Democratic Socialism as a pragmatic response to the crisis of liberal democracy

Recent democratic theory is torn between diagnoses of doom and just as many approaches to salvation. Rescue proposals mostly refer to democratic innovations such as mini publics, to social movements, or global governance to achieve democratization. What is striking is that while all these proposals acknowledge growing social inequality, they are less materialistic in their solutions and rarely oriented toward precarious living conditions. For the most part, the focus remains on increased attention to public deliberation or better opportunities for participation, while the decline of basic material conditions of democracy is not addressed. The aim of this paper is to propose a pragmatist approach with John Dewey, who closely focused on the social foundations of democracy: Since capitalism undermines the possibility of growth of freedom, the socialization of infrastructure, large banks and companies is an appropriate means of creating an egalitarian society for him (1). This shows that democratic socialism can be understood as a pragmatist approach to the crises of liberal democracy (2). Turning to the problems of men is an appeal to democratic theory to stop vacillating between praise and decline, but to face concrete challenges. This paper aims to show that only concrete solutions to the problems of men as well as securing most basic materialist standards will safeguard democracy (3). Lastly, it will outline concrete institutional ideas that will help strengthening such standards of political and material equality (4).