Frankel’s Capitalism Versus Democracy (Versus Sustainability): A Review

If the size of a volume was an accurate representation of its scope, the importance of its themes, and the urgency of its ideas, then the footprint of Boris Frankel’s (2020) Capitalism Versus Democracy: Rethinking Politics in the Age of Environmental Crisis itself would be enough to inform readers of its gravity. Fortunately for readers not intimidated by its 500 plus pages of text, his book is a case in which this corollary holds true. True to the title, Frankel explores the seemingly irreconcilable chasm separating capitalism and democracy and does so with a twist, with a third problematic entering the fray: sustainability. Compellingly and appropriately, he complicates the age-old debate of capitalism versus democracy, one that itself is both unresolved and far from cut and dry, and guides readers to consider the ways that a looming planetary environmental crisis tugs at and even unravels its threads.

Capitalism Versus Democracy, a three-books-in-one volume, was written to convey a sense of urgency; it feels necessarily scathing at times yet does so to accurately portray the seriousness that is environmental degradation. It is also insightful and pragmatic, complicating while clarifying the binaries and oversimplifications plaguing the world-as-it-is. In book one, Frankel’s critical eye falls on Karl Polanyi and his reductive analyses of Soviet Communism, the rise of fascism in Europe, and the New Deal in the United States. Frankel targets Polanyi’s assertion that the first great transformation, the rise of self-regulated markets, led to the second great transformation initiated by the rise of fascism. Among the “antagonists” of book two is Wolfgang Streeck and his claim that the years between 1945 and 1975 should be characterised as ones in which democracy was able to effectively control capitalism and that it was the Hayekian state, which replaced the Keynesian state, that severed this control. While his criticisms of these and other individuals perpetuating “simplified” social readings may feel personal, Frankel’s tone reflects the heaviness he assigns to combating capitalist-driven growth and profit which has little regard for the consequences of its actions. If the context was different, if the stakes were not so high, perhaps Frankel’s criticisms would not be so strident. At the same time, it is important to not misplace or mislocate their purpose: While it is evident that Frankel disagrees with Polanyi, Streeck, and numerous others, it is the appropriation of their ideas and use of them to explain the present and justify future aspirations that draws the bulk of his ire. Indeed, he rallies against their ideas being employed ambivalently by both the political left and right to support their stances on and uses of capitalism despite the existence of fractures in the historical bases on which they are built. He writes in opposition to those that view capitalist growth and sustainability as natural bedfellows. To Frankel, the challenges of the twenty-first century cannot be attended to or resolved by looking backward. Instead, new, forward, progressive thinking and imagining is necessary.

Notably, Frankel identifies the ways that different political positions, e.g.,: communitarian, nationalist, or globalist; democratic, authoritarian, or somewhere between, downplay the need for change while reproducing social and structural conditions. Said another way, Frankel engages with the politics behind propositions and solutions, unmasking the interests that lie under the surface. For example, he engages with arguments that position the European Union as an undemocratic supra-organisational structure whose regulative mechanisms diminish democratic autonomy of member nations. For Frankel, the problem lies less with it being projected as a large-scale, regulative, and repressive apparatus than with it functionally being unable to pass and enforce regulative measures in the present; that the needs of the future are displaced by disparate wants and powers in the present. By design the EU, like the IMF, UN, and others, does not have the teeth needed to enforce social and environmental targets that include sustainability. At the same time, he highlights the shortcomings of arguments that suggest shrunk down social organisation structures, such as ones rooted in nationalism and communitarianism, are more democratic, emphasising instead their often-exclusionary politics. For Frankel, a world comprised of small, closed-off “communities” or “nations” that by definition exclude some (or many) groups from their universes of responsibility make, for instance, a globally agreed upon response to climate catastrophe an impossibility. As disconnected and distinct from one another, these social pods hold no allegiance to others, only to their own respective members. Furthermore, Frankel notes that powerful nations and other entities exploit supra-national organisational structures to serve their own interests, ones that may not be (and often are not) compatible with the needs and interests of others. As stated by Frankel, the devastating impacts of climate change, if not resolved, will be felt by all, but will be felt unevenly. International governing bodies currently lack sufficient regulatory power and continue to rely on capitalist growth and technological innovation as a means of addressing environmental degradation. Fragmentation, among other things, stands in the way of the emergence of international structures that could provide realistic and sustainable solutions towards mitigating and halting environmental catastrophe.

Through problematising the relationships between capitalism, democracy, and sustainability, Frankel effectively outlines threats to a sustainable democratic future. This future cannot be based on reducing democracy to consumption and having individuals and nations “vote” for an ever-increasing consumer-based reality. It cannot exist if governments surrender themselves to markets to implement austerity measures and reduce spending on the social welfare and well-being of their citizens. Its solutions to climate crisis cannot simply rely on measures, such as green growth, which project a reality in which capitalism and sustainability live hand-in-hand and innovations from the market generate technological solutions that rescue the world from disaster. At the same time, Frankel recognises the pains that are sure to accompany degrowth and building a future that is not carbon dependent. Modern markets and industry centralise carbon-based production and speculation and turning away from it and its associated forms of consumerism is unimaginable especially for those who rely on the comfort, and profit, that it provides them—for the time being. Without careful planning and imagining differently, a carbon-free shift would shrink the scale of work and leave many (more) precarious if, of course, such reductions are not accounted for, and leaders fail to put mitigation efforts in place. Uncritical decarbonisation, according to Frankel, would eliminate traditional tax bases that support social safety nets, what is left of them at least. Here, individuals find themselves stuck between a proverbial rock and hard place where on one side is the uncertainty that comes with being required to turn to the market for consumerist needs, pleasures, identities, and meanings, while on the other is the ever-looming threat of global catastrophe—catastrophe that some can stave off at the expense of others, but only temporarily.

