Short commentary on some of Schumpeter's Capitalism, Socialism & Democracy

Schumpeter defines the Classical Doctrine of democracy as a bottom to top process, with politicians or elected officials merely bringing about the Will of the People and the Common Good (p.225).

He argues that there is no such thing as a Common Good which everyone would agree by rational argument as the Common Good itself will be different to different people when there is no rational answer (p.227).

He believes that humans are irrational, based on Le Bon’s theory of psychology of crowds. The features that Le Bon mentions do not only apply to physical violent crowds but also social groups such as the readers of a specific newspaper (p.231).

He adds that humans do not feel responsible for public affairs, and while their jobs have required them years of learning and building up expertise, they vote and take part in democracy without being a specialist on the subject and are ignorant even if there is masses of information about issues (p.235).

With those two features, he concludes that the “greater the irrational criticism and influence of personal experience and responsibility, the greater the opportunity for groups” (p.235). The “groups” people with certain economic interests, ideals or people simply interested in managing political shows (p.235). He states that democracy is not a bottom to top process, but rather the opposite, where the people only decide which group of elites will govern them. These “groups” compete between them to gain the vote of the people. “The psycho-technics of party management and party advertising, slogans and marketing tunes are not accessories. They are the essence of politics” (p.251). Because the elites rule, he believes that they can fashion and even create The Will of the People (p.235).

In his theory, people have a small role to play in politics, where they only vote for their representatives, and then they govern, legislate and elect political officials such as the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister, then appoints ministers, which are part of his/her elite or political party and they then govern the country.

The main strength of Schumpeter’s argument is that the Common Good or the Will of the People do not exist. Nowadays, this is clearly seen in many political issues such as the legalization of abortion. The two opposite points of view are very far apart from each other, and it would be impossible to bring them both together with rational argument as the issue is a matter of a personal belief on when life starts.

Schumpeter says “greater the irrational criticism and influence of personal experience and responsibility, the greater the opportunity for groups” (Schumpeter, 1942). The most recent event that demonstrates this is the Brexit Referendum and its campaign. English-born people experienced how immigrants working in the UK increased over time. They also saw, how around 1 million refugees were trying to enter Europe in search for a future due to the socio-economic situation in their respective countries. The pro-Brexit elite, especially ultraright-wing groups, used these personal experiences to bring the Brexit referendum on to the table and blamed the immigrants and refugees for the lacks in the NHS or other problems within the UK economy.

During the campaign, advertising and marketing was key. Even if the information was false, this was done very effectively and massively, and so a big part of the population started to believe that, the lack of funding in the NHS was due to the fact that the United Kingdom contributed to the EU’s finances or that if the UK was to remain in the EU it would not be able to control its borders.

Brexit is also an excellent example to show how the elites created the so called “Will of the People” as the Brexit issue had been off mainstream politics for many years.

Nevertheless, Schumpeter’s argument is rather weak when he describes the average citizen as ignorant even with loads of information. This has not been the case many times in recent political events. One of the clearest is the movement Black Lives Matter, which through their protests and social media, managed to bring their message forward and inspired many people to get educated on the issue of racism, most specifically structural and institutional racism.

To conclude, we can now receive information through many different sources, which are harder to control by elites, like Twitter. This allows the average citizen to educate themselves about more issues and without the control of an elite which in 1942 could’ve been the board of directors of a newspaper. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that we are still governed by elites, and the extent to which the opinion of an average citizen is taken into account is limited. Thus, Schumpeter’s argument is strong when talking about elites and how they control the political arena, but it is rather weak when tackling the issue of ignorance in the average citizen.

Bibliography

Schumpeter, J., 1942. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. s.l.:Taylor and Francis Group.

[1] As I will be only referencing Schumpeter’s book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy throughout the whole text, from now on, citations will only include the page number of the book where the relevant information can be found.