Liberal constitutional democracy historically reserved political reality to economically privileged minorities.

Evidence

For a minority, democracy had at one time been more or less a reality, to the extent that that minority had had access to means of material existence that could only be restricted by universal laws enacted by representatives of that minority. But this was in fact rather a negative aspect of democracy: a community using politics to reserve to itself economic interests that were regarded as private. It was negative in comparison with the concept of democracy in antiquity: for the Athenians, the community’s public affairs were more important than regulating the necessities of life. It was also negative in comparison with the radical sense of democracy, that a people should have sovereignty even over the basis of its material existence. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2336

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Habermas’s critique of liberal democracy and the depoliticization theme echoed in his later Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. — connects to: Liberal democracy’s neutral ideals mask racial and gendered domination — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 406; Liberal democracies are not direct-access societies but elite-mediated ones — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular:…, 26; Locke’s liberalism and the American Constitution embedded racial hierarchy in their foundations — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 400 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Liberal democracy’s neutral ideals mask racial and gendered domination #expands (0.85) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 406
• Locke’s liberalism and the American Constitution embedded racial hierarchy in their foundations #exemplifies (0.85) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 400
• Liberal rights discourse has historically justified rather than opposed empire #expands (0.80) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 72
• Liberal democracies are not direct-access societies but elite-mediated ones #expands (0.78) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 26
• Liberal democratic values are ambiguous and can legitimize domination #expands (0.75) — Cristian Tileagă, The Nature of Prejudice, 114
• Liberalism and syndicalism serve dominant versus still-subaltern groups. #expands (0.72) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 699