Legitimation Crisis? On the Political Contradictions of Financialized Capitalism

Façade democracy. Post-democracy. Zombie democracy. De-democratization. In proliferating such terms, many observers posit that we are living through a “crisis of democracy.” But what exactly is in crisis here? I argue that democracy’s present travails are best understood as expressions, under historically specific contemporary conditions, of a general tendency to political crisis that is intrinsic to capitalist societies. I elaborate this thesis in three steps. First, I propose a general account of “the political contradiction of capitalism” as such, without reference to any particular historical form. Then, I reconstruct Jürgen Habermas’s 1973 book, Legitimation Crisis, as an account of the form this political contradiction assumed in one specific phase of capitalist society, namely, the state-managed capitalism of the post–World War II era. Finally, I sketch an account of democracy’s current ills as expressions of capitalism’s political contradiction in its present, financialized phase.