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The ProbIem of Democracy in Mass Society

The Problem of Democracy in Mass Society
by Umberto Cerroni
Source:
PRAXS nternational (PRAXS nternational), issue: 1 / 1983, pages: 34-53, on www.ceeol.com.
ARTICLES
THE PROBLEM OF DEMOCRACY IN MASS
SOCIETY *
Urabeito Cerroni
Translated by Patrizia Heckle
1. The So-called Crisis of Democracy
The political studies of our time are characterized by a gradual abandon-
ment of great theoretical enterprises and a gradual shift to the search for
pragmatic solutions to the practical crises of political systems. This phe-
nomenon is closely related to the general diffusion of pragmatic culture to
every area of the social sciences. It is also related to the actual crises of political
institutions confronted with an enormous increase of the masses due to
universal suffrage and political, union, and cultural activism. In this
confrontation the apparatus of the old liberal elitist state has been shaken.
It is strange, however, that in this climate of crisis, the debate about the
major theoretical problems of democracy has been loosing impetus and that,
for example, the discussion about the definition of democracy has been
reduced to the discussion about the "crisis of democracy" without first asking
which democracy is in crisis. We must ask, instead, if this crisis of liberal
democracy (it is liberal democracy that is in crisis) should raise again in a new
form the old theoretical debate between democracy and liberalismwhich led
to the debate of the theory of socialism.
But the issue is not simply a theoretical one; we need to shed light on an
important element in the practical crisis of democratic systems. I am referring
to the gradual "technicization" of democracy which constitues a real "death
sentence" for political life, cuts off the connections with civil society and
alienates the problem of the functioning of the political system from the major
problems of our time such as the problems of social change, of international
peace, of the political division of the world, of hunger and scarce resources.
It is true that the narrowing of the problem of democracy to the problem of
the functioning of the political system is justified by the necessity to discover
the technical flaws of that system and its possible improvement. The question
is whether this renewing of the problem obscures the symptoms of deep
political disequilibria, wide social distances, malfunctions unsolvable through
constitutional mechanisms, and important aspects of the social anomie and the
general malaise of modern civilization. If this were true, then, we would be
unduly emphazising the technical means of politics and the
*This is a translation of a selection of the article, "La Democrazia Come Problems Delia Societa" Di Massa.
34
Praxis International
35
instrumentalization of its ends. Then the crisis of democracy would be
worsened by this very emphasis and instrumentalization, by the false
presumption that the adherence to democracy is mere adherence to the "rules
of the game"that the consensus for democracy does not come from higher
ideals, deeper ends, or more complex demands. The final result could be
called, using Crozier's terminology, the pursuit of a "consensus without
objectives." Crazier writes: "What is lacking in democratic societies today is
. . . not the consensus about the rules of the game, but a sense of the
objectives which one should realize by participation in the game."
1
The
contemporary "crisis of democracy" is directly related to the objectives of the
game, even if democracy necessarily requires its "rules of the game."
We will not discuss the rediscovery of the "classical" problems of demo-
cracy because our main purpose is the analysis of the internal flaws of
contemporary arguments; we would like, however, to mention here two
important quotations. The first is from Hans Kelsen, the theoretician of the
modern judicial technicism; it stresses the deep connections between the
techniques used by representative democracy and the socio-economic system.
Kelsen writes: "Parlamentarism appears . . . as a compromise between the
democratic necessity for freedom and the principlethe differentiating and
conditioning cause of any socio-technical progressof the division of labor."
2
The second quotation which further explains the connection between the
forms of the representative state and the modern social system is from Ernst
Forsthoff: "It can be seen that this modern social state . . . is subject to the
paradox which first makes real power impossible but then, in the case of a crisis
and of a threat to its existence, needs power and authority more so than any
other state."
3
While Kelsen relates modern political forms to the existence of
the division of labor in our contemporary social forms, Forsthoff shows that
the crisis of the political representative forms needs more consensus and more
authority which can come only from the reconsideration of the general objec-
tives of the modern political system. Otherwise we run the risk of losing the
very democractic method and the basic techniques, which are necessary but
not sufficient for political democracy. The history of our century is full of
examples showing that the consolidation of democracy or technical systems is
strictly related to the capacity of making them socially efficient by founding it
on mass consensus. Where this foundation was not strong the very democratic
system of competitive designation of representatives has been destroyed. And
even where the absence of external authoritarian threats led to the techniciz-
ation of politics, the ever-present risk is the one .mentioned by Crozier:
democracy is built on a consensus without objectives, which degenerates into
mass political apathy and politicism.
The problem of democracy, therefore, is in its relation to mass society.
Born from the universal suffrage, democracy now cannot lose touch with the
world of human beings without losing touch with itself. Upon this relation it
must build its objectives and also test its technical means of practical function-
ing.
The true "crisis of democracy" is perhaps related to the limitations imposed
upon it by those who see its destiny in the techniques of the political system.
Distributed by CEEOL
36 Praxis International
Thus it is forced to seek^and produce) a "consensus without objectives" in
the very moment when growing numbers of people are willing to give only a
"consensus with objectives." It is a crisis which reflects a different evaluation
of the ability of democracy to answer the questions of humanity but also of the
ability of human beings themselves to answer the question of progress.
2. Democracy Between Politics and Economics
Political studies have come, to a standstill on the definition of political
democracy provided by the meeting of three intellectual traditions of the
twentieth century: Kelsen's tradition of judicial normatism, Weber's sociolog-
ical tradition, and Mosca's, Pareto's and Michels' political-logical, elitist
tradition. The first has improved the procedural conception of democratic
techniques; the second has shed light upon connections between these techni-
ques and the mechanisms of the capitalist market, and on its "rationality"; the
third has stressed the problem of the constitution of the ruling elite as the
central problem of the functioning of the political system. The main novelty
introduced by these traditions (although they have developed from the liberal
culture that derives from Kant, Humboldt, Costant, and Guizot) consists of
their shifting the focus of the discussion from the "philosophic" critique of
universal suffrage and the "dogma of popular sovereignty" to the techniques
through which the political system is built and ruled by an elite implementing
decisions capable of reproducing the political system itself.
The elision of this philosophical polemic came to a turning point in 1942
when Schumpeter in Capitalism, Socialism, Democracy proposed to define
democracy as a "political method, a constitutional instrument to reach
political (legislative and administrative) decisions, which cannot become an
end in itself without taking into account what those decisions will produce
under given historical conditions." One should "give up the idea of a 'people's
government' and substitute it with that of a 'government approved by the
people'."
