Politics, Democracy and the Social Question

Article

Abstract

[In English]

The object of the paper is to discuss Arendt’s concept of politics, as completely distinct from the concept of social, and her concept of democracy. I argue, on referring namely to Claude Lefort’s analysis, that the concept of politics was developed by Arendt in opposition to her concept of totalitarianism, in which certainly there is its value. However, it does not take in account the complexity of the idea and real development of modern democracy. In some respects, Arendt’s concept of democracy is very radical, even revolutionary, while in other respects it is conservative and even reactionary. I argue that modern democracy can not be conceived only as a purely political phenomenon, but also as a social world of relations governed by – to use Tocqueville’s expression – the principle of «equality of conditions». Therefore, it does not seem either possible or desirable to separate democratic politics from the “social question”. But it is important to understand that the latter, in turn, should not be separated from the free exercise of political rights, legal conflicts of interests and open public debates. Thus, I assume that democracy needs a larger concept of politics than the one Arendt proposed, a concept which, in a way, includes the «social question» without by no means betraying the importance of civic freedom. Such a concept was proposed by Lefort for whom politics is primordially a projection of a whole «form of society».