Discuss the Marxist view of citizenship.
Liberalism
and Marxism are two schools of thought which have left deep imprints in
sociological, political and economic theory. Marxist view of citizenship They are usually perceived as
opposite, rival approaches. In the field of democracy there is a seemingly
insurmountable rift around the question of political versus economic democracy.
Liberals emphasize the former, Marxists the latter. Liberals say that economic
democracy is too abstract and fuzzy a concept, therefore one should concentrate
on the workings of an objective political democracy. Marxist view of citizenship Marxists insist that
political democracy without economic democracy is insufficient. The article
argues that both propositions are valid and not mutually exclusive. It proposes
the creation of an operational, quantifiable index of economic democracy that
can be used alongside the already existing indexes of political democracy. By
using these two indexes jointly, political and economic democracy can be
objectively evaluated. Marxist view of citizenship Thus, the requirements of both camps are met and maybe a
more dialogical approach to democracy can be reached in the debate between
liberals and Marxists. The joint index is used to evaluate the levels of
economic and political democracy in the transition countries of Eastern Europe.
Liberalism
and Marxism are two schools of thought which have left deep imprints in
political, sociological and economic theory. Marxist view of citizenship Both have been very fruitful in
illuminating a wide range of common issues across these fields and yet are
usually perceived as opposite, rival approaches contradicting each other in
general. Marxist view of citizenship The fall of the Soviet Union and the socialist countries in Eastern
Europe obliged Marxist and liberal theorists to make further efforts to
understand this process — the former to comprehend the crumbling of communism,
the latter interested in the political and economic transition to capitalism. Marxist view of citizenship Due to the circumstances surrounding these developments — seemingly the
complete victory of one side over the other — the common task to analyze the
perestroika and transition experience did not lead to a coming closer of the
two contending views, but may have even led to a deepening of the gulf between
them. This article argues that liberalism and Marxism are extremely useful
approaches and are not mutually exclusive. Marxist view of citizenship I propose some first steps towards a
synthesis between them exactly in relation to one of their greatest bones of
contention — the issue of democracy. No grand synthesis will be offered here,
but rather the humble beginning of an effort to bring the more moderate
contenders from each side to utilize some of their specific insights to
co-jointly better illuminate this complex matter. In practice, I will propose
the creation of a new, alternative index for measuring democracy, which
incorporates liberal and Marxist insights and can therefore be more acceptable to
both sides than the presently existing ones. Marxist view of citizenship It is my hope that if we can
create an index that is acceptable to both sides, this may lead to joint
collaborative research which will deepen our present understanding of democracy
and of the difficulties it still faces in being fully accepted in many parts of
the world. The article is composed of three sections — a presentation of how
the problem of democracy historically arose between liberalism and Marxism; the
proposal of a preliminary synthesis of the Marxist and liberal views via the
creation of a joint index of democracy which incorporates insights from both
camps; and an initial application of this index to the transition countries of
Eastern Europe.
The concept
of democracy arose a long time ago and has been a highly controversial one, but
the version used by most mainstream political scientists (especially
transitologists) has its roots in Joseph Schumpeter’s (1984, 336) famous
minimalist definition of democracy as “that institutional arrangement for
arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to
decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote.” Marxist view of citizenship In other
words, democracy is characterized by the existence of competitive elections for
the executive and legislative posts instead of them being filled by means of
hereditary succession, violent revolutionary means, etc. Marxist view of citizenship According to
Schumpeter, this is a descriptive definition, i.e., one that describes in an
objective manner what modern democracies are like, thus avoiding subjective,
normative definitions which prescribe what an ideal democracy should be like
according to each author’s worldview. As Samuel Huntington puts it:
These are
some of the most important theorists of democratic transition and consolidation
processes in the world today. Marxist view of citizenship Their definitions, from the first two more
minimalist to the last more elaborated one, like Schumpeter’s, place
democracy’s greatest emphasis on the method of choosing the rulers (and the
possibility of becoming a ruler oneself), emphasizing that elections must be
“clean” and “competitive”, which pre-supposes a series of civil and political
liberties. Marxist view of citizenship Schumpeter’s concept of democracy has been criticized from different
points of view (e.g., Held 1987, 178-85), but I herein want to draw attention
to one specific facet of the problem. Procedural (descriptive) definitions of
democracy of the Schumpeterian type turn liberal, representative democracy into
the only possible type of real democracy. In it, the main political role of the
great mass of the population is to elect (and kick out), with great freedom and
in a competitive way, those special citizens who will represent them in the
executive and legislative branches of government. Marxist view of citizenshipAccording to Schumpeter’s
intellectual heirs, historical experience has shown that it was with this model
of political organization that modern societies have reached the greatest
degree of freedom for their citizens. However, the elevation of liberal,
representative democracy to the status of sole valid paradigm brings with it
contradictions with definitions of democracy, based on its historical and
etymological origins. Let us examine this in greater detail.
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