4
This definition was meant to end a philosophical debate, but it
generated quite a few problems in the analysis of modern political issues. I will
indicate at least three problems: 1) The political system is separated from the
general historical context; but isn't it exactly in this context that its deep roots
and its dymanics lie? 2) The historical system of the "given conditions" is given
even in relation to the political system so that the latter can make decisions
only as long as these do not change it and reproduce, together with the given
conditions, also the given political system; 3) Democracy and politics in
general are reduced, as Schumpeter said, to "the rule of the politician"; on
one side the people can only choose the rulers, on the other the rulers have the
task of making decisionsas if the people had nothing else to demand from
politics (and democracy) and politics (and democracy) had nothing else to
offer. Separation, impotence, professionalism, decision-making: these are the
characteristics given by Schumpeter's definition of democracy as a renewed
form of liberalism.
5
We must add that this definition, by reducing democracy to a method of
choosing the ruling elites, stresses the importance of the very techniques for
Praxis International 37
the election of the leaders which were absent in the Rousseauian democratic
tradition and the Marxist socialist tradition.
These two traditions did not pose the problem of the technical structure of
politics because for them politics was either an ethical-pedagogic system
(Rousseau's "republican virtue
55
) or an economic system (Marx's "socializ-
ation of the means of production
55
). These two traditions, and especially the
latter, had to pay a price for their structural gap; however, the reduction of
democracy to a method raises again the problem of the connection between
politics and morals (
55
the ends
55
) and between politics and economics ("the
means
55
or "conditions
55
), that is, the problem of the content of the political
decisions. The important issue is not only who decides but also what is decided.
Schumpeter
?
s conception carries within itself a separatist conception of
politics which endorses, on one side, the privatization, of the ends since they
are "moral
55
(absence of a "public philosophy
55
) and, on the other side, a
"naturalization
55
of the existing conditions, and in particular of the capitalist
economy.
6
The political decision is thus reduced to mere command, the
imperative of power. And all this takes place under "given historical condi-
tions
55
which are not taken into account by the political scientist when study-
ing the political system as a mechanism of pure political engineering.
From the critical conditions analyzed above, we can conclude that, after
Schumpeter, the problem of a definition of democracy occupies a central
position again; a definition which indicates and stresses its method and techni-
ques but incorporates them in a system of historical values which does not
degenerate into Rousseau's Utopia or Kant's "community of ends
55
; a defini-
tion which channels these techniques toward a critical analysis of the "given
conditions
55
in order to restructure and even transform them, if the popular
sovereignity wants to do so. In this way it is possible to avoid not only the
skepticism lying underneath "technicized
55
politics, but also the endorsement
of unacceptable historical conditions and the risk of a mass indifference
toward the very survival of a ruling method which is certainly better than any
other.
7
3. Attempts of Renewal
The fundamental flaw of the above mentioned traditions consists of their
inability to combineby mediating themthe formal, structural analysis and
the historical, cultural analysis. The former tends to reduce political demo-
cracy to a mere system of technical rules and judicial procedures, while the
latter tends to reduce political and judicial problems to general social prob-
lems. In this way, on the practical level, political democracy has been
traditionally juxtaposed to social democracy and vice versa. Out of this
juxtaposition grew both the liberal-democratic and social-democratic parties
(which have denied or softened the critique of capitalism) and the commun-
ist, radical parties, which in their critique of capitalism have included the
critique of political democracy and its technical rules.
These speculative interpretations constantly appear in the theoretical
debates, and in the practical polemic. They reflect a real difficulty of medi-
38 Praxis International
ation between the formal and the functional aspects of democracy.
The most illustrative casebecause of the theoretical level that characte-
rizes itis the discussion which took place in Germany in the,1970
5
s between
Niklas Luhmann, a representative of systemic sociology, and Jiirgen Haber-
mas, a representative of German neo-Marxism. They are certainly sophistic-
ated theoretical positions, in the intellectual tradition of the "old Europe,"
and nonetheless are led by the logic of the argument to the "impasse"
mentioned above, including the common Weberian reduction, of society to
social action, and politics to political action, of right to decision. The prob-
lematic of modern political-judicial institutions, which cannot be reduced to
the category of action and of decision, finds itself isolated although these
institutions make possible the unification of ideas-ends and relations-means.
Luhmann starts from the critique of the "archaic" conceptions of the "Old
Europe," i.e., the "classical" reflection upon the separation of state and
society (and thus upon the categories of sovereignty and representation). He
takes as his reference point a "more complex" scheme of society in which the
political system is not outside but inside society itself.
8
In this way Luhmann
wants to stress that power in advanced society is no longer identifiable with
force, and, therefore, "the discussion about the 'right of the stronger' . . .
moves . . . from a too simplistic theory of power."
9
On the other hand, in
these advanced societies there is a "secondary codification of power by
right,"
10
a symbolic sophistication of force realized in judicial coercion which
somewhat opposes force and legitimacy: "an increase in force diminishes
legitimacy and vice versa."
11
The typical problem of power then becomes the problem of legitimation,
taking into account the pursuit of "spontaneous" obedience and thus a
legitimate reduction of the great complexity of modem society. Luhmann
identifies consensus (and democracy) as the key to modern political power
(and to the State), but then he speaks again of power as an instrument to
reduce the above mentioned complexity.
12
The theoretical procedure used by
Luhmann is not different from the one used by Kelsen who gives a central
position to the issue of the normative validity of the judicial commands of the
State and, nonetheless, puts it under the primacy of the efficiency of facts by
positing a fundamental norm which is supposed to be valid.
13
Since the recogni-
tion of the extra-formal system of society is made only for the purpose to
propose its reduction, the apparent problematic extension is immediately
limited (by Luhmann and Kelsen) in such a way that the formal structures are
posited as the foundation structures of the whole social system. Rather than
being inside society, the political-judicial system subsumes society: it is the
whole society, its measure and reduction. The "recognized" social universe
will have no other function than that of guaranteeing the stable reproduction
of the formal mechanisms which measure and reduce it. Like Kelsen,
Luhmann must recognize the necessity of an unavoidable "compromise"
through which the separation of State and society (which was contested in the
"classical" tradition) is artifically restored. The means (politics, right, power,
State) become end: "the maintenance of stability is the primary problem of the
system."
14
Praxis International
39
The consensual policy of democracy becomes a ficticious postulate, non-
sense: from a concurrence of chances to build the decision of power it becomes
the object of power, and the power, which was inside society, is outside it
having the specific function of deciding by excluding (reducing) the concurr-
ence of chances. But in this way Luhmann, like Kelsen, must open the door to
decisionism: it is no longer a question of directing, the decisions, but a
question of deciding the directions. Every decision will become an orientation
upon which the functioning and general meaning of politics and society are
measured, since power is not only outside society but it maintains the unity of
society.- Thus, the specific function of power will be exactly that of making
society functional to power! Behind the modernity of the theory of systems
hides the oldest Europe; "the foundation of the political system is the posses-
sion of the monopoly over physical violence."
