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Rebecca Fisher
democratic practices, including exploitation, repression, and violence when consent is elusive. Thus the paradox is that liberal democracy must rely upon repressive means to contain social conflict, maintain the social order and pursue perpetual economic expansion, transgressing the rhetoric and language of democracy deployed to legitimate capitalism. It is first worth noting some caveats. This article will only provide a brief and partial overview of some very complicated processes, over a long historical period. It is written from one particular angle and without intending to exclude others. It will bring out some of key the historical flashpoints in the use of democracy as an ideological cover to hide and mystify capitalism’s oppression. The intention is to reveal some important aspects of how the capitalist social order has been legitimated via the language of democracy. Of course, liberal democracy is one of many disciplinary and ideological mechanisms by which general consent, or at least resignation, to capitalism are organised. Others such as direct economic and political coercion - are not addressed here. This article does not purport to provide a comprehensive answer to the thorny question of how the capitalist order is sustained and (re)produced, but merely to suggest one perspective from which it can be tackled. In doing so, it will employ Antonio Gramsci’s ideas concerning hegemony, which was described by Gramsci as “consensus protected by the amour of coercion”.2 This seems to offer a useful method of understanding the mutually dependent and dynamic relationship between consent and coercion, in particular in relation to the limited practice of democracy, and brings to light the dynamic and sometimes tenuous attempts to contain resistance and legitimate the capitalist system.3
Defining Democracy When we say that the voters ‘choose’ their representative, we are using a language that is very inexact. The truth is that the representative has himself elected by the voters. [Emphasis in original] Gaetano Mosca4