Erica Benner: "The control of the world that the super-rich have is despairing"

BarcelonaDemocracy is threatened not only by the rise of authoritarianism, but also by growing social inequalities. The philosopher Erica Benner (Tokyo, 1962), one of the great contemporary specialists on Machiavelli, warns that economic inequalities, the concentration of power in the hands of a minority, and the loss of the idea of the common good corrupt democratic systems from within. Benner has visited Barcelona at the invitation of Cidob, where she has reflected on the crisis of democracy and the rise of the new right.

What is it that threatens democracy today?

— Democracy is facing increasingly autocratic trends, but above all against oligarchic trends that have accelerated in a barely visible way. Saying that the main struggle of democracy is against autocracy sometimes keeps us from seeing all the other more subtle forms of corrupting forces that are acting in the sphere of the economy. When we analyze the crisis of democracy, focusing on autocrats and autocratic regimes distracts us from seeing the things we have closer to home, which we have been accepting and sometimes even endorsing, regarding deregulation. We have allowed societies to become enormously unequal and for younger generations to be terrified by their future prospects.

Then, democracy is not reduced to functional institutions?

— In the last 40 or 50 years, or more, we have thought of democracy only as an institutional set that allowed for free competition. Elections must be competitive, but democracy should also be an attitude, in the minds of leaders and citizens, about what meaning it has to share this political space that we are now placing under democratic institutions. And surely the meaning is to recognize that it is a common space where everyone has their share of power. Where every social group, every generation, every region must have its fair share of power and feel that the terms of the association are fair. These terms must be open to negotiation and should not be conceived as something absolutely rigid. This narrow image of democracy based on rules and institutions I believe has done us no favors.

While the rich became very rich and the poor very poor.

— The economy has been separated from politics in a way that has become obviously dangerous for democracy. Because if you allow some groups to become much richer and more influential, especially over new communication technologies, the system becomes unsustainable. They can destroy democracy even without wanting to. This kind of imbalance destroys democracy, because it takes power away from everyone else, it gives disproportionate power to the people who control the media and the wealth to influence politics. But to sustain democracy, a system is needed that distributes economic and political power more evenly, but that is not what has happened under neoliberalism. We must see a general rule of democracies from antiquity to the present: from Plato and Aristotle to Montesquieu, they said that if we want a sustainable republic, equality is necessary. Everyone gave a different meaning to the idea of equality, but it has always been present. Not an absolute equality, nor imposed by the state. It means that the notion of democracy is synonymous with shared power. Democracy is not just protecting the freedom of property for whoever manages to have property, which is the version that has worked in the United States.

And aren't the rich not only richer but now investing more in politics? Elon Musk is a clear example of this.

— Yes, it is horrible, but the good part is that this is now in plain sight for everyone. You no longer need to be on the left to criticize the concentration of power. The control that the super-rich have is desperate, but we are living in an interesting moment, there are also reasons for hope.

Where?

— In the US, for example, young democratic socialists are trying to change the paradigm and address real problems that appeal to many people. It is necessary to foreground economic concerns and take them seriously. And always insist on a human perspective. Many of the young democratic leaders are children or grandchildren of migrants and are changing the tone: look at Mamdani, always smiling, speaking positively, avoiding the "us versus them" and conveying a defense of humanity. I do not believe that institutions on their own can do anything. I believe that on a very daily level, what everyone can do, and this is controversial, is to talk and listen to people who do not agree with you. If you say "I cannot talk to an AfD or Trump voter," you will never be able to find out what worries them. Whether their concerns are real and not just the result of manipulation. This summer I was invited to California to talk about Machiavelli, coinciding with the 250th anniversary of the independence of the United States. I spoke with many Trump voters, and I discovered many women of Mexican origin who were very opposed to immigration, because they did not want their identity to be contaminated by criminals. Voting is not the most important thing in my democratic repertoire: I am interested in why people vote differently, what persuades them.

How is the rise of the far right in Europe explained?

— If you look at the electoral program of Alternative for Germany, it is a hodgepodge, but they always pay attention to economic problems: housing and energy prices, unemployment, the future of our children, the population decline of impoverished cities... and they take that and say "the elites in Berlin or wherever they are do not care about us". And in all of this there are elements of reality. But then they blame the migrants for it, and that is where things become dangerous.

Do you think the global rise of the far right is a storm? Many voices now predict that it will pass soon.

— No, because I am Machiavellian. Machiavelli's analysis of republics and how they become corrupted is basically that if you do not detect the signs very early, the old rich or the old aristocrats, in a republic that has made them equal, immediately try to gain more power. If you do not build institutions, but also attitudes that control them, this will end up happening: it will take 200, 100, or 10 years, but autocracy will impose itself. This is what we have seen in the USA. If you look back at the founding of the US democracy, you can see the seeds of corruption: slavery, imperialism... It has been 250 years of good words and bad actions. We cannot take progress for granted: democracy does not take care of itself. We are not going through a cold. Look at Spain: when has it had a healthy democracy? Great Britain, did it ever really become democratic?