Although the economic crisis seems to prevent from thinking about other public policy questions, sometimes it is healthy to reflecting on other deeper matters. What kind of political regime do we want? We are aware that political systems in Western democracies are so corrupt. Internet is renewing a new sort of popular participation, but I do not very sure whether its force is going to destroy the high walls of power. We face the huge problem of professionalization of politics and, at the same time, the lack of interest ordinary people show in the political scene.
The crisis has accelerate the impression that «we could be at the end of a political era» as Stuart White of Compass says. He discovers several trends in the United Kingdom that can be translated to other countries:
«On the right, thinkers are already staking out their territory. In his ‘Rise of the Red Tories’, Phillip Blond argues that the time is ripe for a new Conservatism based on a repudiation of both social and economic liberalism. On the economic side, Blond advocates greater political and economic localism, the regulation of markets to protect small businesses and the wider distribution of wealth. On the social side, ‘Red Toryism’ eschews multiculturalism as morally nihilistic in favour of a ‘common but high civilisation’ that ‘binds all Britons together in a vision of a culture worth sharing.».
As an alternative, White talks about a new Republican Democracy. He has detailed his thesis in the book Building a Citizen Society: The Emerging Politics of Republican Democracy, in which he proposes a democracy firmly based on liberty and equality. According to him, liberty means that people are free from «others who have the power to intervene at will in one’s life. This applies to the state. But it also applies in the workplace and in the family».
With respect to equality, the intellectual believes that it is impossible to raise a certain degree of equality if citizens do no enjoy a minimum economic welfare. «Republican democracy calls for a high degree of economic equality. In part, this is a just demand in itself. But it also follows from the desire to protect liberty, for liberty as non-domination is easily subverted by accumulations of power that result from inequalities of wealth».
To establish these basic rules, the authors argues it is necessary to reinforce the participation of individual. As I pointed out at the beginning of the post, a passive society is the main problem of our political environment.
«Participation matters because of its power effects. As the level of popular participation in political life changes so too does the balance of power in society. Stated crudely, ‘people power’ emerges as a counter-weight to the power of money. This is why republican democracy celebrates the new citizen-organizing movements, like London Citizens».
The proposal does not appear to be new. It remembers to the principles of the celebrated Third Way. In fact, the Compass analyst affirms that the New Republicanism is in the middle of everything: «It’s not about absorbing society into the state or into the market or about uncritically celebrating ‘civil society’ as an alternative to both. It’s about using all three in a way that delivers on the promise of democracy and its moral ends of liberty and equality».
No political idea is completely fresh. However, we have to recognize the effort to mix up different ideas in order to obtain original thesis. We need that.
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