What do you think?
Rate this book
Systemic Corruption: Constitutional Ideas for an Anti-Oligarchic Republic
A bold new approach to combatting the inherent corruption of representative democracy
This provocative book reveals how the majority of modern liberal democracies have become increasingly oligarchic, suffering from a form of structural political decay first conceptualized by ancient philosophers. Systemic Corruption argues that the problem cannot be blamed on the actions of corrupt politicians but is built into the very fabric of our representative systems.
Camila Vergara provides a compelling and original genealogy of political corruption from ancient to modern thought, and shows how representative democracy was designed to protect the interests of the already rich and powerful to the detriment of the majority. Unable to contain the unrelenting force of oligarchy, especially after experimenting with neoliberal policies, most democracies have been corrupted into oligarchic democracies. Vergara explains how to reverse this corrupting trajectory by establishing a new counterpower strong enough to control the ruling elites. Building on the anti-oligarchic institutional innovations proposed by plebeian philosophers, she rethinks the republic as a mixed order in which popular power is institutionalized to check the power of oligarchy. Vergara demonstrates how a plebeian republic would establish a network of local assemblies with the power to push for reform from the grassroots, independent of political parties and representative government.
Drawing on neglected insights from Niccolò Machiavelli, Nicolas de Condorcet, Rosa Luxemburg, and Hannah Arendt, Systemic Corruption proposes to reverse the decay of democracy with the establishment of anti-oligarchic institutions through which common people can collectively resist the domination of the few.
This provocative book reveals how the majority of modern liberal democracies have become increasingly oligarchic, suffering from a form of structural political decay first conceptualized by ancient philosophers. Systemic Corruption argues that the problem cannot be blamed on the actions of corrupt politicians but is built into the very fabric of our representative systems.
Camila Vergara provides a compelling and original genealogy of political corruption from ancient to modern thought, and shows how representative democracy was designed to protect the interests of the already rich and powerful to the detriment of the majority. Unable to contain the unrelenting force of oligarchy, especially after experimenting with neoliberal policies, most democracies have been corrupted into oligarchic democracies. Vergara explains how to reverse this corrupting trajectory by establishing a new counterpower strong enough to control the ruling elites. Building on the anti-oligarchic institutional innovations proposed by plebeian philosophers, she rethinks the republic as a mixed order in which popular power is institutionalized to check the power of oligarchy. Vergara demonstrates how a plebeian republic would establish a network of local assemblies with the power to push for reform from the grassroots, independent of political parties and representative government.
Drawing on neglected insights from Niccolò Machiavelli, Nicolas de Condorcet, Rosa Luxemburg, and Hannah Arendt, Systemic Corruption proposes to reverse the decay of democracy with the establishment of anti-oligarchic institutions through which common people can collectively resist the domination of the few.
312 pages, Hardcover
Published September 22, 2020
7 people are currently reading
146 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
Read
August 3, 2024The capitalist oligarchy that controls countries like United States uses its power to rubber-stamp its rule with a veneer of legality. Mainstream liberal constitutional theory has difficulty accounting for this slow erosion of institutions and providing for correction. Vergara argues that a realistic material view of constitutionalism requires bringing in "plebeian" popular power to supervise or totally revise political institutions. This could also be additive to existing representative institutions, rather than a unitary democratic power. Her discussion includes a walk through a number of thinkers who were interested in council/assembly power followed by rough framework of a plebeian branch of government.
I feel like the thrust of Vergara's argument is more interesting than the specific proposal and it reminded me of things I like about Luxemburg. I could see this sort of supervision by popular assemblies forcing constitutional changes (written and unwritten) on existing institutions that might be impossible to achieve through the normal grind of captured elections. The traditional radical argument against this would be that assemblies must immediately move towards consolidating all powers to survive against the old institutions. People need institutions to come to awareness and education of their own power, though, which is limited under simple representation. Institutions that can assemble average people and intervene in politics without being absorbed into politics-as-usual might bridge that gap.
I feel like the thrust of Vergara's argument is more interesting than the specific proposal and it reminded me of things I like about Luxemburg. I could see this sort of supervision by popular assemblies forcing constitutional changes (written and unwritten) on existing institutions that might be impossible to achieve through the normal grind of captured elections. The traditional radical argument against this would be that assemblies must immediately move towards consolidating all powers to survive against the old institutions. People need institutions to come to awareness and education of their own power, though, which is limited under simple representation. Institutions that can assemble average people and intervene in politics without being absorbed into politics-as-usual might bridge that gap.
January 23, 2022
This book not only shows how modern liberal democracies become increasingly oligarchy, due to the inevitable issues caused by representative democracy, but also explains how to solve it. How? Through institutions that were already known in Rome, namely a republic that also has an institutionalized participatory democracy to check the power of oligarchy.
