefit of choosing representatives..
Story of the anarchist crossing the street. The anarchist doesn't jaywalk and someone asks him why he doesn't if he's so opposed to government. "Because a small child might see us and get the idea that it's okay to run out into the road."
'The distinctions between incentive, persuasion, influence, manipulation, and coercion constantly blur... our choices rarely qualify as free."
Reading chapter 7 - New World Order (local vs global) this week and it might be the most interesting chapter yet.
Supranational, regulations-exempt, finance rules the day. Cold War + Reagan/Thatcher/Friedman + big finance/big tech lobbying in politics = a system where governments are at the beck and call of bankers. The "golden straightjacket" certainly makes some winners, but it chafes the rest, democracy included.
July 10, 2019
Criticizing something—particularly on the internet—requires a lot more work than praising it. Throughout the first chapter of Democracy May Not Exist, But We’ll Miss it When it’s Gone, I began to fret as I considered how many notes I might need to take. In part because I came into the book already in agreement with the tacit thesis—“The problem with foreign oligarchs isn’t that they’re foreign, but that they’re oligarchs.”And in part because the twitter-blasted landscape I call my mind kept focusing in on vague banalities while filtering out their supporting context:
[ Read the rest of this review at DinaburgWrites.com ]
[ Read the rest of this review at DinaburgWrites.com ]
March 23, 2020
I think this book was a disappointment because I was expecting a clearer description of both how democracy has failed and also succeeded and how we would, indeed, miss it when it's gone. But this book is more a leftist meditation on the philosophy of democracy, leftist in that the solutions are inevitably - anything but neoliberalism. I learned some things that stuck when me though, for instance, that ancient Athenians rejected elected representatives as popularity contests in favor of lotteries for political office. That sounds like a good idea, actually, given how the skills for running for office in America are so different from those of a good leader.
3 1/2
3 1/2
March 8, 2020
"I would never deny that history provides mountains of evidence to fuel a fatalist inclination to failure - our legacy brims with horrors. But the past abounds with counter evidence, deep veins of conviction and ample fodder to maintain morale, a second legacy of compassion, courage, tenacity, vision, solidarity and strategy. Prior struggles and victories put the present in perspective. Who am I, writing these words on a portable computer (in my living room and not a prison cell, no less), to imagine the challenges we face as terrible and immutable? Countless nameless women before me were burned at the stake as witches, held as chattel, force-fed when they demanded the right to vote, and here I it with rights some of them could never have dreamed of. In light of the sacrifices made by past rebels to secure our privileges, defeatism feels wrong, even trite."
This book is a jam-packed, highly ambitious and earnest project of developing political thought about the contemporary moment via historical analysis, journalism, and intentional conversations with a wide range of people. Each chapter takes two seemingly disparate or even opposing concepts and draws them together dialectically. It's a bit wild and unwieldly at times, but I ultimately found it very educational and quite moving. Taylor is an ardent student of democratic socialism and, in the spirit of writers like Howard Zinn and Naomi Klein, makes accessible and highly compelling cases for understanding our current world from an anti-establishment perspective. Recommended if you're looking for help to make sense of the current moment without false optimism nor debilitating despair.
This book is a jam-packed, highly ambitious and earnest project of developing political thought about the contemporary moment via historical analysis, journalism, and intentional conversations with a wide range of people. Each chapter takes two seemingly disparate or even opposing concepts and draws them together dialectically. It's a bit wild and unwieldly at times, but I ultimately found it very educational and quite moving. Taylor is an ardent student of democratic socialism and, in the spirit of writers like Howard Zinn and Naomi Klein, makes accessible and highly compelling cases for understanding our current world from an anti-establishment perspective. Recommended if you're looking for help to make sense of the current moment without false optimism nor debilitating despair.
