Democracy May Not Exist, But We'll Miss It When It's Gone

What is democracy really? What do we mean when we use the term? And can it ever truly exist? Astra Taylor, hailed as a "New Civil Rights Leader" (LA Times), provides surprising answers. There is no shortage of democracy, at least in name, and yet it is in crisis everywhere we look. From a cabal of thieving plutocrats in the White House to campaign finance and gerrymandering, it is clear that democracy-specifically the principle of government by and for the people-is not living up to its promise. In Democracy May Not Exist, but We'll Miss It When It's Gone, Astra Taylor shows that real democracy-fully inclusive and completely egalitarian-has in fact never existed. In a tone that is both philosophical and anecdotal, weaving together history, theory, the stories of individuals, and interviews with such leading thinkers as Cornel West, Danielle Allen, and Slavoj Zizek, Taylor invites us to reexamine the term. Is democracy a means or an end, a process or a set of desired outcomes? What if those outcomes, whatever they may be-peace, prosperity, equality, liberty, an engaged citizenry-can be achieved by non-democratic means? Or if an election leads to a terrible outcome? If democracy means rule by the people, what does it mean to rule and who counts as the people? These inherent paradoxes are unnamed and unrecognized. By teasing them, Democracy May Not Exist, but We'll Miss It When It's Gone offers a better understanding of what is possible, what we want, and why democracy is so hard to realize.

Astra Taylor is an award-winning writer, activist, and documentarian, and a cofounder of the Debt Collective. She is the author of The People's Platform, which won the American Book Award; Democracy May Not Exist, but We'll Miss It When It's Gone; and The Age of Insecurity. Taylor regularly writes for publications including The New Yorker and The New York Times. Taylor toured with the band Neutral Milk Hotel and was the 2023 CBC Massey Lecturer.

Introduction: Living in the Tension 1. Free to Be Winners and Losers (Freedom/Equality) 2. Shouting as One (Conflict/Consensus) 3. Reinventing the People (Inclusion/Exclusion) 4. Choose This, or Else! (Coercion/Choice) 5. Is This What Democracy Looks Like? (Spontaneity/Structure) 6. A Socratic Mob (Expertise/Mass Opinion) 7. New World Order (Local/Global) 8. A Ruin or a Habitation (Present/Future) Conclusion: From Founding Fathers to Perennial Midwives Notes Acknowledgments Index