Capitalist liberal democracy—that is, the tolerance for alternative ideas and debate under capitalism—is tolerated only so long as those ideas do not gain sufficient traction to pose a material threat to the system itself. The suppression of support for Palestine and opposition to genocide across Europe is a prime example. When an idea challenges the prevailing balance of power or orthodoxy, it is clamped down upon, thus exposing the limits of liberal democracy itself.
The ongoing genocide in Gaza, with the estimated murder of over 100,000 Gazan Palestinians, the vast majority being civilians, highlights the futility and failure of liberalism and the liberal governance of capitalism in the West to protect basic human rights. The inability of these liberal capitalist states to stop, prevent, or even minimise the genocide—and indeed, their actions in arming, encouraging, and supporting it—shows that the liberal democratic form of governance is in decline. It is being gradually replaced by a hollowed-out democracy and an authoritarian, technocratic form of rule.
Governments continue to act against the majority views of the people across many European states. The EU, presided over by unelected bureaucrats without any democratic mandate, continues to support and facilitate the Israeli genocide.
Capitalism does not require liberal democracy, even if it might prefer it. While its development certainly flowed from the struggles for democratic and human rights, capitalism can comfortably coexist with absolute monarchies, fascist dictatorships, one-party systems, and undemocratic technocracies.
It seems today that the value of liberal democracy to capitalism is diminishing. A more direct, authoritarian rule by the business class and its hired representatives is proving more conducive and convenient for capitalist reproduction and imperialist power. Capitalist liberalism has given rise to rampant inequality, which has shifted even more power to the few, thereby hastening its own demise.
We have seen increasing clampdowns on protest across European countries. It seems that to protest effectively—that is, to cause disruption—is under attack across Europe. The only forms of protest permitted are those with little impact, as seen with the trajectories of both Extinction Rebellion and Palestine Action. Citizenship rules are being linked to support for Israel (as in Germany), flags are banned, and lawfare is used to silence dissenting voices.
This is a model trialled against trade unions over many years, where laws on industrial action have increasingly restricted the ability of workers to take fast and effective action to pursue their legitimate interests, both industrial and political. You are free to take action, so long as it doesn’t interfere or offend.
The ‘anti-establishment opposition’ increasingly comes from a blend of far-right, right-libertarian, and conspiracy groupings, alongside angry lumpen elements. These are pumped up, paid for, and fuelled by the same techno-elite that is hollowing out democracy and whose power has been enhanced by the very liberal order they rail against. This ‘opposition’ is the flip side of the same coin as the governments and the business class. They only help to further anti-worker, anti-people policies, and the genocide of the Palestinian people.
If this continues, the freedoms that will remain for working people are the freedom to be oppressed, the freedom to be poor, the freedom to be homeless, and the freedom to be governed. This combination of right-wing governments and their further-right opposition leaves liberal democracy defunct. It is both incapable of acting and undesired by the capitalist class. Thus, a more authoritarian form of governance is being ushered in.
