For some time, a discouraged claim that “democracy does not have the strength to save itself” has been gaining ground. The concern comes from the analysis of the fact that through democratic systems (net of the influences of social media managers, which do exist or can be decisive), even non-democratic forces manage to assert themselves and sometimes seize power — or at any rate, dictate the agenda in countries with established democracies, disrupting their nature.
Considering what is happening, this discouraged statement may be true. The phenomenon does exist, even though, in reality, it is perhaps less widespread than claimed, particularly by the less democratic forces. In Germany, there is no doubt that the perhaps neo-Nazi Afd party had extraordinary electoral success. However, there is also no doubt that Germans went to the polls en masse (84 percent) as they had never done since 1987 and yet said “no” to Afd because 80 percent of them voted for “traditional” democratic parties from the center-right to the left. So, it is not possible to say that “the German people” chose the radical right, although we can say that many Germans, especially in the East, did.
In the United States, things went differently. Donald Trump achieved a landslide victory — beyond electoral technicalities — and decisively won the popular vote against the Democratic Party nominee. He won based on a confusing program with many decidedly “non-Democratic” aspects, such as the announcement of the prosecution of those public officials who (because it was their job) had investigated the 2021 assault on the Capitol. Many of the acts since the inauguration confirm a decidedly authoritarian and autocratic tendency (such as, most recently, the demand for federal officials to explain what they did at work last week, with the threat of dismissal to those who do not respond), which stands in stark contrast to the democratic system.
However, a common feature of these forces, for which there are several possible definitions — also because they are different from one another — is the tendency toward nationalism in its most negative sense, understood as inward-looking, a tendency to block international cooperation, to stop migration, and even consider possible military, food, and economic self-sufficiency.
However, these projects are at the most significant risk here. At least in the West, one has never seen an authoritarian or undemocratic state — one that limits democracy in an evident and generalized manner — achieve any significant economic success. Capitalism, which is the widespread economic system in the West and which has grown, in fact, alongside the growth of democratic systems, needs space, air, exchanges, and encounters. Otherwise, it implodes and cannot express or develop its strength. The discussion on capitalism and its social cost should take place elsewhere. However, one cannot deny its strength in global economic life.
Closing markets — but also forcing them into an unnatural development path — means killing them. And so the actors in these markets cannot accept it — not the producers nor the consumers, who would face shortages of some goods or high costs for others.
The meeting of still-functioning democratic systems (like the one in Germany) and the needs of capitalists (such as in the US, where, by the way, the democratic structure still exists and is viable) could be the combination that will save democracy (as well as the interests of capital!) because, currently, one and the other are closely linked, and, share an interest in an open and collaborative world.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