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April 27, 2024astra taylor is one of our days most compelling public intellectuals and in this she frames why democracy is a meaningful concept for the left. this text meaningfully identifies and interrogates overlapping poles of democracy — from scale (hyperlocal vs large scale collective power) to generational (being an inheritor of debts beyond our control to being a good ancestor) to consensus (how to represent plurality rather than winner take all?) to expertise (what is the relationship of education to democracy when the education system is inherently racist and classist?). in doing so, taylor shows us how to meaningfully live within the questions. the last pole, of pessimism and optimism, remains circling my head as i watch with heartbreak the massacre of palestinian life alongside a groundswell of popular dissent in support of palestine, of people using the tools of organized social resistance to make concrete demands. through movement in service of a true democracy that has never come, people come together to interrupt business as usual in service of collective liberation.
April 14, 2023
Something about this just didn’t add up in the way that I wanted to. There were whole passages of ruminations on political theory and philosophy that I thought were incredibly thoughtful and poignant. Taylor brings a consistently earnest and curious approach throughout. Unfortunately though, I don’t feel like all of that theorizing went in an especially novel direction. Everything written was completely heartfelt and compelling, but the resulting bromides didn’t seem to challenge any preconceived notions about democracy. I think I was disappointed by Taylor’s somewhat rigid foreclosure of political possibility between democracy and facism. As a thoughtful reflection on the former’s evolution characteristics, I think this is thought-provoking. I think this book wants to be more, but is too confined by paradigmatic dogma to be more than that.
June 28, 2025
Not to be dramatic but this book took my breath away. It’s been too many years since I read something that spoke to me in the way this book did. Also very helpful for making sense of this political moment. It’s as uplifting as it is grim to read. It feels like a powerful thesis that can (maybe?) move and govern us through such a giant, paralyzing vacuum. Side-note: reading this book also helped me process and appreciate, and ultimately validate the reasons why I still choose to work for my beloved highly democratic yet also highly dysfunctional environmental non-profit organization — every day is the challenge, the wins, the growth, the resilience, the praxis of democracy and if we are not always working on it, contributing to it, and defending it then we will miss it when it’s gone.
April 23, 2025
The author has a tendency to regurgitate all the “right” talking points about the topics at hand - inequality, piss poor education, democratic decline, etc - but relies very very heavily on other authors and thinkers to make her points. While her identification of many problems are accurate, she rarely presents any solutions, let alone workable ones.
This book is probably one of the best examples of why liberals lose elections while campaigning for issues that people actually want - snappy names are applied to complex thoughts, that are off putting instead of enticing.
This is a decent introduction to a variety of concepts that may be new for many people.
This book is probably one of the best examples of why liberals lose elections while campaigning for issues that people actually want - snappy names are applied to complex thoughts, that are off putting instead of enticing.
This is a decent introduction to a variety of concepts that may be new for many people.
January 20, 2020
I think this book is really important. Everyone should read it. While a lot of her discussion focuses on the history and current government of the United States, she does have a number of international examples. Her explanation of the Greece situation was excellent. It's important to understand that there is no clear finish line, a 'democracy accomplished' moment. Her embrace of the paradoxes of democracy was nuanced and refreshing. Everyone should read it!
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August 21, 2023i know i’ll never finish this. i enjoyed what i read but i know good and well i’ll never come back to this sorryyyy dnfing officially
October 15, 2024
Potentially the best book I’ve ever read
May 2, 2025
"Taking advantage of and perpetuating human idiocy is a profitable enterprise."
March 24, 2020
This was an enjoyable if difficult book to get through. Enjoyable because of the insights laid out in practical examples and from regular people (workers, school children, refugees, etc). Difficult because of its expansiveness and that every few pages was a new story, so it was difficult to tease the narrator arch at times. Still, it was profound and lyrical. A necessary read for anyone interested in knowing the complexities and contradictions of democracy in action.
