The inventory of differences

The new democratic left interprets socialism as involving the radical democratization of civil society and the state. Both conceptions of democracy and conceptions of socialism are variations on the theme of a self-govering community. The first part of this paper explores the diversity of accounts of democracy and of the issues in dispute between them. Part 2 then proceeds to identify conceptual difficulties with these ideas, and to examine some of their consequences for political analysis. While the theme of a self-governing community has always been somewhat problematic there are significant features of the modern world that further undermine any plausibility it may once have had. These conceptual weaknesses inherent in ideas of democracy and of socialism limit their untility as tools of political argument, and help to account for some of the difficulties socialists have in coming to terms with the world in which they now find themselves. The argument is not that the idea of socialism as enhanced democratization should be abandoned, but rather that such an idea is radically incomplete. A socialism that is worthy of support must address the substantive social and political problems of the societies in which it operates. The slogan of democratization is of limited value in identifying those problems or in establishing solutions to them.