Democracy at the Brink: Can Socialism Save What Capitalism Broke?
By Youngerson Matete
Francis Fukuyama, in his 1989 essays, the End of History and Last Man asserted that democracy was humanity's end point in the modern world. This is being contested as democracy is now under siege. Globally, the liberal democratic order faces an assault not merely from overt authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, populist strongmen, or military juntas but from an economic system that has historically claimed to be its partner. The idea that capitalism and democracy could coexist in mutual benefit is now faltering. In its current neoliberal and financialized form capitalism is increasingly becoming incompatible with genuine democratic governance. As global inequality widens, institutions are captured by both economic and political elites. Political participation has been commodified, democracy faces a structural challenge far deeper than at any time in the past century.
In the past, democracy has weathered several storms. The interwar years of the 20th century provide a sobering reminder that democracies can collapse when inequality, economic despair, and elite manipulation converge. In the 1930s, Weimar Germany imploded under the weight of inflation, mass unemployment, and paralyzed parliamentary politics. The collapse was not inevitable, but it was facilitated by structural flaws in both economic design and institutional capacity. Thinkers like Carl Schmitt, who once embraced the rhetoric of constitutional order, would later justify dictatorship as a necessary response to the inefficiencies of democratic debate. The United States, in the same period, also faced an existential crisis, with widespread unemployment, class conflict, and the rise of demagogues. But American democracy survived, largely due to the New Deal. A radical intervention that restructured the economy through a combination of public investment, labor protections, and progressive taxation. Importantly, it was not liberalism alone that saved democracy, but a form of state-driven economic justice that challenged the dominance of capital.
The present day crisis shows disturbingly similar patterns. Across the world, democracy is under pressure. In some cases, the threats are explicit—military coups like in the Sahel region. In other instances there is fast growing democratic backsliding like in Kenya and Tanzania, or the repression of dissent in countries such as Uganda and Zimbabwe. Even in the heartlands of liberal democracy like Europe and North America, democratic institutions are fraying. From Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 U.S. election to the UK’s parliamentary gridlock over Brexit, and the rise of far-right populist parties in France, Germany and Italy reveal an erosion of democratic norms, public trust, and institutional capacity. Political scientist Yascha Mounk calls this phenomenon “democratic deconsolidation,” where the public becomes increasingly disenchanted with democracy and more open to authoritarian alternatives.
Yet, these political symptoms are deeply tied to underlying economic structures. The threat to democracy today is not simply populism, it is also capitalism, especially in its neoliberal and globalized manifestation. As Thomas Piketty, Branko Milanovic, and other contemporary economists have shown, wealth inequality has reached levels unseen since the Gilded Age. The top 1% control more wealth than the bottom 90% in many developed countries. This is not only unjust, it is anti-democratic. The wealthy do not simply possess economic capital.They convert it into political capital. Through campaign financing, lobbying, media ownership, and think tanks, they shape policy in their interests, often contrary to the will of the majority. From Elon Musk buying the USA presidency for Donald Trump to Kudakwashe Tagwirei buying his way into the ruling party ZANU-PF central committee (or perhaps on his way to buy himself the presidency) against the party rules. The political economy of capitalism increasingly revolves around safeguarding elite privilege, rather than enabling public participation.
As the middle class erodes, and workers lose bargaining power due to the decline of trade unions and the rise of precarious labor, the public sphere becomes increasingly dominated by corporate interests. The market colonizes arenas that were once protected such as education, healthcare, and even prisons. This leads to what political theorist Wendy Brown calls the “undoing of the demos.” Democracy is not only being hollowed out from above, but also from within. The decline of civic education, the fragmentation of media into ideological silos, and the advent of social media that is driven by profit through engagement with little to no regulatory control has brought the rise of disinformation campaigns. This has created an environment where rational debate is replaced by conspiracy, polarization, and cynicism. Levitsky and Ziblatt, in How Democracies Die, emphasize that democracy depends not only on rules but on norms particularly mutual toleration and institutional forbearance. These norms are dissolving, often because economic inequality has fostered a politics of resentment, grievance, and tribalism.
But the crisis we face is not unprecedented. The post-World War II order, which brought about decades of democratic stability, was built on the foundations of social democracy. In countries like Sweden, Norway, Germany, and even postwar Britain, democracy was secured not by laissez-faire markets but by robust welfare states, powerful labor movements, and a regulated capitalism that prioritized public interest over private profit. This model worked because it recognized a fundamental truth that political equality requires a degree of economic equality. As political theorist Nancy Fraser notes, without economic justice, democratic inclusion is a fiction. The social democratic consensus that governed much of the West during the mid-20th century understood this. Unfortunately, beginning in the 1980s with Reagan and Thatcher, the neoliberal counterrevolution dismantled this consensus, deregulating markets, privatizing public goods, and weakening collective institutions in favor of individualism and profit maximization.
Today, the consequences are clear. Austerity policies have gutted social services, leaving citizens disillusioned. The 2008 financial crisis, and the massive bank bailouts that followed, exposed the extent to which democracy had been subordinated to the interests of capital and markets. Millions lost homes and livelihoods, while the architects of the crisis faced little accountability. The COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated inequality and state fragility, as healthcare systems underfunded for decades struggled to cope. In every case, the market was prioritized over the people and democracy weakened in turn.
If capitalism is the disease, is socialism the cure? To many, especially in the global North, socialism still evokes memories of authoritarianism and totalitarianism. But this is a misunderstanding of both socialism and its democratic potential. Democratic socialism, unlike the bureaucratic state socialism of the Cold War emphasizes public ownership, economic democracy, and participatory governance within a democratic framework. Thinkers such as Rosa Luxemburg, Nicos Poulantzas, and contemporary democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders and Yanis Varoufakis argue that socialism is not opposed to democracy but is its fulfillment. The “democratic road to socialism,” as articulated by Poulantzas, envisions a gradual transformation of the capitalist state through mass mobilization, institutional reform, and the expansion of public power. It is about shifting decision-making from the boardroom to the ballot box not abolishing markets overnight, but subordinating them to democratic control.
Crucially, socialism offers not just an economic alternative but a moral and political one. In a world where profit determines worth, socialism insists on human dignity, solidarity, and cooperation. It seeks to decommodify essential services, ensuring that health, education, and housing are rights, not privileges. It advocates for public ownership of strategic industries, not to empower a distant bureaucracy, but to give workers and communities control over their futures. In doing so, it revitalizes democracy not as a ritual of voting every few years, but as a daily practice of collective self-determination.
To revive democracy in the 21st century, we must embrace a vision of economic democracy. This includes re-empowering trade unions, taxing extreme wealth, breaking up monopolies, and reasserting the public sphere. But it also means experimenting with new forms of participatory governance like citizen assemblies, participatory budgeting, workplace democracy, and cooperative ownership. It means reimagining democracy not only as a political system but as a way of organizing society based on equality, justice, and shared power.
History shows that democracy does not die quickly. It erodes gradually through complacency, inequality, and the silent entrenchment of elite rule. But history also shows that it can be revived. The New Deal, the civil rights movement, the postwar welfare state—all emerged not from inevitability but from struggle. Today’s assault on democracy is grave, but it is not insurmountable. What is required is not nostalgia for a liberal past that was never fully delivered, but courage to forge a democratic future that addresses capitalism’s failures at their root.
Democracy can survive. But only if we are willing to democratize not just politics but the economy itself.
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