Responsibility without Power: Neoliberalism and Economic Democracy

Abstract

These quotes reflect the conflicting position of economic democracy and inequality as a late modern political concern within academia. On the one hand, Eric Hobsbawm, in his defence of socialism ‘after the fall’, acknowledges that the extreme poverty and inequality of life circumstances which made up part of the original basis for socialism no longer have as strong a hold; Engels would not recognize modern-day Manchester. While he does not argue that socialism should simply forget economic inequality, he suggests that it needs to focus its appeal on other factors, such as ecology, the gap between rich and poor countries and the subordination of individuals to the market. On the other hand, there’s Beck, whose animosity towards socialism knows few limits, arguing for the centrality of the economic to political sociology. While this has the feel of a throwaway comment in part of a book-long discussion about forms of work,¹ it does suggest the inability to entirely leave the economic behind for late modern political sociology. This issue is central to our discussion of libertarian socialism in late modernity. The question of how neoliberalism impacts political individualization, in terms of both its propagation and the limits placed upon it, was the third key theme of late modern political sociology. We have seen in chapters 3 and 4 how neoliberalism and privatization have greatly blunted the potential for political action in late modernity and created an unequal form of market-based consumer action.

The material argument for socialism has been weakened

(Hobsbawm 1991b:320)

Without material security there can be no political freedom

(Beck 2000b:14)