First Book

Equality Beyond Debate: John Dewey's Pragmatic Idea of Democracy

Cambridge University Press (forthcoming, October 2018)

This book uses John Dewey’s pragmatist philosophy to address how we should think about democracy under conditions of structural social inequality. Much of current democratic theory focuses on improving the way that political debate proceeds, but this focus on political debate abstracts from the way that structural inequality can rob individuals of opportunity to control their lives, and from the way that this inequality can impact even well-organized forums of political debate. Some theorists who focus on political debate have sought to address this problem by also insisting that structural social inequality be largely eliminated in order for political debate to be truly democratic. I argue, though, that structural inequality represents the most pressing current obstacle to democracy, and therefore, democratic theorists cannot just wish it away and treat it as a footnote to the analysis of how political debate should proceed. I use Dewey’s work to show how democracy can be directly linked with the process of overcoming social inequality, and why democratic theory must move beyond a focus on political debate. Dewey’s “pragmatic” democratic theory focuses on responding to our unequal social conditions, and he helps us understand that: (1) an “equal” debate between different political viewpoints can be undemocratic by giving off the appearance of fairness and equality that are not really there; (2) we must often consider only certain sides in a debate (those seeking to overcome social inequality) to represent “democracy,” and consider other sides (those protecting the advantaged) to represent “oligarchy”; and (3) practices in which direct action is taken toward overcoming inequality are “democratic” practices, even though they coerce concessions from the advantaged in ways that ideal forms of debate would not allow. Dewey’s principles thus make democratic theory more relevant to our deeply unequal conditions.