15
On the other side, the "complexity
55
of advanced capitalism has been
explored by Habermas and Offe in the Frankfurt tradition. Habermas is fully
aware of the theoretical necessity to operate with the "classical" separation of
State and society in order to reach a reunification of the two. He subtly
criticizes the theory of systems which "conceives every social sytem starting
from the center of control/'
16
and thus cannot identify the genetic history of
control itself nor properly reconstruct the real functions of the political system
in relation to the economic-social system as a whole. Habermas asserts the
necessity for "a. historically oriented analysis of the social systems" and
realizes the usefulness of the "Marxian concept of social formation."
17
But he
cannot avoid the difficulties of the orthodox Marxist tradition in the analysis
of the Marxian social type of capitalism. Habermas, too, is unable to avoid
economic reductionism, although he is clearly aware that "a purely economic
analysis is no longer capable of prognoses."
18
Habermas, like Luhmann,
realised that the legitimate state is something different from a purely coercive
machine, and that its existence is not conditioned only by the dangers of the
economic crisis. He represents the State, however, as a mere function of
economic accumulation, and Right as mere will and political decision. He
understands, though, that "the trends of crisis move from the economic to the
administrative system,"
19
and that those trends (caused by the growing imbl-
ance between expectations and possibilities) involve the structural mechanism
and determine the "abolition of bourgeois ideals" and of the processes of
imiversalization.
20
But he cannot explain why the modern "class domination"
happens in the egalitarian forms of the democratic State. Neither Habermas
nor Offe can resolve this dilemma: if modern Right is truly formal, it does not
discriminate between classes and does not constitute a true class domination;
but if it constitutes this domination it cannot be egalitarism and constitute
political democracy. In other words, either the State is reduced once again to
mere force (a repressive., discriminating machine), or the "class domination"
must be understood in a new way, referring to the complex analysis of the
separation between political State and civil society.
This paradoxical dilemma is present in Offe who maintains that "in capital-
ist industrial societies political domination is the method of class domination
which does not reveal itself as such."
21
Thus, Offe must come to two absurd
40 Praxis International
conclusions: "that the class character of the State . . . is totally unaccessible to
objectifying knowledge
5522
an'd that the oppressed are unable to understand it.
Offe must then give the initiative to the political decision, which, however, as
Habermas notes, becomes a pure and simple "conjecture,
55
lacking any intel-
lectual project, a simple manifestation of vitalism (class instinct!). Habermas,
however, is unable to propose something different, although he admits the
possibility of an "objectifying knowledge'
5
of political phenomena to save the
very possibility of science, and tries in vain to avoid economic tautologies.
Both Luhmann and Habermas, then, perceive the centrality of the problem of
Right in the modern State and of its distinction from force and mere class will.
As Luhmann notes, society in advanced capitalism is characterized by its
appeal to normalized power, in particular judicial power, rather than to the
brutal and selfish use of power, and he adds that "legitimate
55
power can be
"more interfering if reduced to force.
5524
Neither can free himself from the
idea that the State is a voluntarily maneuverable instrument, a machine
producing arbitrary will, maintaining class division instead of depending on
class division. Luhmann asserts that "Right as a code of power produces
legitimacy in a structural way,"
25
but he does not explain why this structural
legitimacy of power is the characteristic product only of modern time, nor
why the judicial code of power is a specific system of advanced capitalist
society. Habermas, who understands the historicity of legitimate power and of
its judicial-formal code, cannot explain how it can be "class domination." The
two conceptions become speculative: Luhmann is obliged to axiomatize the
capitalist functionality of the State and of political democracy without explain-
ing it, because he has decided that the State is a class state.
26
Habermas is
unable to see a connection of funtionality between the legal State and adv-
anced capitalism. Luhmann establishes that connection only by going back to
the old conception of class division as political-judicial constraint.
By working essentially with the category power-will-decision, both
Luhmann and Habermas are unable to see in the State and in Right the
"subjective
55
element which now appears as the ordering and systematizing
reason of society, and as the irrational and abusive will of society itself. Both
overlook the complex historical mechanism that Marx summarized by saying
that "only the separation of civil and political classes expresses the true
relationship of modern civil society and political society.
55
It is exactly in this
separation that the modern State appears as a State representing society; it
becomes an ordering order of society and an ordered order of society. Its order,
then, becomes a regulatory normative system only as long as it is also an
institutional apparatus regulated by the mode of production which characte-
rizes social reproduction.
This problematic is lost when the discussion concentrates upon State-power
and Right-will because in this configuration we lose the rigorous and differen-
tial character of the modern State as representative State, i.e., the State that
by remaining separated determines itself as the product and sanction of social
division. Furthermore, modern egalitarian and formal Right is not only the
expression of a will but the historically necessary manifestation of voluntary
acts which mediate the exchange of goods between separated producers.
Praxis International 41
It is also a problematic which has an essential historical reference in the
"classical" tradition inasmuch as it characterizes the same type of society,
although developed in a new way in its political-judicial form. It is finally a
problematic which the orthodox Marxist tradition has buried under the
axiomatic and simplifying (paradigmatic) postulate that ''history is the history
of class struggles"
27
meaning that the classes are the demiurges of history
instead of being themselves the product of the history of the modes of production.
4.Expectations and Values
If it is true, as Farneti maintained, that liberalism fell into crisis because it
was turning into democracy, it is also true that democracy today, in a mass
society 5 runs the risk of falling into crisis if it turns into liberalism. It risks, to
use Abendroth's terminology, a kind of death by self-induced freezing.
28
Mass
society presents enormous problems: on the one hand, it raises demands and
expectations that the government cannot easily reject or ignore; on the other,
it gives answers that risk being inadequate and thus diminish the consensus on
democracy.
There is no doubt that, confronted with such problems, the proposals of
both neo-liberalism and old socialism have failedand are also dangerous.
Neo-liberalism tends to "reduce" the demands by reducing the historical
function of democracy to mere designating method and thus to push aside as
uninfluential or even dangerous many "values" which are advanced in the
name of democracy by the masses. The old socialism, through its instrumental
conception of political democracy, shifts the emphasis from innovations to
economic demands that are very hard to satisfy. Between liberal authoritarian
tendencies and corporate claims there opens a vacuum for the values of
political democracy.
Thus the "culture of democracy" is threatened on one side by "technicism"
and on the other by "economicism." There seems to be a peculiar converg-
ence between those who react to the "irresponsible blackmail" of growing
economic demands by supporting the elitist state (Crozier, Huntington) and
those who posit a system of needs of the "new subjects" confined to the
economic and materialistic sphere.
