In the opening contests of the 2016 race for the White House, Ted Cruz, a Republican candidate described as a “mountebank”, has upstaged Donald Trump, a “narcissist”. Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed Democratic socialist, more or less tied with establishment favourite Hillary Clinton. So the rebellion against the elites is in full swing. The vital question is whether (and how) western elites can be brought closer to the people.
We are not Chinese. Maybe even the Chinese will not remain content to hand responsibility for public affairs to a self-selecting elite. In the west, however, the idea of citizenship — that the public realm is the property of all — is not only of ancient standing; it has also been the object of an ultimately successful struggle in recent centuries. An essential attribute of the good life is that people enjoy not just a range of personal freedoms, but a voice in public affairs.
The outcome of individual economic freedom can be great inequality, which hollows out realistic notions of democracy. The governance of complex modern societies requires technical knowledge — and we already face the danger that the gulf between economic and technocratic elites on the one hand, and the mass of the people on the other, becomes too vast to be bridged. At the limit, trust might break down altogether. Thereupon, the electorate will turn to outsiders to clean up the system. We are seeing such a shift towards trust in outsiders not only in the US but also in many European countries.