Democratic breakdown or breakthrough?
Many still may not want to face it, but we are in a class struggle for survival
Canadian PoliticsEconomic CrisisEnvironmentSocial MovementsUSA Politics

Donald Trump speaking at the 2023 Turning Point Action Conference at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida. Photo by Gage Skidmore/Flickr.
We are being pushed to a precipice by corporate capitalists’ obsession with indiscriminate profits. Environmental disasters mount to the point of irreversibility, provoked by continuing hellbent production of fossil fuels and every conceivable byproduct. Massive economic disparities fester between insanely acquisitive billionaires and rapidly growing numbers who cannot afford the basics of life. Growing slaughters of innocents are fomented by a military industrial complex producing and selling more devastating weapons, regardless of the growing threat of nuclear winter. There is an unprecedented loss of trust in governments as many are led to believe governing parties control these conditions—even though they are the direct consequence of capitalists’ profits obsession and our own comforting preoccupation with consuming the byproducts. Many still may not want to face it, but we are in a class struggle for survival.
Elections are just about the only time in representative democracies when the voice of the people is heard. I have been surveying ordinary Canadians’ views on real policy issues for much of my life and often found differences between popular preferences and party programs. But many of these gaps are now chasms, even if papered over in most media. The November US presidential election and the next Canadian federal election may be the most consequential ever in North America for taking account of popular voices.
Take global warming and renewable energy. Large majorities in both Canada and the US now agree that global warming is a threat to human survival and that renewable energy should be given high priority to address it. Yet, in contrast to some countries that now have major renewable energy programs, both Canada and the US (with by far the highest per capita carbon footprints in the industrialized world) have barely increased their renewable fractions of energy consumption over the past four decades. Our federal party leaders even quibble over axing an ineffectual carbon tax. Donald Trump continues to deny the reality of climate change and insists on increased drilling while the Democratic Party’s marginally better renewable energy policies remain blocked by corporate fossil fuel influences. This is just a blatant example.
Consider economic inequities. In both countries, the wealth of corporate elites has increased massively since the Great Recession of 2007-8 and again since the pandemic while workers’ wages and benefits have stagnated and health and welfare services have suffered severely. The federal Liberals’ recent marginal increase of the capital gains tax for the wealthy is a tiny defensive gesture. The vast majority of Canadians and Americans strongly support much larger progressive measures to re-tax the rich to generate revenue to address decades of neoliberal austerity measures and tackle cost of living challenges.
The list goes on. A major effect of the failure of responsive democratic government policy to address mounting real social concerns has been a rise of political cynicism. Ruling mainstream parties have continually legislated policies that largely serve the interests of corporate elites, with minimal response to the needs of the majority. Most Canadians and Americans now feel that government doesn’t care about what they think. With increasingly polarizing income and wealth inequity, there is mounting evidence that growing numbers of white folks who see themselves as either very rich or very poor are more disposed to blame racialized minorities for worsening general economic conditions and are receptive to anti-democratic political appeals to solve them.
As in the past under divisive political conditions, right wing authoritarian populists (supported by right wing corporate elites) now exploit sentiments of cynicism and frustration with appeals to “drain the swamp” and lead us to salvation with policy mixtures demonizing racialized minorities and claiming to restore past economic entitlements. These appeals have increasing attraction to disaffected voters when elected governments continue to be able to make only marginal changes to programs that are so obviously at odds with popular needs and preferences.
The immediate consequence in upcoming federal elections in the US and Canada is likely to be further democratic breakdown—with authoritarian governments led by Trump and Poilievre and/or the continuation of deeply divided and ineffectual “winner-take-all” legislatures. A Harris presidency promises continued fracking, global military offensives and corporate PAC influence. Another Liberal-NDP minority coalition pact promises more political stalemates. None of these options begin to address real popular demands on the most pressing environmental and social issues.
Two things are urgently needed for democratic electoral breakthrough beyond these imminent elections.
Political activists and voters themselves generally need to recognize that democratic majorities are now ready to respond to political platforms firmly based on social issues of majority concern. In addition to strong support for renewable energy and more progressive taxation, strong majorities in nearly all economic classes except corporate elites now agree that large corporate owners are benefitting at the expense of workers and consumers. It is true that a lot of people still choose to see no political alternative to currently established parties’ programs. But attitude surveys that have bothered to inquire find many more rank-and-file employees who support a more democratic economy than those in all classes who support a profit-driven economy. Solid majorities of Canadians in nearly all walks of life declare that they would vote for political candidates pledged to a more democratic economy with environmental sustainability. There are many practical measures that could address both environmental and equity rights issues, draw majority public support and be implemented by coalitions of progressive legislators (for example, ending subsidies for fossil fuel development, resumption of non-profit affordable housing programs, transition of closing-down manufacturing facilities to sustainable socially useful production centres, ending private monopolies for electricity supply, provision of more community health centres for general health needs and womens’ reproductive rights, etc.)—if we have relatively democratic future election processes. Even without corporate tax increases, the public debt level with these measures would still be less than we tolerated during the Second World War. Most people now at least recognize we are in a war to cope with global warming.
Secondly, there are many members within existing political parties, trade unions, professional associations, social equity movements, media organizations and others who not only recognize these conditions but are knowledgeable about and interested in practical policy alternatives to effectively address them. Small numbers of well-organized activists can be very powerful drivers of change. Corporate elites have demonstrated this in leading the march to neoliberal austerity since the 1980s, and even smaller numbers such as the Koch brothers have led current authoritarian movements. But the same has also been true of small numbers in well-organized social movements for progressive change in the past, such as US civil rights in the 1960s. Plus, the large numbers mobilized in recent protests for environmental and economic rights are unprecedented. Progressive change movements have invariably included class conscious unionized workers as well as other equity advocates, and they are now ready and able.
The level of political consciousness of unionized workers in Weimar Germany was very similar to that of current progressive workers and equity advocates. Tragically, German progressives failed to take concerted action to mobilize democratic forces against Nazism until it was far too late. The consequences of inaction this time could be at least as devastating and even more enduring.
D.W. Livingstone is professor emeritus at the University of Toronto. His most recent book is Tipping Point for Advanced Capitalism (Fernwood, 2023).