Book review and interview with the author—Democracy: All That Matters by Steven Beller

By Steven Beller
Hodder & Stoughton
Paperback, 160 pages
February 12, 2014
$ 14.00

Steven Beller’s Democracy Matters is a concise, powerful punch of a book. The author both analyzes and defends democracy at a time when the forces of plutocracy have grown in the West to a level of strength not seen since before the Great Depression. Democracy always needs defenders, and Beller steps forth ably to answer the call. The book traces the history of democratic thought and practice, then defines democracy, in particular the kind of democracy he believes works best, as well as the challenges democracy faces in today’s environment.

Without the space constraints that limit a printed review, I’ll let Beller speak for himself as much as possible. He explores the tension between the notion of liberty/limited government often associated with John Locke, and the concept of equality/the common good deriving from the thought of Rousseau as follows (bear in mind he uses “liberal” in the broader, European sense, not as a synonym for left of center on the American political spectrum):

“What we now call democracy is a compromise between liberal ‘freedom’ and democratic ‘equality’ in the management and control of power…Neither freedom nor equality can ever be the universal principle of a society without the other — democracy lies in the field of tension between the two. The problem is…if personal freedom results in some having more political or social power than others, or in some having more economic power (money and capital) than others in the free marketplace then the political or economic inequality that results might also endanger the rights and power of those on the losing end of the equation. This is the danger to modern democracy of oligarchy (the rule of the few) and plutocracy (the rule of money).”

Beller suggests that our current systems of government in the West, largely defined by the principles of “liberal democracy,” will need to “transform into something closer to a ‘social democracy’ on the one hand and a ‘pluralist democracy’ on the other, combined.” Through compromise, he believes we will achieve this “transformation,” and that doing so will be “for the good of all, for ‘democracy’ remains our best hope of achieving that common good.”

For more on Beller’s discussion of democracy, including the text of my dialogue with the author, please follow me beyond the fold.

Daily Kos

Book review and interview with the author—Democracy: All That Matters by Steven Beller