ABSTRACT
This chapter sets the main parameters for a dialectical materialist analysis of democracy in contemporary capitalist society. It examines contemporary institutional forms, principles, and processes that ensure the reproduction of the contradictory relationship between capitalism and the democratic form. It begins by focusing on the authoritarian elements of the bourgeois democratic form, beginning with state of emergency provisions and the anti-communist legislation of the late nineteenth century and the interwar period, to argue that in capitalism, the democratic form is inextricably linked to its antithesis. It then turns to review the European Union as a supra-state form that enhances the authoritarian characteristics of contemporary constitutional structures, thereby facilitating the mediation and one-sided reflection of capitalist interest in the juridico-political form. As far as the concessionary elements of the bourgeois democratic form are concerned, the chapter discusses the ideal state form for social democracy, namely, the social welfare state form, with a view to exploring its effects on social consciousness. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the ‘lesser of two evils’ principle to highlight how concessions and political pressure by social-democratic forces affect workers’ consciousness.
