POL1 Schumpeter - Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy

What does Schumpeter say about the ‘classical’ democratic doctrine?

• criticises the ‘classical’ conception of democracy - defines it as a way of representatives implementing the people’s will

• the concept of a common good is not a truly achievable thing in politics

What is Schumpeter’s ‘elite conception’ of democracy?

• argues that representative democracy was ‘little more than the competitive struggle for the people’s vote’

What does Schumpeter say about politics as a profession?

• democracy as rule of the politician

• in modern democracies, politics will inevitably become a career

What role does Schumpeter give to the people in his elite conception of democracy?

• party machine politics are a response to the fact that the electoral masses are incapable of any action but a ‘stampede’

• except in the case of direct democracy, the people can never actually govern

• ‘will of the people’ as a product of the political process

• role of the people is to produce government

• typical citizen drops to a lower level of mental performance as soon as he enters the political field

What does Schumpeter say about capitalism?

• capitalism will eventually give way to socialism due to its own internal contraditions

• idea of ‘creative destruction’

What does Schumpeter say about the nature of representative democracy?

• democracy as a type of institutional arrangement for arriving at decisions - democracy as incapable of being an end in itself

• there are examples of autocracies working better than democracies (eg. Napoleon and his military dictatorship)

• democracies can often lead to deadlock

• electorate should be able to evict a government, but this is as far as control of rulers gets in a representative democracy

What does Przeworski say about representative democracy?

• ‘jury theorem’ - if the probability of a voter making the right choice is 1/2, as more people vote, the probability of the ‘right’ decision being made increases - ‘tyranny of the majority’

• representation as problematic - politicians may have interests of their own and people are poor judges of what they want

• citizens cannot control government when they are in office

• public have a restricted view of what the situations surrounding decisions are

• winners of elections can chose to manipulate their chances of being re-elected

What does Medearis write about Schumpeter’s arguments about democracy?

• Schumpeter’s elite model is based on ‘pessimistic assumptions about human nature’

• Medearis argues that this conception is a deeply conservative view to democratising social tendencies in liberal capitalist societies

• Schumpeter argues that political decisions are mere ‘by-products of the struggle for political office’

• transformative theory of democracy - emphasises the role of social movements etc.

What does Medearis write about oligarchy?

• Weber - it was inevitable that the masses become dominated by some kind of elite leadership

• ‘iron law of oligarchy’ - even democratically-minded parties become dominated by leaders

What does Ignatieff argue about politicians?

• most politicians ‘spend their entire lives in the bubble of the political world’

• party discipline means that politicians represent the party that keeps them in line

• ‘politicians negotiate trust against the backdrop of permanent dislike for their own profession’

• gulf between politicians and voters van never be fully closed - don’t share the same info, space or concerns

• Weber’s 1919 lecture ‘Politics and a Vocation’ - distinguished between those who live off of politics and those who live for politics - only those who live for politics can see it as a calling

What does Mackie write about the concept of a common good?

• argues against Schumpeter’s denial of a common good

• Schumpeter attacks utilitarianism

• admits that Schumpeter was corrects that the common good cannot be defined as the output of actual democratic decision

• Schumpeter argues that there can only be a common good in small, unified communities

What does Mackie say about Schumpeter’s elite conception of democracy?

• Schumpeter argues that the absence of the rationalising influence of the experience of political affairs means that the typical citizen is left vulnerable to advertising by groups with an ‘axe to grind’ - Mackie disagrees with this

• rational choice theory assumes we possess perfect information

What does Mackie write about German political thought?

• bourgeois German political thought while Schumpeter was writing converged on an ‘open-yet-authoritarian’ elitism and democracy as personnel selection

What do Achen and Bartels argue about representative democracy?

• Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address - democratic government is ‘of the people, by the people and for the people’

• retrospective theory of voting - election outcomes hinge not on ideas but on public approval of the performance of incumbent political leaders

• while ideals are valuable for the basis for constructing reality, for this argument to work, ideals cannot be unrealistic