Démocratie de la demande versus démocratie de l’offre : reconstruction et interprétation des analogies démocratie-marché

Abstract

Starting from the distinction between “categorical” and “formal” analogies, this paper proposes a reconstruction of the analogies between market and democracy as well as an interpretation of their uses. This reconstruction reveals two main ideal-typical representations of economic and political processes conveyed by the use of democracy-market analogies by 20th century economists. Some of them consider that the outcomes of economic and political processes are or should be essentially determined by the demand side of the market, i.e. by the preferences of consumers and citizens. This is a political worldview that we call “demand-side democracy”. Others believe, on the contrary, that the economic system and democracy are processes driven by the supply side of the market. In terms of the positive use of the analogy, we argue that the demand-side democracy view is directly dependent on the assumptions underlying neoclassical economics, so that the more an economist distances himself from them, the more he proposes a “supply-side democracy” view. The normative uses of the analogy are however resistant to any simplistic characterization.

Keywords

• democracy
• market
• competition
• consumer sovereignty
• analogy