Ralf Dahrendorf by Olaf Kühne & Laura Leonardi

Author:Olaf Kühne & Laura Leonardi
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030442972
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

8.4 Democracy and Capitalism: Progression and Regression of Life Chances

A preliminary step, for the interpretation of the factors that can block or favor social change, is to understand how the institutional structures that politics and economics have engaged in the different societies have changed: “Democracy and capitalism are, therefore, particular ways of advancing the cause of entitlements and provisions (material) in the modern world, and must be seen in a general framework that includes tyranny and socialism, together with many hybrids” (Dahrendorf 1989 [1994], p. 29). The meaning of the concept of democracy, for Dahrendorf, is to be found in the historical process that produced the passage “from status to contract,” that is, from the possibilities of individual life conditioned by the belonging ascribed to the opportunities of change regarding one’s social position, via the limitation of arbitrary power by the “tamed authority.”

The unequal distribution of life chances is a result of power structures. Some are positioned to establish the law by which the status of others is measured. For many centuries it seemed that only a very few were able to do this; the government of the kings remained practically unassailable by the people. Even then, there were good kings and bad kings (and here and there some great kings). Little by little, more and more people became involved in the creation of the law, although it was still administered by a minority. Differences are not only related to time, but also to places. A certain degree of democracy has characterized, especially, some islands of association within oceans of domination. These islands were often in coexistence with the cities, from the Greek polis to the medieval burgh. The birth of modernity can also be described as the gradual spread of such experiences. When the power of a few was brought under the control of the many, and ultimately of the majority, inequalities lost their fatal character, of being something assigned, and social positions became, at least in principle, attainable and potentially to be lost. The road from status to contract has also been a “road from status to societal position” (Dahrendorf 1989 [1994], p. 35).

The fact that the institutions of democracy and capitalism have developed by conditioning each other in the West, during the historical process of their achievement, has also made it difficult to give a definition that does not put them in close relation and, in the final analysis, necessarily makes them interdependent. For this reason, Dahrendorf proceeds to a definition of democracy and of a capitalist economic system using the idealistic traits that characterize them. In these terms, democracy can be understood in relation to two essential elements: “the promotion, in the political process, of the interests and opinions of the many, and legitimacy” (Dahrendorf 1990, p. 69). The “minimum of democracy,” which allows political change without recourse to revolution, contemplates at least two processes: “One is the input of popular opinions and interests into the political system; the other is the control over those in power and their administration” (Dahrendorf 1990, p.

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