Liberal democracy let a propertied minority reserve economic interests through universal-sounding laws

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. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 576

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Habermas’s inversion — that realized liberal democracy is a negative case, a minority privatizing politics — reframes constitutional achievement as class capture.
• XREF: connects to: Liberal constitutional democracy historically reserved political reality to economically privileged minorities. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2336; Liberal legal forms protect individual liberty beyond capitalist economic needs — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 248; Abolishing parliamentary forms requires abolishing their individualist economic content — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 951 (+3 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Liberal constitutional democracy historically reserved political reality to economically privileged minorities. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2336; Liberal legal forms protect individual liberty beyond capitalist economic needs — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 248; Abolishing parliamentary forms requires abolishing their individualist economic content — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 951 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Liberal constitutional democracy historically reserved political reality to economically privileged minorities. #corroborates (0.95) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2336