August 4, 2022
Plebiscite — Systemic Corruption: Constitutional Ideas for an Anti-Oligarchic Republic (Camila Vergara)
This was unexpected. This book is history of “plebeian” thought through a critical (legal) theory lens. I’m not much of a critical theorist — passing familiarity. I found the prose, while illuminating from time to time, did swing into more stereotypical critical theory syntactic tropes. Odd words, untranslated concepts and oblique references (“antipoietic”) are frequently dropped along with the pro forma “emancipatory spirits” et al. We even have an odd reference to the hard science (a network of councils would be “similar to the neurobiological structure of plants”). Perhaps this is all well and good for a card carrying critical theorist, but I would have appreciated some clear explanations rather than having to slip into hermeneutics.
Corruption here is defined not as a legal offence perpetrated by individuals (the few bad apples argument) but that it should be understood as a systematic co-option of the state by the elite. It’s observable not by the number of corruption cases but by measuring inequality (economic, primarily, but presumably also other sorts). Perhaps a better word would be “inferred”. This is an interesting definition — certainly one I agree is a problem, but not one I would completely elide with institutional capture and inequality. There’s some claim here to originality or novelty which I disagree with. There’s also a bizarre argument that corruption perceptions are a bad measure. I think this is shortsighted: perceptions are important, and they themselves reduce trust in government. It doesn’t matter on what basis those perceptions are generated from.
The book is largely split into two parts. For most of the book, Vergara discusses the history of plebeian constitutional thought. That is — governmental structures that formalise the power of the masses (generally, the less wealthy, regular person, and marginalised). I especially enjoyed the chapter on Condorcet’s thought, but I found the chapter on Luxemburg to be a slog. The other part of the book (which amounts to a single chapter) is Vergara’s suggestion for a constitutional order for modern liberal democracies. There is much interesting here, but unfortunately I found the book to suffer from a low signal-to-noise ratio.
The primary lens Vergara is fond of is Machiavellian: an ontological split between the few (the elite, wealthy, powerful) and the many (not). Conflict between the few and the many is the fundamental driving force behind liberty. Several diagrams throughout the book are illustrated, formally, in this dichotomy. It makes sense, although recent and clear scholarship on this sort of thing — particularly game theoretic and economic — is completely ignored. For example, North and Weingast on constitutions and commitment, Weingast on the economic role of political institutions, institutional economics generally. I understand this might not be a critical theorist’s wheelhouse, but it’s worth mentioning.
Most of the historical institutional suggestions involve some sort of number of plebeian council (think town halls with the ability to censure, or even veto and suggest new laws). Some involve a more powerful Tribunate (think Rome) that has the power to punish elites or enforce the will of the councils. This is roughly the sketch Vergara proposes in the last chapter, and it’s one that I think should be considered seriously. I think Vergara should have spent more time on this proposal than on other people’s thoughts (not that it’s not valuable). For example, Vergara proposes that a set of governing councillors to plebeian assemblies be drawn via lottery from a pool of volunteers. They would have the ability to set the agenda for the plebeian assemblies. It’s not a leap to think that a monied elite would be able to execute a sort of distributed denial of service attack on a network of these assemblies — gumming up the agendas generally with political and legal chaff by co-opting lottery winners, or stacking the volunteer pool. Vergara does not consider this.
That said, I like the idea of formalising this power. I might start from civil society — formalising a censurial power and making sure that ordinary people have the means to participate. I think an institution like this would be a minimal reform — Vergara tangles with this, wanting to build upon liberal democracy rather than tear it all down. One hopes that a formal censurial power means that existing institutions face audience costs they don’t currently.
Vergara also suggests regular constitutional conventions (following Machiavelli). This is sensible.
I think Vergara unfairly paints liberalism generally with the brush that it only cares about negative liberties (following Berlin: a sort of formal, de jure set of rights, instead of a de facto ability to pursue them). Left-liberal philosophers like Rawls who do, in fact, engage seriously with positive liberties, are left out of the discussion.
Finally, there is little attention paid to social epistemology. Mis- and dis-information can have pernicious effects on democracy and this idea is not engaged with. This comes to an interesting head in the chapter on Condorcet where the Jury Theorem is tossed out in a footnote (due to Arendt’s assertion that politics is about truth, not opinions — despite the fact that social epistemology can deal with this — the term of art is doxastic attitudes). Later on in the chapter Vergara then uses the Jury Theorem to justify the epistemological virtue of Condorcet’s primary assemblies.
This was unexpected. This book is history of “plebeian” thought through a critical (legal) theory lens. I’m not much of a critical theorist — passing familiarity. I found the prose, while illuminating from time to time, did swing into more stereotypical critical theory syntactic tropes. Odd words, untranslated concepts and oblique references (“antipoietic”) are frequently dropped along with the pro forma “emancipatory spirits” et al. We even have an odd reference to the hard science (a network of councils would be “similar to the neurobiological structure of plants”). Perhaps this is all well and good for a card carrying critical theorist, but I would have appreciated some clear explanations rather than having to slip into hermeneutics.