It is then essential to re-examine critically the aging conceptions of neo-
liberal and old-socialist politics. These conceptions, which constitute the
limits of both the ruling elite and the opposition, are reflected in the
incapability of giving the masses an effective participation in modern demo-
cracy and also of promoting "higher" needs in the masses.
The "cultural anarchy of industrial societies" (Daniel Bell) has its roots in
the absence of cultural alternatives for the new subjects. On the one hand, the
general pragmatism stifles political democracy and prevents participation; on
the other hand, crass economic claims create in the masses a corporate
consciousness unable to reach the higher levels of general politics and culture.
Here is the root of the modern "loss of civitas" (Bell) and of the lack of a
"public philosophy" (Lippmann, Boudon): in the closing of the old political
forces and in the failed opening of the new ones. If it is true that it is in the
42 Praxis International
field of culture that capitalism has its weakest point and its "hegemony" is
destroyed,
29
the legitimization of a historical change must present a richer
cultural side than the one provided by the socialist theoreticians of the "homo
oeconornicus."
We face here a serious theoretical problem. Classical political theory has
developed two opposed lines of thought regarding political sovereignty. One
(Montesquieu, Kant) has insisted on the idea of sovereignty-designation: the
law to be chosen must be "reason" and therefore must be decided by an elite
of intellectuals. The other (Rousseau, Utopian Socialists) has emphasized that
the law must represent the "will" of the members of society. The former
theory rejected a real participation of the people in political decisions and
exalted the authority of the powers that be against popular political will. The
latter theory demanded from the will of all an ethical effort to reach the
rational mediation through the general will. Compared to these two classical
theories, the socialist conception of the law as a function of interests was a
major step forward. Classical theory ended up by excluding politics in the
name of philosophy; socialist theory, however, risks reducing politics to mere
economics unless it succeeds in mediating class interests with the will of all
and general reason. The techniques of political democracy provide this medi-
ation. Once the general ability of everybody to express their responsible will is
recognized through the universal suffrage, it is crucial to provide programs in,
which the interests of one group seem reasonable to the entire community and
thus gain the consensus of the majority. As Gramsci teaches us, the mature
stage of socialism starts when it faces the problem of a logical connection
between interests (class), rights (will), duties (reason). Then economics, poli-
tics, law, and morality form an integral unity.
5. Overburden and Responsibility
Crozier has described very well the conditions of mass society when he
speaks of the coalescence of a great number of groups, of the explosion of
information, and of a democratic "ethos" preventing a total repression.
30
From the combination of these elements comes an increasing number of
conflicting demands which put pressure on the democratic government con-
strained by a lack of resources. In this framework, the emergence of new
political and social subjects and their accessibility to education becomes a
source of weakness for the democratic government. There starts a process of
reduction of the demand which increases the weight of the bureaucracy and
the centers of power at the expense of all political elements. Thus the answer
generates decreasing consensus together with increasing repression. The gov-
ernment then must follow other paths, from the manipulation of the mass
media to the further shrinkage of political freedom. But the greatest danger is
that political life would then swing between outbursts of endemic rebellion
(terrorism) and prolonged apathy. These are the seeds of both the ideology of
the inefficiency of politics and democracy, and the apocalyptic ideology of the
eleventh hour.
Praxis International
43
The "reduction" of the demand is not only difficult to realize but is also an
inefficient and dangerous expedient ifcontrary to the initial hopesit risks
weakening consensus and with it the whole democratic system. This is proven
by the slow but continuous decrease in voters' participation, the spread of
political violence, the gradual "apartheid" of politics, the degeneration of
parliaments, the supremacy of the executive, and the diffusion of extra-
parliamentary politics.
The extreme phenomena are two: the spread of terrorism as "normal"
means of political struggle; and the formation of a dual state, defined by Wolfe
as a form of government with two heads:one calm and efficient for the elite,
the other spectacular and theoretical for the masses.
31
The two wounds of
politics reopen: its foundation on force rather than on consensus, and its
"ambivalence." Once more, politics turns into violence, whether physical or
moral.
Politics as a whole degenerates into the cult of power for power's sake and
invokes a form of violence which finds its justification in the violence of others
and its legitimization in the brutality and cynism of the apparent. Through a
modern reversal of traditional Machiavellism we come to a similiarly
disconcerting result: politics becomes a means and power an endan end
devoid of any social and human meaning. Manipulation becomes a surrogate
of authority (C. Wright Mills), and authority a surrogate of political life. "The
system rotates on i t sel f (Narr).
It is imperative that we think of politics as a social instrument in order to
stop the process of its transformation into an end in itself. This problem
comes up even in countries like the United States where politics never had a
strong ideological character, in contrast to Europe. Politics as a competitive
market cannot produce anything but processes of mediation constantly
subordinated by powerful groups or opposed by weaker ones: either oppres-
sion or apathy. We cannot forget the three fundamental criticisms of the
liberal corporatism of Leo Panitch:
32
1) Lack of a rigorous theory of the
State, of a diagnosis of the separation of State and society, and of the conflict
and antagonism of the atomized interests upon which they want to build the
"social harmony"; 2) the fictitious "equivalence of power" postulated by the
representatives of social interests; 3) the resulting instability of the corporate
construction. If this is all true, these new political strategies must face a
dilemma: either they support once again popular sovereignty and political
representation in order to solve the irreconciliabie conflicts, or they develop
the authoritarian trends of political corporatism and change the political
structure of the liberal State itself.
6. R edefining Socialism
To give the politics of mass society a different course we must confront the
problem of a comprehensive reform of representative democracy which
returns the functionality of politics to modern society. We must realize that
representative democracy is an institution connected with the actual division
of labor; therefore, it must continue to be the central system of politics for an
44
Praxis International
entire historical epoch. We must recognize, however, the demands for socializ-
ation emerging from the flaws of the actual division of labor. The question is
thus one of integrating representative and direct forms of democracy into a
political system which is able to cope with the growing demand for integration
and conscious leadership in a split society. We must abandon the abstract
opposition of representative and direct democracy. The purely representative
form is fragile and lacks mass support; the direct form also lacks reliable mass
support as long as modern social relations are not deeply transformed.
