Competitive Party Democracy and the Keynesian Welfare State: Factors of Stability and Disorganization (1983)

Zusammenfassung

If we compare 19th century liberal political theory on the one side and classical Marxism on the other, we see that there is one major point of agreement of the two. Both Marx and his liberal contemporaries, such as J. S. Mill or de Tocqueville, are convinced that, in their contemporary societies, capitalism and full democracy (based on equal and universal suffrage) do not mix. Obviously, this analytical convergence was arrived at from diametrically opposed points of view: the classical liberal writers believed that freedom and liberty were the most valuable accomplishments of societal development which deserved to be protected, under all circumstances, from the egalitarian threats of mass society and democratic mass politics, which, in their view, would lead, by necessity, to tyranny and “class legislation” by the propertyless as well as uneducated majority.