Democracy and Scarcity

Abstract

In contrast to the conditions prevailing in an era of abundance, during an age of scarcity a whole new theorizing of the nature and role of participation in democratic theory seems plausible-one that sees it as integral to the functioning of the democratic process. With the private sphere no longer offering the satisfactions and opportunities that it did in the past, a participatory conceptualization of democracy might offer the only hope for stabilizing democratic values and institutions in an age when the traditional foundation for democratic consensus (namely, material abundance) is being eroded by diminishing resources. A "temporal politics" rooted in issues of personal development and human dignity needs to replace a "spatial politics" absorbed in questions of acquisition.