Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism

Sheldon Wolin has been a leading political theorist since the 1960 publication of Politics and Vision, in which he explored the influence of imagination on ideals and institutions. Along the way he has engaged figures usually confined to theology, including Augustine and Luther, but only recently has he captured the attention of theologians. For example, in The State of the University, Stanley Hauerwas enlisted Wolin for his analysis of the conflation of liberal theory and democratic practice and the assumption that the primary political “we” for Christians is the “civic nation” rather than the church. Whether or not they agree with Hauerwas, scholars unconvinced by the descriptions of American democracy offered by Jeffrey Stout and others will find Democracy Incorporated helpful for envisioning a radical democracy in which Christians can participate without setting aside their claims about the world. In the final chapter of the 2004 expanded edition of Politics and Vision, Wolin outlined the rise of a new political form: inverted totalitarianism, the dominance of not only state-centered political power but also corporate-centered economic power. Democracy Incorporated is the exposition of this argument. Wolin is careful to distinguish the United States from the regimes of Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin, under which life was harsh and absorbed by ideology. For Americans, however, the abundance of choices makes life seem tolerable, even entertaining. In contrast to classical totalitarianism, “inverted totalitarianism has emerged imperceptibly, unpremeditatedly, and in seeming unbroken continuity with the nation's political traditions” (p. 46). Here economics is not subordinate to politics; rather, “economics dominates politics—and with that domination come different forms of ruthlessness,” such as when the government withholds appropriated funds or waives economic and environmental regulations, thereby abdicating its responsibility under the guise of privatization (p. 58).