33
We
are faced with the complex problem of subverting the traditional vertical
relation of a delegatory democracy which gradually narrows its decision-
making power. This subversion is accomplished by introducing a complex
mechanism of political checks upon the political decisions. In this way,
participation does not mean a confused mass of people and demands, but a
stratified and ordered system of efficient political decisions where the execu-
tive body responds to the representative body and thus in turn responds to the
popular mandate. This requires some criteria: a) constant involvement of
social and cognitive competence in the representation and political decision at
any level; b) diffusion to all sectors of public life of the competitive electoral
systems (school democracy, college democracy, factory democracy,
democratization of the administration, the army, the police, public health
systems, etc.); c) strengthening of all procedural guarantees (individual and
collective) of the State, especially the right of abstention from participation; d)
the convergence of the different channels of the system into the democratic
construction of general decisions based on modern information techniques.
Mass support is essential to the ruling elite in order to overcome its liability
and internal separation without loss of efficiency and of judicial-political
mediation. State intervention- ceases to be bureaucratic manipulation and
becomes a process of socialization and politicization of society, while partici-
pation leads to mass responsibility.
There is little doubt that it is only from the organized workers
5
movement
that the support for the deep transformation of politics can come. This is
proved by the fact that even in countries with a strong liberal tradition the
workers' movement becomes a primary force in the management of politics.
But we must stress that the function of the labor movement must go beyond
the mere function of mass integration and co-management of the existing
social relations within the liberal or social-democratic framework. The labor
movement must maintain its ability to express and direct ail the critical
potentials of modern society. It must make clear the distinction between itself
and the liberal-democratic conceptions, not only in its method of "acquiring
power" but also in its methods of organization and management of power. On
the other hand, the labor movement must base its criticism of capitalist society
on the real historical necessities and on the real democratic consensus given to
its political program.
The socialist workers' movement must introduce a radical reform of its
traditions not by giving up its program but by turning it into motivated
theoretical hypotheses and by formulating political programs for the solution
of real problems. It must be a double process of culture becoming autonomous
Praxis International 45
from immediate politics and of secularization of politics. Culture must, be freed
from hyper-politicization and politics from doctrinaire impositions. From
these two main flaws the idea derived that the crisis of capitalism is necessarily
a crisis-collapse as well as the idea of the primacy of politics
34
reduced to power
(to be conquered and maintained). Then politics is reduced to an arbitrary
lever of the socio-economic order and a directional pivot of culture.
The fetishism of power had produced other dogmas of traditional socialism:
the mistaken view of capitalism as the result of fraudulent schemes of sly
politicians instead of seeing it as the result of objective processes connected to
the social and economic system of production; and the idea that this violent
domination must be opposed by counter-violence. In this way, the socialists
overlooked the importance of consensus. The fringe that accepted political
democracy accepted it as a mere method detached from the workers' criticism
of capitalist society, while the fringe that favored this criticism tended to deny
the importance of democracy as a method, or accepted it only as a temporary
and occasional instrument for the transition to a new society. Both these
conceptions of democracy led to the narrowing of the scope of modern
political democracy.
Only the total breakdown of such dogmatic schemes can correct the widely
accepted notion of socialism as "the biggest missed realization of our century"
(D. Bell). Socialists must become aware that radical theoretical criticism does
not necesarily led to immediate political programs; they must confront the real
problem and respond to the real will of the workers; they must understand
that democratic and realistic political programs are not opportunistic simpli-
fications but developments of true necessities of society of the real will of men
and women. Socialism must be redefined through a renewed analysis of the
industrial capitalist society.
In the advanced capitalist society there is .conflict between the political
democratic forces and the private structures of appropriation and atomized
interests. The result is a complex form of competition with very delicate
political balances where the formalism of the State and political democracy are
often manipulated to the advantage of private and corporate interests. These
manipulations can become direct attacks upon political democracy. Then
political competition becomes a constant risk for political democracy, while
political life itself is in danger of bringing about the apathy of the masses. The
problem of the decay of democracy remerges because of external attack or
inner vacuum. As Daniel Bell said, "we must establish new ends."
35
And, in
particular, we must establish "new ends" that consist of the transformation of
the elitist political system as well as the transformation of the economic and
social system. The only limitation (but it is not a real limitation) is in the
consensus of the majority.
7. Democracy and Change
The dialectical process of conservation-innovation takes place at the top
levels of politics and culture: conservation avails itself of political democracy
as long as the latter has sufficient hegemony; innovation accepts political
46 Praxis International
democracy only when the latter has acquired sufficient consensus. Political
democracy thus becomes the ground for confrontation of the capacities of each
historical force to keep or acquire the leadership of society.
It is then necessary to go back to the original anti-ideological ("lay")
vocation of "scientific
5
' socialism: the criticism of the historical, real function-
ing of capitalist relations (das Kapital remains a classical model). Confronted
by this necessity, the old theoretical dogmatism crumbles.
The doctrinaire models of a socialism entirely preconceived according to
philosophical schemes,' the mimetic models of the first socialist constructions,
and the discussions about models,not related to rigorous critical functions of
the real social mechanism all become obsolete and useless. The model must
become model-function as does every political program which tends to deal
with and solve real problems.
In politics, though, a model-function is not only a function of economic
mechanisms but also a function of the interests created by them and of the
resulting divisions among people. Again, the problem of the model-function
raises the issue of consensus and political democracy. The problem of the
integration of political democracy into the struggle for social change becomes
an internal and organic question; it keeps on coming up in the history of all
socialist "worlds" with no "respect" for old banners.
In the Western world the problem emerges clearly because of the crucial
importance of political democracy in the history of the modern State. In those
countries where this issue becomes a specific objective for the socialist move-
ment (as in Italy, following the struggle against Fascism and the "Gramscian
55
maturation of the hegemony-consensus), there is a' signficant opposition
between this socialist goal-oriented democracy and the liberal-democratic
instrumentalization of democracy.
36
The problem still remains of how to
reorganize a mass democracy into modern participatory forms. This requires
two operational criteria: the unconditional acceptance of the political-judicial
techniques of the State as historical techniques, and the abandoment of the
myth of a mass considered not as a mass of people, of politically conscious
individuals, a mass of subjects.
The transposition of the social conflict on the ground of political
competition is a specific effect of the new form of production of the relative
surplus value. With the enlargement of democracy, politics changes from its
present social anomie to a communal life in which the demands for radical
social change reach maturity.
The original conflict between owners and proletarians is not abolished, but
it develops into general competition leading to the political and cultural
integration of the totally assimilated workers' class, or to the proposal of a
general political and cultural alternative. Integration may degenerate into
mass apathy and revolutionary claims. The competition for hegemony must
overcome mere corporate vindications without falling into integration and
must prove its leading ability.
The conquest of mass consensus can have opposite outcomes. It might
become a mere instrument of assimilation (passive consensus) in an
instrumental or liberal-democratic framework. Or it might become an instru-
Praxis International 47
meet to verify an alternative historical program aiming at the growth of mass
civilization.
