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Liberal democracy fighting back or fracturing

Marxist Analysis · 2026-05-13

Core Argument

The article argues that the supposed "fightback" of liberal democracy in 2022 is a mirage. What the liberal press celebrates as a recovery — Macron's re-election, the defeat of Bolsonaro, the Democrats' better-than-expected midterm performance, the removal of Truss — is in fact the death rattle of a political form that can no longer contain the class contradictions generated by capitalism's deepening crisis. The central thesis is that liberal democracy is not fighting back but fracturing, and that each apparent victory for the liberal centre simultaneously exposes the system's weakness, illegitimacy, and reliance on extra-democratic interventions by finance capital and the state apparatus.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis draws on the Marxist theory of the state, specifically the understanding that liberal democracy is the political form most suited to capitalist rule during periods of relative stability, but that it becomes a straitjacket when the system enters crisis. The article implicitly deploys the distinction between the form and the content of bourgeois democracy: elections, constitutions, and individual freedoms are real achievements, but they function as a veil for class rule. When the veil frays — when police, courts, media, and even the army become openly politicised and discredited — the system loses its capacity to manufacture consent.

The argument sits within the tradition of Marxist analysis of the state associated with Lenin's State and Revolution and Trotsky's writings on Bonapartism and the decay of bourgeois democracy. It also echoes the classical Marxist position that the crisis of liberal democracy can only be resolved through workers' democracy and socialist revolution — not by restoring the liberal centre, which is itself a cause of the crisis.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article is written in November 2022, at a moment when the liberal commentariat was attempting to spin a narrative of recovery after a period of acute political turbulence. The article names specific events and data points:

  • France: Macron won the presidency with only 28% of first-round votes and roughly 20% of the total electorate; abstention hit a 50-year high; his party lost over 100 seats in the legislative elections and was forced into an arrangement with the far-right National Rally.
  • Britain: Sunak became Prime Minister without a popular vote or even a party vote — he was installed by a coalition of the Treasury, the IMF, the OBR, and financial markets after Truss was ousted in 45 days. The article describes this as a "coup by finance capital."
  • Brazil: Lula won with 50.9% against Bolsonaro's 49.1%, but Bolsonaro's party controls congress, the senate, and the three largest states. The police engaged in voter suppression, and the army was openly discussed as a potential base for refusing the result.
  • USA: The Democrats' smaller-than-expected loss in the midterms was driven partly by anger over the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade — a key institution of the liberal democratic order. Over 200 Trump-backed candidates won their elections. 73% of 18-29 year olds did not vote.

The article situates these events within a broader context of inflation, wage stagnation, rising unemployment, and austerity — the material basis for the political polarisation that liberal democracy cannot channel or contain.

Where the Argument Continues

The article is a snapshot of a particular conjuncture, but the argument it makes is developed across the IDOM corpus in several directions:

  • The relationship between economic crisis and the decay of bourgeois democratic forms is explored in numerous articles on the "crisis of democracy" and the rise of far-right and Bonapartist figures.
  • The critique of reformist leadership — particularly the role of parties like the French Communist Party in splitting the left vote and keeping Mélenchon out of the second round — is a recurring theme in IDOM's analysis of electoral strategy.
  • The question of what replaces liberal democracy is gestured at but not developed here; it is taken up in articles on workers' democracy, soviets, and the transition to socialism.
  • The specific dynamics of the Brazilian conjuncture — Lula's promise of "fiscal discipline" and the inevitability of working-class anger turning against the PT — are analysed in greater depth in other IDOM pieces on Latin America.

Connections

  • Lenin, State and Revolution: The theoretical foundation for understanding the state as an instrument of class rule, and bourgeois democracy as a form of that rule.
  • Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed and Whither France?: Analyses of Bonapartism, the decay of bourgeois democracy, and the role of the state in periods of crisis.
  • IDOM articles on Bonapartism and the far right: The article's implicit argument that disillusionment with liberal democracy is captured by right-wing demagogues in the absence of a revolutionary alternative is developed in pieces on Trump, Bolsonaro, Le Pen, and similar figures.
  • IDOM articles on the British political crisis: The analysis of Sunak's installation as a "finance coup" connects to broader IDOM coverage of the disintegration of the two-party system and the role of the state apparatus in managing political crises.
  • Against the Stream episodes: The podcast regularly takes up the theme of the crisis of bourgeois democracy, particularly in relation to US elections, the French political situation, and the Brazilian conjuncture.

Key Quotes

  1. "If this is the West's most successful electoral politician, it is no ringing endorsement, and certainly not a show of strength for liberal democracy."

  2. "There is probably no leader of a liberal democracy with a weaker democratic mandate than Sunak. He has not been elected by popular vote, nor by his own party. He became Prime Minister via an establishment coup."

  3. "In order to secure their man in Number 10, they were forced to expose the sham of their democratic system for all to see."

  4. "That such a spectre can be raised in the most powerful liberal democracy on earth reveals the depths of liberalism's weakness."

  5. "The police, the courts, the schools, the media, the civil service, and even the army are being politicised, exposed and discredited in one country after the other."

  6. "The crisis of liberal democracy is one symptom of the general crisis of capitalism. It can only be resolved with workers' democracy, and socialist revolution."