Why Is Democracy So Hard? University of California, Berkeley Memorial Lecture for Erik Olin Wright, January 2020*

• Author: Wendy Brown
• Published date: 01 December 2020
• Date: 01 December 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0032329220962655
• Subject Matter: Special Issue Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0032329220962655

Politics & Society

2020, Vol. 48(4) 539 –552

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0032329220962655

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Special Issue Article

Why Is Democracy So

Hard? University of

California, Berkeley

Memorial Lecture for

Erik Olin Wright,

January 2020*

Wendy Brown

University of California

Abstract

This lecture reflects on the difficulties of democracy in Erik Olin Wright’s

demo cratic socialist vision, one he elaborates in How to Be an Anti-capitalist in

the 21st Century and Envisioning Real Utopias. It rejects the notion that radical

democratic projects in cities, workplaces, and cooperatives can simply be scaled

up for purposes of national or postnational political rule. It reflects on selected

requirements of democracy apart from democratic governing institutions and

practices: from democratic political culture, to education and accountability, to

handling globalized powers and problems such as finance, capital, and the climate

crisis. The lecture concludes ambivalently, suggesting that democracy may be both

necessary and impossible in realizing a politically free, socially just, and ecologically

sustainable future.

Keywords

Wright, Tocqueville, Marx, democracy, democratic socialism

Corresponding Author:

Wendy Brown, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-1950, USA.

Email: wlbrown@berkeley.edu

*This essay is part of a special issue of Politics & Society celebrating and examining the life and work of

longtime board member Erik Olin Wright (1947–2019).

962655PASXXX10.1177/0032329220962655Politics & SocietyBrown

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