Festenstein, Matthew Isaac

White Rose Research Online

This is a repository copy of Equality Beyond Debate : John Dewey's Pragmatic Idea of Democracy. By Jeff Jackson.White Rose Research Online URL for this paper:http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/146094/Version: Accepted VersionArticle:Festenstein, Matthew Isaac orcid.org/0000-0003-2139-6174 (Accepted: 2019) Equality Beyond Debate : John Dewey's Pragmatic Idea of Democracy. By Jeff Jackson. Perspectives on Politics. ISSN 1537-5927 (In Press) eprints@whiterose.ac.ukhttps://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/Reuse Items deposited in White Rose Research Online are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved unless indicated otherwise. They may be downloaded and/or printed for private study, or other acts as permitted by national copyright laws. The publisher or other rights holders may allow further reproduction and re-use of the full text version. This is indicated by the licence information on the White Rose Research Online record for the item. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing eprints@whiterose.ac.uk including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request.  1 ǣǯ. By Jeff Jackson. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 306p.  Matthew Festenstein, University of York  Why Dewey now? In this sophisticated presentation, Jeff Jackson provides a robust answer. Dewey is often viewed as a historical progenitor of deliberative conceptions of democracy, with some reason. However, this is a very limited interpretation, and for Jackson, Dewey is really a proponent of a form of participatory democracy that takes societal inequalities far more seriously than deliberative theory has been able to.  This is important because ǲǡǯto overcome that inequality and how an overemphasis on political debate can distract us from this urgent ǳȋp. 4).  There is of course a massive supporting empirical literature on the distortions that wealth and inequality impose on capitalist democracies, and the example Jackson draws on several times is the conspicuous intervention of the Koch brothers in the political struggle over collective bargaining rights (and the gubernatorial election) in Wisconsin in 2011.  Dewey provides a theory of specifically participatory democracy which sees social inequality as the most pressing and central problem, pushing to the margins more recent procedurally oriented conceptions of democracy that focus on deliberation or agonism. Rather, democracy is non-procedural and involves taking sides in procedural disputes Ȃ some sides in an argument are oligarchic, others democratic; ǯǡcompromise.  We must associate democracy with outcomes that benefit the disadvantaged rather than with deliberative discussion or agonǣǲǯǳǡ 2 Jackson acidly observesǡǲǳȋp. 212).  Indeed, some sorts of coercive practice, such as strikes, should be understood as democratic, even if they ǯǡaction toward overcoming inequality. ǲ agonistic thinkers attempt to simply say that society should be equal and keep their focus on proper political debate, they are failing to theorize the most essential work involved in ǳȋp.  ?ȌǤǲ  no tolerance for this kind of wishing away of our most pressing problem, and it instead forces us to ǳȋp. 196). Further, following recent interpreters such as Marc Stears and John Medearis, he sees Dewey as committed to non-deliberative and potentially coercive forms of political action in circumstances of deep structural inequality: the protesters near the homes of Wisconsin Governor Scott ǯons of deliberative democracy but nevertheless (Jackson argues) their actions should be understood as democratic.    The argument about the contribution of Dewey to transforming democratic theory is a comprehensive, nuanced and systematic interpretation as a radical that takes us beyond intramural debates in scholarship on Dewey and political theory and in theorising deliberative democracy. This is a rich and engaging text for Dewey aficionados, and an excellent jumping-off point for the tentatively Dewey-curious political theorist. ǯǯǡunlikely figure of Plato as a foil for the discussion: yet Jackson caǲǳmovement,  and sees in The Republic a very Deweyan project of constructing a form of  3 individuality consonant with the objective conditions of its era. Of course, the form of individuality consonant with modern industrial societies is radically un-Platonic, pluralistic, mutable and egalitarian. The following chapter is also framed in relation to a superficially more plausible but also sharply distinct interlocutor, Hegel. (Although Jackson mentions the sigǤǤǯǡǯǤȌas a springboard to discuss the problem of undemocratic work as well as to clarify some important differences between Dewey and Richard Rorty. Jackson builds on this  Hegelian reading to defend Dewey as a radical institutional and political thinker, against political theorists like Sheldon Wolin for whom radical democracy is inherently opposed to institutionalisation. He makes a helpful and detailed case for the ǯǤǯeducational theory in his political philosophy, often a difficult area for clear analysis.   Dewey provides a compelling alternative to the deliberative paradigm because ǲȏȐthey prevent individuǳȋp. 13). ǲ	ǡprincipally defined by individuals participating in the governance of their lives, or, ǳȋp. 12). 	ǡǯ view of democracy as a social iǡǡǲǡdeveloping conception of democracy, one that is constituted by individual, social, and ǳ(p. 265). Multiple, interrelated strands combine to make up democracy, including democratic workplace relations and education. Deliberative theorists ignore or subordinate these relationships.  4  This is likely to provoke a response from some deliberative and agonistic ǡǡǯthey say about the necessary conditions for democratic politics. But this review ǯpresentation designed to appease skeptics about the very expansive conception of ǯǤHere I want only to suggest another type of question. ǡǯǯs thought, features about which Dewey himself ǯ, namely, his liberalism and his socialism. Dewey is loudly committed to a liberal conception of individual freedom; in particular, positive liberty. Perhaps because he feels that this is an excessively ǡǯit. But ǯs important that ǯcommitment to democratic individualism and his scathing analysis of liberalism as a bankrupt ideology of capitalist exploitation was made in the name of a better liberalism. 	ǡǯcritique of ǲdominationǳis married to a desire to move beyond market forms of organisation, which he explores through forms of pluralism as well as socialism. He famously contrasts a democratic planning economy and an undemocratic planned one Ȃ but his point is that a planning economy is planned. Dewey was vague about institutions, but, as Jackson emphasises, emphatic that institutions were important, and what he was principally vague about was how state ȋǯȌȂ the recognition of unions was part of this. What Dewey sees as the radical nisus of his work is less the accommodation of direct action, civil disobedience and coercion as a means than the authority of democratic social and economic planning. While ǯstatements about direct action are ambivalent and contextual, the dominant note seems  5 to be the well-ǡǲȏȐvoluntary activities of individuals in opposition to coercion; they are assent and consent in opposition to violence; they are the force of intelligence organization versus the force ǳȋǲǳ[1937], in Jo Ann Boydston (ed.) John Dewey: The Later Works 1925-1953, vol. 11 [1987]: 298). The tension between this and the position Jackson ascribes to Dewey still seems live and in Ǥǯǯsocieties but does not quite put its subject matter beyond debate.        

Equality Beyond Debate:John Dewey's Pragmatic Idea of Democracy. By Jeff Jackson

https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/146094/1/Festenstein_Review_Equality_Beyond_Debate_by_Jeff_Jackson.pdf

Equality Beyond Debate : John Dewey's Pragmatic Idea of Democracy. By Jeff Jackson

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