A curtain of gloom is descending on the continent: Capitalism, democracy and Europe

• Published date: 01 September 2017
• Author: Hauke Brunkhorst
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/eulj.12237
• Date: 01 September 2017

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT

A curtain of gloom is descending on the continent:

Capitalism, democracy and Europe

Hauke Brunkhorst*

Abstract

The democratic and social states of the EU (together with other OECD countries) have transformed capitalism.

This was also due not only to national but also to the impressive advances of transnational constitutionalism.

Great parts of the means of production have been socialised or partly socialised. Finally, the democratic and social

states of Europe did not turn to socialism, but became a new formation of democracy with socialist characteristics,

and that for the time being was the only formation of modern democracy that ever worked. However, democratic

social welfare capitalism has suffered from two problems: secular stagnation and horizontal exclusion. Aggressive

neoliberalism, politically and theoretically well prepared, took its chance and changed the direction of the evolu-

tion of world society. The last 40 years witnessed a great transformation from full‐fledged market‐controlling

democracy to market‐conforming post‐democracy. However, in Europe, political alternatives between social

and neoliberal models remained open until the establishment of a common currency without legislator and

government, which had the unintended effect of excluding all alternatives to neoliberalism once it was established

under the rule of competition law that became the substantial (factual) constitution of Europe. The global

economic crisis of 2008 caused a state of permanent crises in Europe, which at present are managed by an ever

more exceptional regime of technocrats and experts. It would seem that either democracy comes to an end in

Europe and in all of its Member States or Europe becomes the first transnational regime that is not less but more

democratic and social than its former Member States.

1|INTRODUCTION

The idea of a democratic and social Europe emerged within the context of the global social and political conflicts that

defined the first half of the twentieth century,

1

and which resulted, among other things, in the establishment of

democratic and social states, which define themselves as open and cooperative.

2

However, the post‐war institutional

embodiments have come under growing pressure since the late 1970s. As a result, democratic and social states, and

by extension, democratic and social Europe, is by now in retreat. Economistic imperatives, imposed in the name of

containing and overcoming the post 2007 manifold crises, but resulting in patterns of distribution of income and

wealth that increase inequalities, are in the process of subverting democratic self‐government.

*

I have to thank Agustin Menéndez for his terrific work of editing, polishing my English, and improving the content of my paper.

1

K. Polanyi, The Great Transformation (Beacon Press, 1944); S. Halperin, War and Social Change in Modern Europe: The Great

Transformation Revisited (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

2

J.E. Fossum and A.J. Menéndez, The Constitution's Gift: A Constitutional Theory for a Democratic European Union (Rowman & Littlefield,

2011); C. Thornhill, A Sociology of Transnational Constitutions (Cambridge University Press, 2016).

DOI: 10.1111/eulj.12237

Eur Law J. 2017;23:335–349. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/eulj 335