What is Democracy?

Astra Taylor’s latest documentary, What is Democracy?, seeks to answer this eponymous question through philosophical investigation that cites back to the ancient Greeks and Plato’s own concept of good rule. Democracy is “justice”, it is “equality”, it is “freedom”, it is “community”, it is “liberation”.[1] None of these, as Taylor’s film makes obvious, are easily available in the system of governance that today rules most Western Society, and that we call “democracy.” Through discussion with philosophers, political theorists, activists, and regular citizens, Taylor makes the argument that know what democracy is but our ability to fully actualize a democratic system has been co-opted and corrupted by financial capitalism and its accoutrements.

Indeed, “democracy” has become a feted signifier in modern political discourse. The term is bandied about to justify all sorts of horrendous violations of rights, from waging war to preventing access to essential medical treatment to denying racialized persons access to the vote.[2] “Democracy” sweeps in as to legitimize and justify any activity. Just as easily, a proposed policy or action is labelled “anti-democratic”, and therefore unjust – even when such policy has the support of large portions of the population (though some of these policies are legitimately anti-democratic).[3]

Why do such banal invocations of “democracy” have such profound effect in justifying a wide range of activities? Primarily it is because “democracy” is perceived as universal: in Western society – even profoundly illiberal ones – it is near-impossible to argue that one is not interested in furthering the values of democracy. The debate is rather about whether a particular policy or another is more democratic or more anti-democratic than another.

This is, then, a paradox of the modern construction of power in Western “democracies”: democratic values do, legitimately and honestly, support both sides. It is true to the nature of democracy that it encompasses the opinions of those who are both for and against a particular enactment. Our political discourse – at least that which comes from the mouths of elected officials and is given precedence in mass media – does not, however, reflect this nuance. Democracy has been corrupted to be about whichever side the speaker is on.

But let us take a step back, as Taylor does in the film, and explore the original meaning of democracy. We all know the etymology – democracy is the “rule of the people.” If this is the case, where are the people in the political constitutions of modern Western democratic states? They have been cut off, subjugated to a form of representation in which power can be exercised over, but never by. (This is becoming a theme of mine, I know).

The illusory nature of people’s rule notwithstanding, this is the second reason why “democracy” is such a powerful (yet empty) signifier in political discourse: because it perpetuates the myth that governments are made up of people. We all know this is not the case, but when politicians trumpet the term “democracy” over and over, it creates the illusion that they are truly the empty vessel of the people, exercising power on their behalf. Of course, this once again only holds up if one agrees with the policy being enacted.

Taylor’s film seeks to historicize and theorize the corruption of democracy in this way. She spends a significant amount of time in Greece, the birthplace of democracy, exploring its origins and understanding the historical factors that created the first democracy. One important note made in the film is that democracy was never intended to be “majority rule” – it was always rule by consensus of officials who were not elected, but were rather drawn from a lot. Power, even the ancient Greeks recognized, must be disinterested in power for its own sake. Systems must structured so that policies do not blindly serve the interests of the rulers but rather the interests of the community.

This interested power is the second reason Taylor’s film is in Greece: to recall one of the most blatant betrayals of democracy in modern history – the 2015 Bailout Referendum.[4] Greece, struggling under the weight of the EU’s imposed austerity measures, voted in a referendum to reject the terms of a bailout that voters perceived would have further crushed the livelihood and autonomy of the Greek people. Despite this referendum, the Greek government and the EU reached an agreement on a bailout just a few days later. As a Greek minister stated shortly after the agreement was signed, “We couldn’t overcome the bankers and northern European elite who have absolute power in this continent.”[5]

The question of modern democracy reveals itself as a question of capitalism. It is not the people who rule, but economy. When economy conflicts with democracy, economy wins. Cries of “democracy” and “democratic values” are revealed as little more than (un?)necessary inconveniences to legitimize policy that favours economic production (anyone familiar with the history of modern US imperialism can tell you this).

