Laclau and Mouffe: The Radical Democratic Imaginary

The contested meaning of liberal democracy
Macpherson, like Laclau and Mouffe, argues that democratic theory must be taken
beyond its liberal-democratic origins (Macpherson 1973). These limits are, in a
sense, internal to liberal democracy, for they stem from irreducible tensions that
are present in the very foundation of this tradition (Cunningham 1987:141–202;
Golding 1992:3–18; Green 1985). Liberal democracy marks a liberatory break
with the traditional hierarchies of pre-Enlightenment society: it defines the
individual as an equal and rational self-determining agent and it attempts to
construct socio-political obligation on the basis of consensual contracts. For
example, Locke’s critique of feudal obligation and his theory of government by
the consent of the people (Locke 1963) are extremely valuable for radical
democracy. Although Locke’s Eurocentric view of the indigenous peoples of the

---

R E T R I E V I N G D E M O C R A C Y
11
Americas is unacceptable, his defense of individual rights can be mobilized wherever
discrimination and exclusion are bolstered by theories of natural, social and moral
hierarchies.
For Locke, however, the defense of market relations and the defense of individual
rights and freedoms are inextricable. Indeed, the predominant definition of liberal
democracy combines Locke’s contract theory with Smith’s laissez-faire bourgeois
economics (Watkins and Kramnick 1979:11). The individual proper to liberal
democracy is supposed to possess a specifically instrumentalist type of rationality
and a fundamental interest in the acquisition of more and more goods. Because
liberal democratic theory is based on what Macpherson (1962) calls “possessive
individualism,” it portrays the infinite competition for scarce goods, the institution
of private property, the class divisions that necessarily follow from these conditions,
and the social contract that preserves the class-divided society from self-destruction,
as natural and inevitable (Golding 1992:4–5). As we will see below, a liberal
democratic order can be entirely compatible with the perpetuation of non-class-
based forms of domination as well.
In short, liberal democracy begins with an egalitarian and freely self-determining
conception of the individual, but ultimately tolerates and even promotes the
formation of a highly inegalitarian social order. John Stuart Mill’s vision of a society
that is governed by “the people” and that secures the conditions necessary for
every individual’s realization of their own capacities, is an especially promising
moment in the liberal democratic tradition (Macpherson 1977:1). Macpherson
nevertheless contends that even Mill’s ethical liberalism does not resolve the
tensions between egalitarianism and domination. Like Locke, Mill expresses various
ethnocentric views that are problematic. Further, Mill does not pay sufficient
attention to the fact that individuals will be truly free to develop their capacities
only after the relations of exploitation and oppression that structure modern
societies are fully dismantled. Following Macpherson’s lead, the task of
contemporary radical democratic theory is to “retrieve” the most progressive
moments of the liberal democratic tradition and the most democratic moments of
the socialist tradition and to bring them together in a fusion that is suited to
contemporary political conditions.
Progress towards radical democratic pluralism would necessitate a radical
transformation of capitalism. Such a transformation would have to address the
unlimited accumulation of wealth and power and the private ownership of the
means of production that prevail in every capitalist formation, as well as the
exploitation of labor that follows from these conditions (Green 1993b:10).
Radical democratization must also involve the elimination of the structural
relations of oppression—such as sexism, racism and homophobia—that are often
combined with class relations in many complicated ways. Exploitation and
oppression are deeply rooted in social relations; they are much more extensive
and intensive than isolated moments of bigotry. In structural relations of
exploitation and oppression, the dominant group achieves its power through
the disempowerment of the dominated group. Where that asymmetry is

---

R E T R I E V I N G D E M O C R A C Y
12
institutionalized, the relations of exploitation or oppression become so
entrenched that their reproduction does not exclusively depend on individuals’
personal attitudes (Cunningham 1987:114).
One of the achievements of the radical civil rights movement in the United
States was precisely the normalization of the idea that racial inequality is the
product of deeply embedded social structures (Omi and Winant 1994:69).
Centuries of systematic exclusions based on race—slavery; genocidal policies
towards Native Americans; racist immigration, citizenship, and property laws;
the de jure and de facto disenfranchisement of blacks, Latinos, Asians and Native
Americans; the super-exploitation of black, Latino and Asian workers; racial
discrimination in the banking, insurance and housing sectors; segregated
workplaces and education systems; organized violence and so on (Takaki 1993)—
have led to the vast over-concentration of racial minorities among America’s
unemployed and working poor. Consequently, upward socio-economic mobility
has been much more difficult for these groups to achieve. In this manner, racial
inequality tends to perpetuate itself. Some of the data on inequality in the United
States will be examined below. The point here is that inequality should be
understood as a structural phenomenon. Once a “playing field” is established
that is sharply tilted against an exploited or oppressed group, that inequality
will be generally reproduced and extended even if key social institutions operate
in a basically unbiased manner, and even if leading decision-makers do not hold
prejudicial attitudes.
4