July 12, 2019
An absolutely amazing book from one of the best voices on democracy and politics today. Taylor gives us an incredibly well researched and thought out discussion of what democracy means, how it works today, the flaws we see in liberal democratic societies, and what modern movements for direct democracy and workplace democracy look like. If we imagine a democratic vistas as the core of a just and inclusive vision of human society, we will need to radically re-imagine what democracy means for our political economic order. Taylor has brought us far along that path. Incredibly well written and researched AND approachable for audiences who might not be well versed in modern politics. Highly, highly recommend. One of the most important books written this year.
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February 4, 2024DNF. Long essay. Not my thing.
June 8, 2019
Taylor chains slogans to mimic the appearance of reason. Overall the text is extremely racist and narrow, without excelling even at this. Take the first paragraph:
> In 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, people everywhere cheered the dawn of a new democratic age. The free world had triumphed over the unfree and was now in ascendance. The liberal doctrine of individual rights, periodic elections, and consumer abundance appeared both irresistible and unstoppable.
"People everywhere" is code word for white Westerners. I doubt much Chinese were even aware of the changes in the former DDR, and some are still perfectly content of not knowing where Berlin is located.
The Soviets and their European colonies were told with every occasion that they are the guardians of the true rights of man, and not the West. Also, they all held periodic elections. And today, many of the Westerners believe consumer abundance a sin and not a virtue. So what is Taylor talking about?
Overall this dense text is a sort of ode to the people who know better what the masses should want. Read the book if you need a collection of cute socially aware quotes for the Facebook status of a socially concerned person.
> In 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, people everywhere cheered the dawn of a new democratic age. The free world had triumphed over the unfree and was now in ascendance. The liberal doctrine of individual rights, periodic elections, and consumer abundance appeared both irresistible and unstoppable.
"People everywhere" is code word for white Westerners. I doubt much Chinese were even aware of the changes in the former DDR, and some are still perfectly content of not knowing where Berlin is located.
The Soviets and their European colonies were told with every occasion that they are the guardians of the true rights of man, and not the West. Also, they all held periodic elections. And today, many of the Westerners believe consumer abundance a sin and not a virtue. So what is Taylor talking about?
Overall this dense text is a sort of ode to the people who know better what the masses should want. Read the book if you need a collection of cute socially aware quotes for the Facebook status of a socially concerned person.
June 27, 2019
Deceptively simple and readable, what makes Astra Taylor's book so good is the author's refusal to resolve the paradoxes of democracy. Each chapter explores a tension between, for example, coercion/choice, equality/liberty, local/global, and present/future. Rather than coming down on one side, Taylor examines how the tension has been addressed by historic figures and is seen in contemporary politics. She pays special attention to ancient and present Greece, Black and Indigenous thought, and the role of women in founding and pushing radical democracy. There is a bit of redundancy with her film "What is democracy?" (released earlier this year), but the book is much richer and more expansive. Although I ultimately disagree with some of her conclusions, Taylor's writing makes political theory so clear, evocative, and compelling that I cannot help but give this book my highest recommendation. Additionally, it'd be great for undergrads and family members seeking to understand the complexity and contradictions of our current moment, or to read at the beach (as I did).
July 23, 2019
There is no definition, practices, rules or set standards that can be put in place that constitute democracy. It means many things to many people, and, like freedom, democracy is a constant struggle. Historically, we have sadly seen democracy used as the ostensible justification for occupation, war and even ethnic cleansing. In this book, Astra Taylor explores what democracy really is, what it can be, and suggests why, in its various shapes and forms, it is foundational to creating a better society. By weaving together examples from the past, lessons from philosophy, and conversations with scholars, students and even refugees, Taylor describes the liberatory potential of democracy, and why we should fight for it. There's also some cool stuff about pirates in the book.
May 17, 2020
Taylor poses really challenging and compelling questions about the conflicts in democratic theory and practice, but her explorations of those conflicts karoom off into other issues, which tend to be familiar and overfamiliar left critiques of things like not taking climate change seriously or the inequalities in modern education systems. Fair enough, but not really related to the core question. The book just never quite lives up to its promise.
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