What is clear from Taylor’s film is that the question is not What is Democracy? – we  know what this is – but why do we not have democracy, and how do we get it? The answer to that is only by undermining the stranglehold of financial capital over democratic systems, and returning those systems to the people. As Silvia Federici states in the film, “Bottom up, not top down.”

Finally, perhaps the most important thing about What is Democracy? is how it centres the voices of women and people of colour. Taylor specifically explores what democracy and justice means to the people who have been most under-served by modern democratic systems. This includes the status of refugees feeling humanitarian crisis, which I have under-analyzed here. In doing so, she recognizes what democracy, at its core, must do: rectify historical injustices and give precedence to counter-majoritarian impulses. Only a system that both recognizes and actively embodies equality in this way can be called “democracy.”

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Footnotes

[1] Tiff.net, “Meet Astra Taylor, the director of What is Democracy?,” (30 August 2018), online: https://www.tiff.net/the-review/meet-astra-taylor-the-director-of-what-is-democracy/.

[2] For a particularly disgusting primary source account of this tendency, see Paul Bonicelli, “A Brief History of the ‘Democracy Through Regime Change’ Policy That Never Was,” Foreign Policy, (26 May 2015), online: https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/05/26/a-brief-history-of-the-democracy-through-regime-change-policy-that-never-was-part-1/.

[3] Matt Lewis, “Democrats Hate Gerrymandering—Except When They Get to Do It,” The Daily Beast, (2 April 2018), online: https://www.thedailybeast.com/democrats-hate-gerrymanderingexcept-when-they-get-to-do-it. This article also has the advantage of demonstrating the blatantly political nature of “democratic” discourse.

[4] Paul Mason, “Greece put its faith in democracy but Europe has vetoed the result,” The Guardian (13 July 2015), online: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/13/greece-bailout-eurozone-democracy-is-loser.

[5] Mark Lowen, “Greek debt crisis: What was the point of the referendum?” BBC, (11 July 2015), online: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33492387.

Displaced by Greed

I have just finished Matthew Desmond’s Evicted (2016). Though a couple years old, the stories of impoverished people in Milwaukee struggling simply to be is one that is localized neither to the time nor place. This is a omnipresent and ongoing phenomenon, and tenants – particularly low-income tenants – face the looming threat of eviction in Milwaukee, here in Vancouver, and throughout most cities in the developed (and likely undeveloped) world.

This constant displacement is a consequence of a cabal of economic and political interests that rely on the (ab)use of legal and political process to ensure that their elite-driven agenda succeeds. The poor receive the brunt of this assault directly and purposefully. They are first exploited for every last ounce of value they can produce,[1] then they are increasingly marginalized for their inability to meet the economic demands of the ruling class – in other words, to pay rent. So they get evicted.

The effects of eviction are profound. Desmond adroitly documents this:

Eviction even affects the communities that displaced families leave behind. Neighbors who cooperate with and trust one another can make their streets safer and more prosperous. But that takes time. Efforts to establish local cohesion and community investment are thwarted in neighborhoods with high turnover rates. In this way, eviction can unravel the entire fabric of a community, helping to ensure that neighbors remain strangers and that their collective capacity to combat crime and promote civic engagement remains untapped.

[. . . ]

Losing your home and possessions and often your job; being stamped with an eviction record and denied government housing assistance; relocating to degrading housing in poor and dangerous neighborhoods; and suffering from increased material hardship, homelessness, depression, and illness – this is eviction’s fallout. Eviction does not simply drop poor families into a dark valley, a trying yet relatively brief detour on life’s journey. It fundamentally redirects their way, casting them onto a different, and much more difficult, path. Eviction is a cause, not just a condition, of poverty.[2]

Displacement and alienation are key mechanisms of capitalist accumulation. It is well-documented in many contexts the course of capitalist domination, which forces occupants away from land, and severs social and political ties in so doing. This serves two functions: first, displacement allows for redevelopment, the replacement of the original function of the land with something that can generate more value. Vancouverites (and others, I’m sure) know well the threat of “renovictions,” wherein landlords evict tenants, perform renovations on the rental unit, and then rent the unit out at a sharply increased price. Thus, evictions serve a specific economic function in generating more value for landowners and landlords.

