ABSTRACT
Democracy is by no means a static concept. It isn’t a steady state, rather demo cratizations are open ended processes (Ciprut 2008). Indeed, democracy has evolved through several different permutations. In its simplest terms, democracy is a political system in which the policy making process is ultimately controlled by the people, because the government that makes policy is selected by the people. Policies are made on a majority basis by representatives who are subject to popular control through periodic elections, and these elections are also to be conducted according to the principle of political equality and under conditions of political freedom (Mayo 1960). Robert Dahl (1985) suggests that the basic cri teria for a democratic process include: equal votes; effective participation; enlightened understanding; public control over the agenda and inclusiveness (p. 59). Or as Seymour Martin Lipset (1959) suggests, a democracy can be defined as a political system that affords its citizens regular constitutional oppor tunities for changing governing officials. But it is also a social mechanism for the resolution of conflicts among conflicting interest groups that also permits the largest possible part of the population to influence public decisions through their ability to make electoral choices. Democracy is ultimately about authorship of collective decisions. Citizens must have some actual impact on the form and content of those laws that will affect them (Green and Cornell 2005). And democratic politics means that diver gent groups who are often contesting one another must be able to present their claims, be heard, and ultimately affect the policy process. The consensus that emerges from that process can then be said to be the end product of the demo cratic political process, which also reflects the collective will of the community in its broadest sense. Therefore, a democratic community that opts to pursue a wage type of policy in the name of achieving a more just, fair, and equitable society, that policy could be said to reflect the collective will of that community and indeed is a form of democratic expression (Stone 2002). Democracy perhaps could be conceived of in two broad fashions: procedural whereby individuals participate in only political decisions that affect their lives, and substantive where they have a voice in all decisions that affect their lives. Procedural democracy is limited to the political universe or matters affecting the state. Substantive democracy, however, tends to encompass both economic and
political decisions, as it extends to matters affecting society in addition to the state, and goes to the very heart of what it means to talk about self determination. A substantive conception of equality, then, would require a degree of economic equality alongside political equality. Still, core to both conceptions is the assumption that legitimate authority is based on the people, and that the people are indeed sovereign. This does indeed require that the people be in control col lectively, and for the people to be in control collectively each individual must enjoy full autonomy. Core to democracy, then, is the notion that the people are in control of their lives, i.e. matters that affect their destiny. To the extent that this is true, the ques tion arises as to the essential preconditions for this control. Democracy does assume that individuals will be equal. Democracy also assumes that individuals will be autonomous – that they will be able to act and do things free of external constraints. It assumes that they will be able to chart a course of action consist ent with human agency – their ability to think for themselves what best consti tutes the best life for them and then act accordingly. Both concepts, of course, have different meanings and are very contextual. But as I intend to argue in this chapter, the requirements of equality and autonomy ultimately have implications for public policy. A policy that in any way creates an environment that is more equal and in which individuals are able to live more autonomously, is not only in keeping with democratic theory, but may also be the source of greater democrat ization. The purpose of this chapter is to establish the requirements that policy would need to meet to be consistent with the ends of democratic theory. After which, I will in subsequent chapters attempt to demonstrate how wage policy generally, and minimum wages more specifically, do in fact meet the require ments. But, it is also my purpose to demonstrate that to the extent that wage policy does meet those requirements, it is only because our thinking about demo cracy has similarly evolved. Democracy has essentially evolved from what Ben jamin Barber (1984) classifies as “thin” democracy – the liberal procedural version predicated on rights, especially property rights – to a “strong” one, where greater participation is in fact required. And yet, despite this evolution in thinking, individual autonomy is no less important. Whereas the former assumed the promotion of autonomy to be a goal which would be protected through prop erty rights, the latter assumed autonomy to be a prerequisite for individual citizenship.