Corruption here is defined not as a legal offence perpetrated by individuals (the few bad apples argument) but that it should be understood as a systematic co-option of the state by the elite. It’s observable not by the number of corruption cases but by measuring inequality (economic, primarily, but presumably also other sorts). Perhaps a better word would be “inferred”. This is an interesting definition — certainly one I agree is a problem, but not one I would completely elide with institutional capture and inequality. There’s some claim here to originality or novelty which I disagree with. There’s also a bizarre argument that corruption perceptions are a bad measure. I think this is shortsighted: perceptions are important, and they themselves reduce trust in government. It doesn’t matter on what basis those perceptions are generated from.
The book is largely split into two parts. For most of the book, Vergara discusses the history of plebeian constitutional thought. That is — governmental structures that formalise the power of the masses (generally, the less wealthy, regular person, and marginalised). I especially enjoyed the chapter on Condorcet’s thought, but I found the chapter on Luxemburg to be a slog. The other part of the book (which amounts to a single chapter) is Vergara’s suggestion for a constitutional order for modern liberal democracies. There is much interesting here, but unfortunately I found the book to suffer from a low signal-to-noise ratio.
The primary lens Vergara is fond of is Machiavellian: an ontological split between the few (the elite, wealthy, powerful) and the many (not). Conflict between the few and the many is the fundamental driving force behind liberty. Several diagrams throughout the book are illustrated, formally, in this dichotomy. It makes sense, although recent and clear scholarship on this sort of thing — particularly game theoretic and economic — is completely ignored. For example, North and Weingast on constitutions and commitment, Weingast on the economic role of political institutions, institutional economics generally. I understand this might not be a critical theorist’s wheelhouse, but it’s worth mentioning.
Most of the historical institutional suggestions involve some sort of number of plebeian council (think town halls with the ability to censure, or even veto and suggest new laws). Some involve a more powerful Tribunate (think Rome) that has the power to punish elites or enforce the will of the councils. This is roughly the sketch Vergara proposes in the last chapter, and it’s one that I think should be considered seriously. I think Vergara should have spent more time on this proposal than on other people’s thoughts (not that it’s not valuable). For example, Vergara proposes that a set of governing councillors to plebeian assemblies be drawn via lottery from a pool of volunteers. They would have the ability to set the agenda for the plebeian assemblies. It’s not a leap to think that a monied elite would be able to execute a sort of distributed denial of service attack on a network of these assemblies — gumming up the agendas generally with political and legal chaff by co-opting lottery winners, or stacking the volunteer pool. Vergara does not consider this.
That said, I like the idea of formalising this power. I might start from civil society — formalising a censurial power and making sure that ordinary people have the means to participate. I think an institution like this would be a minimal reform — Vergara tangles with this, wanting to build upon liberal democracy rather than tear it all down. One hopes that a formal censurial power means that existing institutions face audience costs they don’t currently.
Vergara also suggests regular constitutional conventions (following Machiavelli). This is sensible.
I think Vergara unfairly paints liberalism generally with the brush that it only cares about negative liberties (following Berlin: a sort of formal, de jure set of rights, instead of a de facto ability to pursue them). Left-liberal philosophers like Rawls who do, in fact, engage seriously with positive liberties, are left out of the discussion.
Finally, there is little attention paid to social epistemology. Mis- and dis-information can have pernicious effects on democracy and this idea is not engaged with. This comes to an interesting head in the chapter on Condorcet where the Jury Theorem is tossed out in a footnote (due to Arendt’s assertion that politics is about truth, not opinions — despite the fact that social epistemology can deal with this — the term of art is doxastic attitudes). Later on in the chapter Vergara then uses the Jury Theorem to justify the epistemological virtue of Condorcet’s primary assemblies.
July 2, 2024
It is rare that thinkers from the Left engage with the classical canon. Vergara's merger of plebeian and revolutionary politics to combat the systemic spiral towards elitist corruption echoes the Marxist trajectory of a capitalist class. The reliance upon Machiavelli and Condorcet channels a structuralist approach that downplays the overwhelming problems of knowledge, technology and the rise of the professional classes. However, given that social, economic and political factors are almost impossible to model, this is a strong contribution to combat the disillusionment and rejection of republicanism and its representative institutions.
March 12, 2025
This encyclopedic tome explores the causes of corruption and oligarchy in constitutional republics. It's long, and very academic, but I think it's the book that best explains what is happening to our own republic right now. Dr. Camila Vergara, a British university professor originally from Chile, cites a variety of thinkers, from Machiavelli to Hannah Arendt, and I find her arguments very convincing. This book is equal parts enlightening and horrifying and is definitely not a beach read--but I highly recommend it all the same.
September 25, 2025
An extraordinary example of radical egalitarian thought that takes institutions and seriously. Demonstrates that republican ideas can usefully channel some impulses of radical democracy in more politically promising directions.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews