Dhe mood in the western world is tense. Although the common front against Russia unites, the unity demonstrated here cannot hide the fact that the political certainties that formed in the course of the post-war upswing and were confirmed by the decline of real socialism are fading. This change finds its expression in an increasing fragmentation of the political world, which owes itself to contradictions that can hardly be bridged. Whether this is a danger to democracy, as is sometimes assumed, or just the expression of a competition that is typical of democracies and therefore marks their vitality rather than their downfall, is an open question. For Michael J. Sandel, whose diagnosis of the changed guiding principles of American politics, which was published in the 1990s, is now available in an extended new edition, this question has long since been answered.
As the subtitle of the book suggests, Sandel sees the foundations of our social coexistence threatened by a shift in the guiding principles of economic and social policy that has been apparent for a long time, which is less and less about the conditions and possibilities of republican participation and more about economic participation orient ideas of efficiency. According to Sandel, who follows it in his book from the founding of the United States to the end of Reagan’s term in office, the competition between the relevant political semantics is constitutive for the American understanding of democracy and the republic.
While one side aimed primarily at securing political structures in the sense of republican participation, the other relied on economic efficiency as a condition for a free life. While republican participation was decisive for one side, which also had to be stabilized against economic and social change, the other side took the view that the freedom of citizens consisted in being able to live according to their own ideas, as long as this did not violate the rights of their fellow citizens would be questioned. If in the first case the state had to stabilize republican structures and educate citizens to active participation at the same time – which led to conflicts with the mechanisms of developing capitalism – the other side took the view that the state had to respect the freedom of its citizens and above all to ensure economic efficiency and distributive justice as conditions for a free life.
A deep division between winners and losers
Sandel’s diagnosis is clear: the influence of the political forces that advocated curbing economic developments in the interests of the broadest possible republican participation was strong up until the 1960s, but then faded more and more in favor of a policy that focused solely on prosperity and distributive justice and ultimately left the question of republican participation to the free calculation of the people. For Sandel, even under Reagan, this led to a recognizable erosion of Republican participation, the strengthening of which he considers an existential question for American society.
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