{"id":78762,"date":"2025-01-30T08:17:24","date_gmt":"2025-01-30T06:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistaidees.cat\/analisis\/diari-de-les-idees\/idees-dactualitat-el-tecnopopulisme-contra-la-democracia\/"},"modified":"2025-01-30T08:52:37","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T06:52:37","slug":"idees-dactualitat-el-tecnopopulisme-contra-la-democracia","status":"publish","type":"newspaper","link":"https:\/\/revistaidees.cat\/en\/analisis\/diari-de-les-idees\/idees-dactualitat-el-tecnopopulisme-contra-la-democracia\/","title":{"rendered":"Idees d’actualitat – Technopopulism against democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The democracies in which we live are not democracies tout court<\/em> insofar as they are not bound only by their fundamental rules, which is why they have been called liberal democracies. The adjective is far from being neutral and inconsequential: since the French Revolution, we know that a pure democracy, characterised only by the basic principle of popular sovereignty and free and fair elections, but without rules, restrictions and mechanisms limiting the scope of application of majority rule, soon turns into a totalitarian dystopia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, in a liberal democracy, not only are rules established to share and limit power, not only is a system based on checks and balances, not only is the division between the legislature, the executive and the judiciary guaranteed, but the principle that the rules of democratic decision-making do not apply to all spheres of life is also applied. The 18th century is, after all, also the century of the Enlightenment’s enshrinement of inalienable rights, both in the Jeffersonian version of the American Declaration of Independence and in Montesquieu’s De l’esprit des lois<\/em>, who already warned of the havoc that could be wreaked by large-scale confusion between the general interest and private interests. We all have fundamental rights that no majority rule can legitimately violate, no matter how overwhelming it may be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was not by chance, then, that democratic systems were built within the framework of constitutions that limit the scope of their own application and guarantee – or attempt to guarantee – citizens a sphere of personal freedom, separate from the political sphere. Moreover, these instruments (constitutions, declarations, treaties, courts) which, with all their defects and limitations, maintain the aim of guaranteeing a non-negotiable defence of the freedoms, rights and individual guarantees of everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, if liberal democracies have limitations in the scope of their application and, therefore, limitations in the application of majority rule, they also presuppose the existence of an important precept of the opposite sign. In the polis<\/em>, in the purely political sphere, the democratic rules (popular sovereignty, representation by democratically elected or legitimised powers) appl. In addition, a democracy, in order to be considered substantive and full, cannot, therefore, admit interference from non-elected powers that distort the decision-making mechanisms and processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This fundamental rule of liberal democracies is being challenged today by what President Biden, in his farewell address, called \u2018technological oligarchy\u2019. The phenomenon is not entirely new as the threat and interference of unelected powers has always haunted democracies. But what is new is the scale and concentration of this financial power – the accumulated fortunes of Elon Musk (Tesla\/X), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Tim Cook (Apple), and Sundar Pichai (Google) are estimated at some $1.3 trillion – combined with unprecedented technological hegemony, threatens to make democracy a mere conceptual accessory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Donald Trump raised $200 million for his inauguration, four times more than Obama did in 2008, thanks mainly to million-dollar donations from the leaders of the big tech multinationals. The link between political power and the tech oligarchs is a clear statement of intent about their vision of power and the future. Not for nothing was the presence of prominent representatives of authoritarian regimes or radical right-wingers significant: Chinese Vice-President Han Zheng, Viktor Orb\u00e1n, Nayib Bukele, President of El Salvador, Salom\u00e9 Zurabishvili, President of Georgia, Benjamin Netanyahu, Javier Milei, Jair Bolsonaro…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we compare the current situation with, for example, the time of Richard Nixon’s resignation, it is obvious that there has been a change in the scale of values, a moral regression that has spread everywhere. In his book On Freedom (Bodley Head, 2024) Timothy Snyder locates the turning point in the reaction to the 9\/11 attacks and the concentration of economic power. The fight against terrorism favoured the exchange of freedom for security, while the presence of the technology tycoons at Trump’s inauguration is symptomatic of the concentration of economic power that has led to the explosive enrichment of a few and the growing increase in inequality. This is especially true in the West and in Europe, where this situation contributes decisively to the rise of the radical right and the penetration of its discourse in broad sectors of society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of Europe, Trump’s aversion to it and that of the tech barons is not idle: Europe represents a world based on international rules, shared powers, and common values. The European Union is what little is left of this world – the Ancien R\u00e9gime<\/em>, as PayPal founder Peter Thiel called it in the Financial Times a few days ago. Weakening or subduing Europe is the missing piece to make the whole world understand that the multilateral world and international law is outdated. The tech oligarchy despises Europe because as good libertarians they aspire to a world without rules, which is the exact opposite of what the EU wants. Elon Musk openly interfering in the German election campaign, Peter Thiel appealing to the First Amendment of the US Constitution (unrestricted freedom of speech) and Mark Zuckerberg asking for protection from the US government against EU sanctions are obvious examples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This \u2018technological oligarchy\u2019 also poses a challenge to democracies for two other reasons. On the one hand, the control, also on an unprecedented scale, that it exercises over information and thus over opinion formation challenges a fundamental assumption for the proper functioning of liberal democracies: free and informed decision-making based on freedom of expression, freedom of the press and the promotion of a plurality of voices and opinions. Moreover, the power of this new technocracy has a transnational character that makes it significantly more resistant to the mechanisms traditionally used by liberal democracies to fight hegemonic and unelected powers. As has been well illustrated in recent weeks, the power of Musk and company goes far beyond the US, making it difficult to apply the classic recipe against monopolies and oligopolies: their coercive dismemberment in the name of pluralism without which democracies cannot function. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The democratic regimes have proven to be resilient in historical perspective, and the core of their ideals, institutions, customs and traditions have remained alive and relatively unchanged since the 18th century. However, the almost unlimited concentration of wealth and its link to the hegemonic control of technology and information is historically unprecedented and raises the fear that traditional democratic institutions may not have the mechanisms and tools to control these new powers. To confront this unprecedented alliance between political, economic and technological power, we need an effort of thought and institutional reform in order not to give in to those who seek to discredit and decree as obsolete liberal democracy, which, with all its limitations and shortcomings, has generated unprecedented periods of peace, prosperity and well-being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Photography: Jason Howie. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.<\/sub><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The democracies in which we live are not democracies tout court insofar as they are not bound only by their fundamental rules, which is why they have been called liberal democracies. The adjective is far from being neutral and inconsequential: since the French Revolution, we know that a pure democracy, characterised only by the basic principle of popular sovereignty and free and fair elections, but without rules, restrictions and mechanisms limiting the scope of application of majority rule, soon turns into a totalitarian dystopia. Indeed, in a liberal democracy, not only are rules established to share and limit power, not\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":78237,"template":"","category_newspaper":[634],"segment":[],"subject":[],"class_list":["post-78762","newspaper","type-newspaper","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category_newspaper-634"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIdees d'actualitat - Technopopulism against democracy – IDEES<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/revistaidees.cat\/en\/analisis\/diari-de-les-idees\/idees-dactualitat-el-tecnopopulisme-contra-la-democracia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Idees d'actualitat - Technopopulism against democracy – IDEES\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The democracies in which we live are not democracies tout court insofar as they are not bound only by their fundamental rules, which is why they have been called liberal democracies. 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