The attitude toward democracy is a historical test of the maturity of modern
classes inasmuch as it compels them to submit their particular programs to the
trial of their general validity. The objective is no longer the "conquest of
power" by a new elite but the general growth of a responsible self-government.
The analysis of "scientific socialism" made by Marx leads to an organic
recuperation of political democracy in the stage of mature capitalism. The
production of relative surplus value concentrates the social conflict no longer
on violent forms of private-appropriation and social exclusion but on forms of
mutual consensus ("symbolic") on the leadership of the state. What takes place
is not the abolition of private property (Schumpeter) but rather a transform-
ation of the relationship production-appropriation, since the appropriation of
the social products is mediated by constant capital (the machines as the
objectifications of the social brain [Marx] of science) on the material level, and
by consensus on the political level. The "struggle against exploitation" takes
the shape of the struggle against the private appropriation by objectified
science of its product and the struggle for the democratic-communication
structure of politics. It is the claim of collective interest over private interest,
of national sovereignty over "multinational" interests, of the political and
civil integration of the nations over aristocratic separations of advanced
countries, of the State over the secret machinations of dishonest agents, of the
comunitarian sense over elitism, of the need for science and culture over the
restrictions imposed to progress by the race for private profit. This modern
class struggle stimulates the responsible maturation of the workers by making
them the protagonists of a communitarian project based on the convergence of
the interests of the workers with those of science, culture, and the majority of
society. Therefore, the development of a cultured mass of people able to
propose, choose, and decide becomes crucial. The workers' movement
becomes the axis of a radical criticism of capitalist society as well as the pivot
of a broad, political, and social reconstructing with a "national" and "univer-
sal" character. Instead of being strategists or princes, the parties themselves
become vectors controlled not only by the internal democratic techniques but
also by the external verifications of their programs on the consensus obtained
for the effective solution of real problems.
In this way we would realize the Marxist principle stating that the emanci-
pation of one class emancipates all humanity, since the very objective of
human emancipation (unconditional development of culture,-science, and
mankind) becomes the condition (means) for the class emancipation of the
modern proletariat. The only obstacle is the possible confusion by both the
bourgeoisie and the proletariat of means and ends (Marx): an illusion that
would keep the workers' movement in a condition of disparity regarding its
historical task and the whole society. The intelligence of the socialist move-
ment is now a condition of its strength as well as the condition of a universal
progress. Perhaps only its understanding of the historical period can solve the
dilemma presented by Tocqueville in Democracy in America: "Modern nations
cannot prevent the conditions from becoming equal; but it depends upon
48
Praxis International
them whether euqality leads them to slavery or freedom, civilization or
barbarity, prosperity or misery,
5
'
37
On a theoretically mature socialism
depends the possibility that the advanced capitalist society acts as a historical
bridge to a brutal barbarous mass society or to a mass civilization.
Inasmuch as the supremacy of popular sovereignty makes possible the
control, limitation, and eventual abolition of the private appropriation of
surplus value, political democracy becomes the instrument for this workers
5
emancipation. But since that supremacy requires that class interests be
accepted as the general interests of society through the consensus of the
majority, political democracy becomes an objective for class emancipation and
takes root among the popular masses of advanced industrial society. The
workers
5
movement becomes the guarantee of the social foundation of political
democracy, as well as the political-judicial refinement of social democracy, as
long as the workers realize that their interest in political democracy is not
merely instrumental since it protects them from political deviations. But this is
not only a defensive strategy. It is also an offensive strategy of pursuit of
economic socialization through the general development of democracy. There
is only one condition for such a strategy: the cultural and intellectual develop-
ment of the workers' movement; the conviction that its interest is not only
economic class interest but the general human emancipation; culture intended
as a form of integration for mankind. Thus, culturethe general
consciousnessbecomes the particular way in which the course of one class is
identified with that of mankind. By remaining a means for liberation culture
becomes a universal goal and as such acts as the prime mover for the emanci-
pation of the workers.
NOTES*
1 Crozier et ai, The Crisis of Democracy (Milan, 1977). This can be regarded as the principal
text of contemporay neo-iiberal theory.
2 See H. Kelsen, The Foundations of Democracy (Boiogne, 1966), p. 33. Although Kelsen
recognizes the impossibility of a directly self-governing society because of the division of
labor, he admits, nonetheless that the ideal of democracy is self-government and this
includes both the radical transformation of the social order and the end of the ruler-ruled
relation. This ideal, though, is "confined" to Utopia, using a Kantian intellectual approach
(historical laws are only "asymptotic" Kant said) analogous to the Weberian approach. It is
symptomatic that Kelsen uses in his definition of democracy Rousseau's famous sentence
"the English people believe thay are free but they are very wrong: they are free only during
the parliamentary elections" (Social Contract I, 6). In a certain way Marx takes up this
tradition when he connects the modern representative State (and its political freedom) with
the atomism of the division of labor in bourgeois society. He proposes both the com-
munitarian development of the representative State and the socialization of civil society.
But this is a Marx who is totally unaware of the most popular Marxist ideologies which
have proposed the assimilation of society into the State.
3 Analogous conclusions are to be found in The Crisis of Democracy (see above), where it is
said that the "system becomes one of anomic democracy in which democratic politics is
* All references are to the Italian editions.
Praxis International
49
more an arena for conflicting interests than a process of elaboration of common goals" (p.
148). Hence, the "disequilibrium" between demand for power and supply of consensus.
4 J. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, Democracy (Milan, 1964), pp. 23-235. Schumpeter's
approach' has been called a "Copernican turning point" (W. Rohrlich, Sociology and
Politics (Bologna, 1980), p. 81). But it is more an attempt of Ptolemaic reconversion of
political science. The conditioning of the democratic system to the existence of a defined
socio-economic system is very clear in this quotation from S.M. Lipset, Man and Politics
(Milan, 1963), p. 44: "Modern democracy in its clearest expression can exist only in the
sphere of capitalist industrialization." It is apparent the peculiar coincidence with the most
dogmatic socialist thought, that which considers as techniques of political democracy only
those of "bourgeois democracy." It is significant that even the extremist radicalism fights
now against the "dogma of popular sovereignly" and asks, with Foucault, that "the king
be decapitated" (i.e., the people).
