While the United States has long and complex traditions of political democracy, economic democracy has often been overlooked, if not actively repressed. Many reasons can be given for that neglect, but perhaps the most important one is that putting political and economic democracy together is hardly in the interest of the dominant powers.
Here are three takes on this problem:
1. The belief that democracy is mostly a matter of voting for representatives promoted by political parties restricts political agency to the absolute minimum. This plays into the hands of the dominant interests, which have developed sophisticated ways to sway political elections in their interests and to keep people out of politics.
2. The belief that democracy is exclusively a matter of politics, even if it goes beyond voting and includes policy work, covers up the important role that economic democracy—and its absence—plays. Political democracy is significantly limited if economic democracy remains out of reach for two-thirds of U.S. Americans who have little or no power at work and if most of the 99 percent who have to work for a living have less and less power over their work.
3. The belief that our current economic system favors democracy is also skewed in the interests of the dominant powers. The political principle of “one person one vote” stands in stark contrast with the corporate principle of “one dollar one vote,” according to which shareholder meetings are conducted. The question that was often put to socialism must now be put to capitalism, namely in what sense it is and is not conducive to democracy.
Reflecting these three troubling observations about democracy in the United States invites fresh perspectives that change how we address the aftermath of the 2024 election and the profound anxieties and frustrations voiced by so many. Putting political and economic democracy together provides a strong antidote to the pervasive high jacking of democracy by the dominant interests. This is not merely a matter of checking the role of big money in politics, which has proven to be impossible in the realm of politics alone, this is about grounding political democracy more deeply and thereby providing real alternatives.
Here are three suggestions for a brighter future of democracy:
1. If democracy is extended to the economic realm, political democracy cannot be manipulated as easily, as power is distributed more widely and shared more broadly. False solidarities can be exposed, making room for better solidarities. This addresses the problem of what I have called “unite and conquer,” uniting white people against nonwhite people or U.S. citizens against immigrants in order to make them believe (mistakenly) that all white people and all U.S. citizens are winning when in reality it is mostly the billionaire class that profits.
2. Just like political democracy is severely weakened when there are substantial areas of life where democracy is absent, political democracy is strengthened when agency is expanded into other areas of people’s lives, including work, where so much of our lives takes place. As history shows, the U.S. American project of democracy needed extending at various turns, including the vote of non-aristocratic men, minorities and women. Now a further extension of democracy into economic relationships seems necessary to save democracy itself.
3. Engaging in alternative economic relationships can strengthen political democracy. This includes cooperative enterprises, worker cooperatives, worker self-directed enterprises, and other efforts to strengthen the voice of working people at work. If people gain voice and agency at work, where they are spending the bulk of their waking hours, they can gain voice and agency in matters of politics as well, just as they can gain voice and agency in all other areas of life, including religion. Economic democracy may indeed be the only effective remedy of what might be called “capitalocracy,” the rule of capital in politics and other areas of life.
A final thought for people of faith: It may come as a surprise, but strengthening political democracy by building economic democracy can also strengthen religious democracy. And while not all religious traditions may value democracy equally, it should be clear that the absence of economic democracy and the concomitant rule of money has done tremendous damage to faith communities throughout the ages. This problem is only getting worse as inequality keeps growing. It should not come as a surprise that when the whims of the wealthiest donors are calling the shots rather than communities accountable to the divine, religion is perverted and eventually loses its spirit.
One example for how things can be done differently are the Solidarity Circles of the Wendland-Cook Program at Vanderbilt, which promote the interaction of economic, political, and religious democracy, in collaboration with the Southeast Center for Cooperative Development and other projects. In the current political impasse, such efforts will prove to be more relevant than ever, as they take us beyond narrow understandings of politics, including the current fixation on party politics, with the potential of reshaping life for people and the planet as a whole.
Joerg Rieger 2022
The Rev. Dr. Joerg Rieger
The Rev. Dr. Joerg Rieger is Distinguished Professor of Theology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. This article is republished with the author's permission from the website of the Vanderbilt Divinity School's Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice.