ABSTRACT
If arbitrage and externalization has been as central to Western and particularly US democracy as we assume throughout this book, then the crisis of democracy is even deeper than is generally taken for granted. Given limits on planetary resources and the (moral) impossibility of nineteenth century-type recolonialization, indifference inside national contexts can no longer be easily attained. Meanwhile, systems of redistribution seem to be under enormous pressure and polarized publics unable to find common grounds to imagine democratic futures. How to establish a new equilibrium in which political systems regain legitimacy? This chapter identifies three potential scenarios, not all of them democratic: an ethno-nationalist relapse, a social-democratic renaissance, and a global rescaling of political systems. The third option seems unrealistic under present circumstances and would require redistribution and power-sharing not just within but between political communities. But given present global challenges, is there any other viable option?