To the challenge of democratic sustainability, Frankel’s response is simple and effective: At the current rate of consumption, ecological disaster is imminent. If the goal is to prevent this disaster yet do so in ways that privilege democratic voice, it must be addressed now rather than later. Frankel correctly suggests that there is no guarantee that any future push toward sustainability will be democratic and that as disaster, if not averted, closes in, individuals and organisational structures will lose their ability to shape solutions—either measures will be imposed or, more likely, groups with more power will ensure that the shape that responses take favour them over others. Yet according to Frankel, curbing consumption is not and cannot be the totality of the solution to achieving sustainability. For him, simply curbing consumption would continue to ignore the dearth of inequality that would still leave countless people in states of extreme poverty, poverty that undermines their ability to exercise basic social, political, and economic rights should democratic structures persist. Frankel supports a universalisation of basic services—healthcare, education, childcare etc.—which, coupled with viable job guarantees, would put individuals in positions to contribute to conversations surrounding sustainability, providing them the latitude to exercise both voice and imagination. To be sure, replacing an individualistic, consumer-focused rat-race with a social arrangement centralising universal solidarity, with an anti-egoistic democracy, is a necessary departure point that Frankel sees as helping individuals think in terms of the betterment of all instead of simply their own selves. For Frankel, change, especially democratic sustainable change, must be cross class and collaborative. It must out-imagine and out-sell former images of the “good life” that have been made to appear durable. Indeed, a new sustainable “good life” will only be palatable if it is constructed democratically.

Far from being a volume that exclusively offers criticisms, Frankel offers up frames and images to consider when imagining differently. While Frankel acknowledges the multiplicity of perspectives postmodernity has inspired—that it has given voice to the voiceless and that many of those voices speak to his book’s project of democratic sustainability—his is a text that is ultimately rooted in modernity’s project, one that necessarily has solid end goals. In other words, as important as postmodernity has been to pluralising voice, the single-issue imagined communities that have become its staples can serve as roadblocks, standing in the way of solidarity and privileging “community” interests over the general welfare of all people, present and future. Yet Frankel recognises that activism and political commitment, activities that have been and continue to be central to various human- or group-rights movements, are necessary for building a sustainable democratic world. Indeed, sustainability must become a solid, durable, universal goal, and the only possible way to ensure that such objectives and meanings become universal and receive broad support is to have them be democratically negotiated. The alternative, one that gets closer with each moment of inaction, is to have objectives and meanings imposed and there is no guarantee that the burden that comes with imposed concessions will be shouldered equally. In an era of “false truths” and “fake news,” democratically negotiated goals are the antidote to these falsities, but the catch is that the preservation and expansion of democracy needs to be embedded in all projects. While Frankel advocates global planning and target setting, the need for institutions to adjudicate and enforce plans, and cultural and educational campaigns to raise awareness and build activism (potentially evoking the imagery of failed and flawed institutional design in both the present and the past), he does so with an important understanding in mind: Democracy alone cannot and will not ensure equality and sustainability. If a question that grows from Frankel’s analysis is: What will replace “carbon democracy”?, it is important to recognise that for whatever follows to be universal, for it to support and sustain the betterment of all now and in the future, it must emerge from those it harms, from all and for all. If the start of the twenty-first century has shown us anything, it is that democracy is far from guaranteed and like the century that preceded it, authoritarian under- and over-currents are always at the ready to breach the dikes.

With all of this in mind, what might be made of Frankel’s book(s)? While Frankel (2020) describes books one and two as analysing how “the dominant paradigm of ‘capitalism versus democracy’ has evolved and outlived its capacity to explain the multiple crises we currently face,” book three seems to carry the weight of his argument: that contemporary politics needs to be rethought to focus on the multiple aspects of a more pressing need, “democracy versus sustainability” (p. x). Indeed, Frankel reinforces the importance of book three’s argument, writing a modified version of it titled Democracy Versus Sustainability (2021), yet it is difficult to imagine or locate his argument without books one and two. It is the totality of his project that offers readers, both unfamiliar and familiar with his ideas and the ideas and writers he engages with, plenty to ponder. For those who are unfamiliar, there is no shortage of threads to tease out, concepts to play with and unravel, and interlocutors with whom to dialogue. For those familiar, his arguments throughout make him a compelling and necessary voice. It is hard to imagine a reader engaging with Frankel’s text coming away without something new to dwell upon, without a previously held conviction questioned, or without a new line of inquiry to trace. This is a strength of Frankel’s text: It tugs readers’ attention to places it might not have otherwise been, succeeds in provoking thought, inspires the questioning of taken-for-granteds, and ultimately aims to stoke their creative and empathetic imagination. This is also the book’s rub: It does not provide easy answers to the questions Frankel asks, for which there are none, but instead redirects readers to a solution source often forgotten or ignored—informed democratic dialogue. While layered and challenging, Capitalism Versus Democracy is a labour that is well worth its reader’s time.

References

Frankel, B. (2020). Capitalism versus democracy?: Rethinking politics in the age of environmental crisis. Greenmeadows.

Frankel, B. (2021). Democracy versus sustainability: Inequality, material footprints and post-carbon futures. Greenmeadows.