By Peter Trankner
A market in which the consumer is allowed to vote formally, but in fact no longer finds any alternatives, loses its legitimacy. The same applies to democracy.
Voters are, in a way, like market participants: they ideally check the supply and then choose the product that suits them the most, from which they expect the greatest benefit. Competition in supply is crucial in the market economy -- and it is also crucial in democracy.
Cartel formations and monopolies are dangerous for a market. Because then consumers lose the opportunity to examine and consume alternative offers -- that is, to choose.
The market economy and democracy are brothers in spirit. They have as ideal the mature voter and mature consumer. Both systems rely on trust that people are able to make decisions based on their own reason that are right for them -- and, more importantly, to do right things or refrain from doing wrong things.
There are times when markets come under pressure. Markets have stress tests and democracies can also go through stress tests. This is particularly the case when supply and demand are becoming even more difficult to find each other and when more and more people feel that neither the market nor the democracy is functioning properly.
The acceptance of democracy and the market thrives on the fact that all people feel that their choices and reason are taken seriously. A market in which the consumer is allowed to vote formally, but in fact no longer finds any alternatives, loses its legitimacy. And a democracy in which voters are allowed to vote but political offers are increasingly limited by cartels and exclusions, faces a similar problem.
The historical electoral relationship between democracy and market economy may therefore lie precisely here: both rely on the mature human being. Both rely on competition. Both need rules, but rules that allow competition. And both only work permanently if people can trust that their free choice actually makes a difference.
The key prerequisite for this is freedom: the consumer’s freedom to choose between offers and the citizen’s freedom to choose between political alternatives. Where freedom wanes, democracy comes under pressure and loses some of its internal legitimacy.
The market economy and democracy are therefore not just two institutions that have been created side by side by chance. They are based on a common anthropological and political assumption: man is mature enough to decide for himself. He may be wrong, he may change his mind, he may refuse one offer and choose another. It is precisely this possibility of change that is the heart of competition.
And perhaps this is precisely the real stress test of both systems: whether people are free to decide, even if they decide from what the elites, the providers or the political institutions think is right.
The most important word of freedom is no.
Contradiction is self-determination. It is liberating to say: No, I see it differently. With No, the freedom to think and act begins. The freedom to say no is in contrast to the lack of freedom to say yes. Only real democracies allow and encourage contradiction.