5 The explicit contraposition between liberalism and democracy reappears in liberal "classi-
cal" studies, for example in Croce, DeRuggiero, and Kelsen. But "from the end of the
Second World War, 'democracy' embraces everything" (G. Sartori, Democracy and Defini-
tions (Bologna, 1969), p. 321). Hence the necessity of rethinking the definition and
re-examining classical theory. The novelty of some neo-liberalism is its narrowing of
democracy to the very method of the liberal regime; but one feature of democracy has
always been its going beyond the mere techniques of the democratic method of the
designation of authority. In this sense, it has been said, "democracy evokes an extreme
ideal, not less extreme than "communism" (so much so that in a purely deontoiogical
context the two ideals overlap (G. Sartori, ibid., p. 335). The question is one of avoiding
the stifling of the democratic technique by the ideal tension and also the blocking of the
ideal tension of democracy by the technical narrowness. Reflections about the history of
democracy in our century become imperative. The best test is still the explanation of
fascism, that is, of the liberal silence which made it possible, and of the socialist impotence
which was not able to prevent it. Two texts should be read, different from each other but
complementary: G. DeRuggiero, Storia del liberalismo europeo (Bari, 1925), and J.J. Linz
(et al.)
3
The Fall of the Democratic Regimes (Bologna, 1981). The former refers to a general
economic degeneration of liberalism, the latter (with the exception of Fourneti's essay)
reduces the whole problem of the "fail of democracy" to the "disequilibrium" of the
political system undermined by the "disloyal oppositions." But the real problem is one of
explaining the growth of "disloyal oppositions" among the popular masses: this growth
was greatly helped by the technical and parliamentary withering of democracy. And how
can one ignore the activity of "disloyal governments" in the coming to power of dictators?
6 The reference to the market as "analogous" with the political system is typical of liberal-
ism: it goes back to Locke and the property contracts, or at least to B. Constant and the
relationship between the freedom of the modern time and the commerical civilization.
"For Mosca, Pareto and Croce, with different nuances, the hypothesis of the development
of Italian liberalism is based upon the existence of the market in the sense of a free society
of exchange" (P. Ferneti, La democracie in Italia tre crisi e innovazione (Torino, 1978), p.
37). Ferneti goes on to say, "the society of exchange is . . . the historical and social
background of the liberal model" (ibid., p. 28). Here again we see a similarity with some
contemporary Marxist doctrines which put more emphasis upon the market than upon the
capital-labor relations.
7 See my studies, Marx a il diritto modemo (1962), Kant a la fondazione delle categoria guiridice
(1962), La liberta dei modemi (1968), Teorie politica e socialismo (1973), Teorie del pertito
politico (1979).
8 N. Luhmann, et a!., The Transformation of the State (Florence, 1980), p. 81.
9 N. Luhmann, Power and Social Complexity (Milan, 1979), p. 76.
50 Praxis International
10 Ibid., p. 77.
11 IZuJ.,p. 80.
12 Of course, consensus is always "passive consensus," disposition to obey, acceptance of the
political duty, and not constructive, "active consensus." In this significant modification of
the meaning of consensus there takes place today the old classical dispute over the nature
of the political mandate and of the non-judicial representation of the deputee. At its root
lies the old question about the nature of popular sovereignty. This is the way the classical
themes have not grown old.
13 See this definition of Right given by Luhmann: "positive Right is in force because of the
decision" (in Theory of Society or Social Technology (Milan, 1973), p. 163). But if Right is
only decision, institution-State is necessarily reduced to pure will and "arbitrary will
becomes institution" (Habermas, ibid.). Then political will is the arbiter of history.
14 Quoted by Habermas in Theory of Society, p. 98. Thus Habermas' conclusion is correct:
"the world, because of its complexity, is a threat for any form of stability in the world; it
can then be said that the world represents a problem" (ibid., p. 103). Analogous is the
comment made by W. Rohrlich in Political Sociology (Bologna, 1980), p. 105: "the
complexity is for him (Luhmann) conceivable only if transformed into the problem of the
maintenance of the system." The "world" is thus only an object to be healed! See also this
comment by G. Gozzi (The Transformations of the State, ibid., p. 50): "from this follows the
emptiness of the representative categories of the State: representation becomes insignifi-
cant and democracy is sacrificed to complexity . . . All social reality becomes a variable of
the political system and of its self-preservation . . . The values become relative and turn
into the functions of the system . . . Truth itself becomes a performance of the system."
From a technical-systematic point of view this means, in particular, reduction of the state
to Administration, in the wake of Max Weber, and of society to environment, in the wake
of Spencer. Then the category complexity "is presented as a pure systematic category but
functions as a historically determined category" (P. Barcellona, Oltre lo Stato sociale (Bari,
1980), p. 174). But it is an unrecognized historical category and therefore hypostatiaso, on
one side, and naturalized, on the other, under the dominant categories of force and
penury.
15 N. Luhmann, "The Inflation of Power" in A. Bolaffi, La democrane in discussione (Bari,
1980), p. 111.
16 J. Harbermas, "The Crisis of Rationality of Advanced Capitalism," (Bari, 1979), p. 8.
17 Ibid., pp. 10-11.
18 J. Habermas, "The Critical Potentials of Society," in A. Bolaffi, La democrazie in discus-
sione (Bari, 1980), p. 66.
19 Ibid., p. 76. Habermas says that "the economic crisis turns immediately into a social
crisis" (p. 35). But the articulation of this passage is blocked by the lack of a theory of the
political-judicial institutions. By repeating a limitation already noted in Marx, Habermas
must go back to reduce the social crisis to economic crisis. For the "philological" implica-
tions of the problem, see Theory of the Social Crisis in Marx (Bari, 1971).
20 In this "abolition" there is hidden a serious theoretical problem. Habermas reintroduces
the decisionism that he had criticized and thus also a false theoretical premise, already
criticized by Habermas, that is, "the class character of the organizations of political power
which must first be demonstrated analytically" (p. 128). Decisionism and "psychological"
classism reintroduce then all the interpretations of "action" and "intuition" that pollute
the orthodox Marxist tradition.
21 C. Offe, The State in Advanced Capitalism (Milan, 1977), p. 145. This point is particularly
important because it concentrates ail the fundamental limitations of the orthodox Marxist
tradition. First of all, it makes clear the impossibility of an "objectifying knowledge" in
the social sciences, i.e., the impossibility of making a science of social knowledge which
Praxis International 51
goes back to "classical German philsophy": Kant, Hegel, and then Dilthey, Rickert and
Weber agree on this. Secondly, not only the insufficiency of the intellect in social know-
ledge appears (causing the reintroduction of a reason released from the obligations of
univocality of science), but also the "noumena" character of society is posited, its
impossibility of being reduced to knowledge which transforms it into something magical
and opens the door to both irrationality and vitalism (""class instinct"), and also to the
pragmatism of decision. The social object writes Offe "rejects an explanation
according to the theory of classes": hence the uselessness of concrete scientific research,
but also the plausibility of a theoretical connection with the magic idealism of a certain
philosophy "of the right."