The second function of displacement and alienation is to undermine resistance. This is the social aspect, the sense of community that Desmond writes about above. This sense of community is important for more than just combating crime and promoting civic engagement – it is important for the very possibility of resisting further exploitation and displacement. It is not as if the capitalist landlord class is going to cease their activities on a whim. It is, rather, necessary that tenants are organized and able to create visions for their own independent futures and how to achieve it. In these ways, we see things like rent strikes and tenants’ unions offering this hope.

How is the capitalist ruling class able to accomplish this mass displacement and alienation so effectively? First, because the elite became that way as a result of generations of dispossession of the poor and Indigenous, and the consequent accumulation of wealth on the part of a select group of people. This same group of people controls the wast majority of wealth, therefore the wast majority of land and living space. There is little opportunity for upward mobility. Further, the history of this displacement is a racist, white supremacist one. The ruling class is therefore largely homogeneous.

Generations of elites have then been able to shape the law to support their ownership interests. This includes a litany of techniques designed to create racialized divisions of housing – segregation – and to exploit the living conditions of the poor and non-White by forcing them into slums or ghettos.[3] Beyond that, it serves to lock the poor in a cycle of poverty, as Desmond outlines above. Landlords, who disproportionately have access to legal counsel, utilize obscure legal provisions to evict tenants, who disproportionately lack access to legal counsel.[4] Access to low-income or subsidized housing is circumscribed to a particular subset of low-income individuals, who fulfill some per-determined and largely arbitrary requirement imposed upon them. Middle-income renters, who are increasingly living in precarious and unaffordable tenancies, receive little to no assistance at all, left to fend for themselves as rents increase and wages stagnate.

In BC, by way of example, despite the fact that 1 in 5 renters are spending over half of their income on housing, and rent has increased nearly 40% in comparison with the median wage, the provincial government announced an allowable rent increase of 4.5%. While it is nice to have any rent control at all, this type of policy is not only irresponsible but completely immoral. And it is only possible because government and legal systems reflect the interests of the most economically well-off, those who are perceived as contributing to the generation of revenue that can be taxed and turned into government services. This is, of course, capitalist mythmaking. But the fact that a government that was supposed to be an ally to renters and low-income people can be co-opted by such mythology is testament to the power this elite class possesses. There are possibilities outside of the framework of owner-renter. Our law and governance does little to reflect this.

At bottom, as always, the problem is one of political will. Resistance in these circumstances is difficult, but necessary. Renters make up the majority of population in most major North American cities – and the ratio is growing. Clearly a legal schema that favours owners while oppressing and abusing renters is not sustainable in this circumstance (along with all other tools of extreme inequality under capitalism). Thus we need to remain in solidarity and fight.

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Footnotes

[1] See, eg, Matthew Desmond, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, (New York: Penguin Random House, 2016), at p 306. Desmond notes that, historically, landlords supported the labour movement’s demands for increased wages, but only because they recognized increased wages meant they could increase rent.

[2] Ibid, at p 298-299.

[3] Richard Rothstein, The Colour of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, (New York: Liveright, 2017).

[4] Desmond, Evicted, at p 303.

“Ford”ing Through the Rule of Law

“I was elected. The judge was appointed,” Premier Doug Ford said at a press conference Monday, announcing he would invoke the [notwithstanding] clause. “A democratically elected government, trying to be shut down by the courts — that concerns me more than anything.”[1]

So we are in the midst of yet another constitutional (pseudo-)crisis in Canada. This current contention places in stark relief the relationship between the (“appointed”) judiciary and the (“democratically elected”) legislature/executive. The contention: an Ontario judge ruled that the hastily-assembled plan of Doug Ford to cut the size of the Toronto City Council in half, in the middle of an election, was unconstitutional. Thus, Doug Ford condemns the judiciary as overruling the will of the people, and invokes the “notwithstanding” clause to override the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Digital Life and the Promise of Democracy

