ABSTRACT
The relationship between capitalism and democracy was for a long time regarded to be a rather harmonious one. The former was a systemic representation of economic liberalism, and the latter served as its political justification and institutional framework. The inequalities generated by the former were relatively suppressed by the provision of political liberties to the dangerous classes for the sake of maintaining the capitalist grid. The gist of the capitalist state was a derivative of economic liberalism in the way it promoted elite alliances at the expense of the laboring masses. This congruence of capitalism and democracy has been deeply scrutinized
for some time, as the holy alliance of the economic and the political elite has deprived the masses of their civil and political rights of interest-seeking and representation under democratic systems. Several reasons could be marshalled for the divergent paths of the capitalist system and democratic practice. The former operates in a transnational manner, whereas the latter is predominantly confined to the national setting. The supranational institutionalization of capitalism overrides the national institutions of democracy, rendering interestseeking and representation at the national level all but obsolete. The attacks against the labor movement, unions and labor parties since the onset of globalization in the 1980s and the disintegration of class-based alliances have created a political vacuum, which has come to be occupied by global social movements and identity politics. This has led to a qualitative transformation in the causes embedded in democratic struggles and the processes undertaken to fight for them. The objective of this chapter is to critically analyze the limitations of
current democratic practices for representing labor rights and demands. The first half of the chapter will present the contemporary setting in which labor struggles are embedded. The decline of class-based politics and the rise of identity politics will be a starting point. Global social movements in general and global justice movements in particular will expose the diversity of interests and the potential for alliances. The second half of the chapter will conceptualize workplace democracy as an alternative to the predominant parliamentary form of democracy and the systems espoused by global social movements.