22 See J. Habermas, ibid., p. 158, footnote. The class character of the State would be
empirically tested "only in situations where the State apparatus fails in one of the three
functions which constitute its class character (i.e., the 'co-ordination' of an 'overall
capitalist interest', the repression and control of revolutionary clashes between classes, and
the hiding of these functions) and becomes recognizable because of this failure" (C. Offe,
ibid., p. 146, footnote). Like in the "dialectical" tradition, things are and are not; so, for
Offe, the structural problem of the capitalist State consists of "the necessity to exercize its
class character by making it invisible at the same time" (ibid., p. 147). And Offe rejects
"the intentional scheme of the interested use of instruments of power" (p. 55) characteris-
tic of traditional Marxism.
23 N. Luhmann, ibid., p. 17. The central position of Right in the advanced modern State is
seen clearly by Habermas, ibid., pp. 108, but it is not explained.
24 What is overlooked is the concrete historical dynamic which in a capitalist State stabilizes
political democracy and in another substitutes it with fascism: the proper distinction
between political democracy and fascism is totally overlooked; therefore, the construction
of an adequate strategy becomes impossible. Offe excludes threats of the Fascist kind ("the
authoritarian and fascist forms of domination which could constitute such an alternative
are not realizable," p. 156) and, nonetheless, leaves little room for political liberties in his
conception.
25 N. Luhmann, ibid., p. 56.
26 For this type of neo-Marxism, still impregnated with economicism and political decision-
ism, a theory of the modern State starts with this question: "What is the relationship
between the State apparatus and the interests of the capitalist exploitation?" (C. Offe,
ibid., p. 123). It is the so-called problem of "correspondence" which dominates the
Marxist intellectual area, both in the East and in the West. The formulation of this
problem has already excluded that 1) the State is not a pure apparatus, 2) the State is a set
of rules but also of institutions taken away from the will of people and classes, 3) the "class
character" of a State does not come from its leadership nor from its will and interests but
from the historical-material dynamics which make it an appendage of an atomized civil
society in which production is possible only through exploitation. To use Offe's words, "it
is an illusion that interests and intentions are at the base of structures and of social
processes" (ibid., p. 162). It is a question of remaining coherent with this assumption.
27 The statement in The Communist Manifesto stresses a political awareness of social condi-
tions which is very rare in the pre-modern world and thus constitutes the point of
departure for a voluntary authentic deformation of social theory. That statement is
understandable in a "manifesto," but it is not a criterion on which to base the analysis. In
fact, the chapter on classes, in Marx's Das Kapital, is the 52nd and is incomplete.
28 P Farneti, ibid., p. 19; W. Abendroth, "Beyond the Second and the Third Internationals"
in A. Boleffi, La democrasie in discussione (Bari, 1980), p. 10.
29 D. Bell, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (Torino, 1978), p. 47.
30 The Crisis of Democracy, ibid., p. 28.
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31 A. Wolfe, / Confini dellie legittimazione (Bari, 1981), p. 269.
32 L. Panitch, "The Development of Corporatism" in La societe neocorporative (Bologna,
1981), pp. 140-141.
33 Since the institutions of the representative State have their foundation in the modern
division of labor and reflect its anomie, a representative democracy which does not develop
into direct democracy tends to wither because of apathy or aggression. But since the
division of labor cannot be abolished in the short run, direct democracy can survive only if
guaranteed by representative democracy.
34 The category of power has become widely used not only in the "official" sociology but also
in the Marxist and socialist one. The influence of the Frankfurt political philosophy has
revived the old category of the State class domination. It has been important; it also
revived the traditional conception according to which socialism consists mainly of the
"conquest of power" and thus of the concealment of political democracy. Underneath the
surface there is a conception of decision-making very close to so-called "bourgeois"
theories: those rather explicit of Gentile and Schmitt, for example, but also those more
sophisticated of Weber, theoretician of the "sociology of power" and of social action; of
Kelsen, theoretician of the non-judicial establishment of the judicial system; and of
Schumpeter, theoretician of politics as a decision-making technique. Another significant
similarity is, finally to be seen with the game theory of Morgenstern and Neumann, closely
related to systems theory.
35 D. Bell, ibid., and Heilbroner, Business Civilization in Decline (London, 1976), p. 81,
which shows the "tensions between the economic forces and the political structures of
capitalism."
36 P. Farneti (ibid., p. 84), after noting the importance of the crisis (i.e., the historical
dynamic) for the conceptual clarification of the problem of political democracy, writes:
"The disintegration of the rules is such that there is no longer a way to order the ends
according to their consequences and democratically, that is, based on consensus; this
makes necessary the manipulation whose consequence is the confusion between means and
ends." This confusion exists both in the ruling groups and in the critical movements. The
pragmatic culture reduces the ends to means and exalts the means as ends. In the socialist
field this phenomenon is particularly emphasized by the end of any general historical
strategy in the social-democratic parties and by the survival of a sectorial dogmatism in the
communist parties. While social-democracy reduces strategy to tactic, the communist
parties elevate every tactic to strategy. In one way or another, the scene is dominated by
political opportunism that Luhmann has called "the reversal of means and ends" (Opportun-
ism and forms of programing in public administration in C. Donolo-F. Fichere, / / Governo
Debole (Bari, 1981), p. 26). Because of this reversal "the policy of politics must be left to
the unpolitical policy of the administration in order to avoid . . . that the politically
unsoivable problems be thrown back into politics" (ibid., p. 262). This applies to gov-
ernmental policy where the bureaucracy has the upper hand, and to the opposition policy
which is dominated by the activism and organization policies (see the primary role of
Stalin's Orgburlau and also the primary role of the organization introduced by P. Secchia
in the Italian Communist Party). A correct "policy of politics" should proceed cautiously
in defining as "unsoivable" the problems of society. They are usually "new" problems that
may be "solvable" if given a different political approach. There should be a careful
verification mediated by both technical-scientific evidence and the comparison of political
programs. This is the reason for the importance of the role of organized political parties,
especially the "critical" ones, willing to recover the reformist ends of modern politics. See
A. Wolfe (ibid., p. 399): "any change of the bureaucratic structures of late capitalism
which goes towards an effective co-ordination and recovery of ends would be equal to a
radical transformation of the political system of the country" (A. Wildawsky). It is hard to
Praxis International 53
understand his hesitation due to economic motives, before the problem of a political
strategy of the European and Italian labor movement (p. 443). Anti-politics is possible only
as politics become authentic, that is, reduced to its instrumental character before the ends. In
regard to this recovery of the ends of politics, see R. Dahrendorf, The Crisis of Democracy
and P. Bachrach, The Theory of Democratic Elitism.
37 A. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, in Scriiti politici, Vol. II (Torino, 1968), p. 828.