In a conversation about the failings of our modern democratic systems, I recently told a relative of mine that the biggest problem facing the world with respect to democracy is the elimination of the division between political life and biological life. The schism between “bare life” (the Greek zoê) and “political existence” (greek bios) is what political philosopher Giorgio Agamben has stated as the “fundamental categorial pair of Western politics,” and is what enables the operation of sovereign political power to subjugate and control citizens.[1] As Agamben continues, “here is politics because man is the living being who, in language, separates and opposes himself to his own bare life and, at the same time, maintains himself in relation to that bare life in an inclusive exclusion.”[2]

We will not here get into the minutiae of Agamben’s “inclusive exclusion,” also known as the “state of exception” (perhaps in a later post). His thesis here is that the foundation of politics is rooted in a fundamental distinction between a person qua human and a person qua political unit that enables the authentication, legitimization, and operation of sovereign – ie. violent – power.

In other words, political systems exist as a function of alienated humanity, and perpetuate this alienation through modes of control that are designed to further dehumanize individuals and increase the ability of politics to subjugate those dehumanized bodies.

My own argument – which is yet to be fully substantiated and in which I can already see significant theoretical gaps  – is the converse implied by Agamben’s analysis: if the authentication and exercise of sovereign power is more closely linked to individual personal humanity, we will produce better – in every sense – outcomes in the organization of society.

In practical terms, the problem is such: we elect a government, generally once every four years, that then has the full mandate to exercise violent sovereign power with very few organic checks on its exercise. Only during mandated, legislated (keep in mind that legislation is an enactment of the sovereign power) periods are we permitted to exercise our discontent and elect a government that might exercise sovereign power in a way that is more closely aligned with our own view of how it should be exercised. No matter how closely aligned government is with one’s personal opinions, however, the subject of governing and the exercise of governing remain separated.

So, what does this have to do with digital life? The answer is that technology can offer a potential merging of the two modes of existence I have discussed here. I speak of something akin to direct democracy, by which every person is enabled to engage equally in decision-making processes. A system that truly is able merge political and bare life requires some way of adjudicating conflicting points of view between large numbers of people living in society. Our current models of governance accomplish this through force: the threat of violence (eg. incarceration, sanction) for disobedience. This ideal system would do so through consenting participation. It seems only in this digital epoch is such a method even conceivable.

Two caveats to this line of thinking, to avoid the techno-utopianism endemic to the Silicon Valley mindset (there are many more problems, these are two that come to mind immediately):

1) Direct democracy existed in ancient Greece, which, in Agamben’s analysis, also founded the division of existence into bare life and political life. Thus, the promise of a technologically-facilitated “direct democracy” seems like a necessary condition for the merging of the two poles, but not a sufficient one. Sovereignty will remain located external to organic human existence without broader scale institutional changes. That is, it is not enough to just implement technological solutions to allow people to vote “better” and therefore “better” determine exercises of sovereign power, but we require full-scale systems change to implement this solution as the method by which sovereign power is exercised. The goal is to allow persons to be sovereign of their own lives.

2) From a practical standpoint, technological solutions present significant challenges in terms of capacity and access. Many persons lack the economic or educational resources to adequately engage in complex technological systems or complex systems of decision-making. Any innovation method of exercising sovereignty must not only account for it, but must be technologically agnostic, such that participation exists without

As a final note, there are movements and organizations around the world that are working actively on these problems and attempting to develop technological methods to facilitate exactly this fusion I have discussed. A couple of the most interesting:

• Democracy Earth
• G0v (the “gov zero” movement)

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Footnotes

[1] Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, (Standford: Stanford University Press, 1995) at p 8.

[2] Ibid at p 8.

We Have Been Here Before, We Have Always Been Here

Guess in what year the following passage was written:

The housing shortage in Vancouver is so severe that landlords can charge what they want and get away with it. People who desperately need a place to live have to take what they can get, even if they can’t really afford the rent. Furthermore, nothing is being done that allows even a hope that the housing shortage will be alleviated in the foreseeable future.

The cost of a new home is so high that young married couples just starting out may as well forget about it.