Promise or Terror?

Goya - O sono da Razão

Can it be that what seems to be happening in Brazil and in much of the world – the so-called ‘crisis of representation’, the distrust of institutions – may be a sign that ‘the masses’ are feeling that within the political rationality of capitalism and the rules of representative democracy they do not have and will not find their opportunity?

In his study of religions Max Weber notes existence in societies of a cycle that revolves between two basic forms of religion: religions of salvation - which aim at a transcendental goal by means of prophecies and charismatic leaders - and religions of acceptance, which encourage man to adapt to the world by means of rules and rituals.  The first type have the potential to cause revolution insofar as they aim at changing the world, or at least not accepting its reality and laws as supreme values. 

According to Weber a similar pattern is found in terms of the Law: a progression from traditional societies ruled by the sacred to the law of lawyers which is rational and impersonal.

Equally, in economics the universal rules of the marketplace have come to take precedence over previous economic regulations based on custom or religion.  We cannot say that the laws of the marketplace are unfair: the ‘injustices’ (acts of partiality or exclusion) that mark the differences between ‘classes’ arise out of rational rules (that are general and valid for all) and not from tradition such as the privileges of ‘castes’.

The problem that Weber recognizes is that by using rational politics and the economic organisation of the marketplace the underprivileged cannot ‘turn the game around’, but at best they can only achieve a certain relief for their situation of inferiority.

Can it be that what seems to be happening in Brazil and in much of the world – the so-called ‘crisis of representation’, the distrust of institutions – may be a sign that ‘the masses’ are feeling that within the political rationality of capitalism and the rules of representative democracy they do not have and will not find their opportunity?

The solution of adaptation, the wearisome individual search, not always rewarded, for advancement through education and a career is increasingly less attractive, especially to those young people who do not believe in the opportunities the system is offering them.

Another, more attractive solution would therefore be a form of charismatic mass politics that would start everything over again.  Chávez, Lula – never before in this country – could such figures represent hope based on the promise of a new cycle of salvation in which the laws and institutions would lose their dominance and a new prophecy would offer the possibility of another world.  The path to salvation requires above all a blind confidence in charismatic leaders who challenge or seem to flee from the ‘rationality of the system’ to bring about change ‘by hook or by crook’. 

The major problem is that until now the lessons of history are not very encouraging in terms of the results of such radical changes.  The ‘great revolutions’ of the 19th century resulted in economic disasters after, in many cases, going through phases of bloodbaths and social oppression. 

Weber’s typology seems to be lacking the kind of solution that has produced the greatest periods of progress in the recent history of humanity and which is certainly present in the popular movements in Brazil and Latin America.  It is not adaptation nor salvationism: it is the constant pressure of organised society to defend and increase its rights through recognising differences and strengthening democracy that has produced the best results - extending the limits of the rationality of the system to reinforce laws and institutions and not to do away with them.

The cure for disenchantment with the world (Weber) for the sickness of civilisation (Freud) produced by the predominance of instrumental rationality in human life is not to turn to the irrational, but to reason in more and better measures.  If it is “only through magic that life remains alive” (Stefan George) we must also remember that “the sleep of Reason creates monsters” (Goya – who knew what he was talking about).

The tenuous dividing line between extending the limits of economic rationality and politics and breaking them shows the huge difference between the promise and terror.