Democracy as a Competitive Discovery Process

Actors within democracies and markets exhibit opportunistic behaviour and pervasive ignorance. But the debate on whether these systems can handle these problems is polarised. Critics of markets point to corporate greed and consumer exploitation, placing faith in democracy as the antidote; while critics of democracy highlight rent-seeking, public ignorance and limited knowledge for decisionmakers, prioritising markets over democracy. By contrast, we argue that there is a fundamental alignment between how competition in both politics and markets ameliorate these two challenges to social cooperation. Democracy works as a ‘competitive discovery process’ comparably, though not identically, to the way imperfect markets manage to produce goods and services for consumers. Competition in democratic politics and relatively competitive markets both compel and enable key players – particularly big firms and political elites – to be alert and responsive to diverse preferences in society, thereby harnessing opportunistic self-interest and ameliorating knowledge to produce progressively better outcomes for society as a whole.

TBC

Nick Cowen is an Associate Professor in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Lincoln where he teaches Key Social Science Concepts, Human Rights, Social Issues and Social Justice, Images of Crime and Applying Research. He is the author of Neoliberal Social Justice (Edward Elgar, 2021). His research explores the contributions of commercial society towards social inclusion and crime prevention.

Aris Trantidis is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations and Politics. He is author of Clientelism and Economic Policy (Routledge, 2016). He is an expert on democratic politics, with publications exploring democracy’s performance and resilience against authoritarianism, economic crisis, corruption and discrimination based on gender and minority status.

Host or Publisher King's College London