Sedef Aslı Topal
University of Szeged

Abstract

Since trade barriers and legal restrictions on economic matters were removed among nations, nation-state has considerably lost power in both domestic and global political arena. Liberal democracies entered into a crisis because the most important decisions on financial and development issues are not taken by democratically elected bodies, but transnational actors and interest groups holding a significant amount of political power in their hands. As a result, a critical tension has occurred between liberal democracy and neoliberal economic system in the newly emerged market democracies. This article focuses on whether democracy is still accountable where the elections for determining central decision-making body are between market players rather than political parties. It aims to explore the relations among democratic governance, market rationality and political manipulation. In terms of the methodology, it draws on empirical research and critical analysis within the framework of Political Theory.

Keywords: Democracy, Manipulation, Neoliberalism, Sovereignty, Transnational actors

Introduction

Political Theory is a study of examining terms and principles to produce new knowledge and conceptualise research. It is based on a cause and effect relationship between historical evidence in progress of knowledge. It indicates that “the meaning of an action or a statement changes radically depending on its contexts, which is to say, depending on its relation to other actions and statements (White and Moon, 2004, p.174).” Accordingly, to explain the relations between concepts with a consistent judgement or approach is the main objective of Political Theory in research. In this study, the concept of ‘democracy’ is addressed in terms of its changing dynamics with a judgement that democracy has transformed into a different form of governance. Its transformation is dwelled on with regards to the tension between free market model and liberal democratic principles.

Neoliberal economy and liberal democracy have reshaped the international economic and political system since the socialist model collapsed with the disintegration of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1990s. Both of them – from the ideological point – are located in the classical liberalism of the 19th century; however, they contradict with each other in practice and, this contradiction has been turning democracy into a manipulative regime for the last two decades. In this regard, the main argumentations to be addressed in this article are: 1) Could we still claim that democracy is the best form of political representation in such an economic system leaving the citizens unprotected against arbitrary activities of transnational actors? 2) Which type of factors does influence the political opinion in market democracies? 3) Could political manipulation be a real factor? 4) If we replaced democracy with ‘manipulocracy’, would it be a right statement? “The study of politics needs both seek the general laws to explain the causes of political behaviour and to develop interpretations of the meaning and significance of political events and conceptual regimes to the uniform evaluative judgment of them (White and Moon, 2004, p.174).” This article analyses manipulocracy as a new term which is indicating the end of the transformation process of liberal democracy. Firstly; it focuses on the impacts of the market economy on state sovereignty. Secondly; it seeks to answer why democracy has entered into a crisis with the imposition of the free market economy on nation-states. Lastly, it concentrates on the role of the social welfare state in protecting liberal democratic institutions. Also, in the final part of the study, ‘manipulocracy’ appears as an alternative term to describe democracy when it underlines the stages of the transformation.

Eroding Sovereignty and Weakening Nation-State

Neoliberal market approach was introduced as a new system of economic thought at the end of the 20th century. Brown (2005) clearly explains the market approach and free market idea: By removing trade barriers – customs and tariffs – among nations, international capital could be able to cross state borders and take advantage of the favourable economic conditions created in domestic markets. With the elimination of legal / bureaucratic restrictions, markets became liberalised at local, regional and global level. In this way, foreign direct investment started to mobilize according to where the conditions are most favourable to market players. Neoliberalism claims that “market is good, the state is bad (Beetham, 2005, p.54).” “It refers to a maximisation of free trade and competition achieved by minimum interference from political institutions (Brown, 2005, p.39).”

Because a strict external control over economy opposes to the nature of ‘free trade and business’, the state interference is not acceptable to neoliberals. Consequently, the state must respond to the needs of market players in any condition. In relation, Brown (2005, pp.41-42) underlines that “neoliberal rationality extended to the state itself indexes the state’s success according to its ability to sustain and foster the market and ties state legitimacy to such success.” The Western Powers considered neoliberalism as the only possible alternative to socialism when the structure of international political arena had shifted from bipolarity to unipolarity in the Post-Cold War period.

The United States (US) took its place in the so-called arena as the most dominant global power that is capable to lead and make the rules of new global economic order (Kurki, 2014). “The purge of Keynesian economists and their replacement by neoliberal monetarists in the IMF in 1982 transformed the US-dominated International Monetary Fund (IMF) into a prime agent of neo-liberalization through its structural adjustment programs visited upon any state that required its help with debt repayments (Harvey, 2007, p.25).”

Once the ‘Single European Act’ was signed in 1986, the European Economic Community (EEC) successfully established a single market and monetary system within its borders. In 1992, the EEC became ‘European Union’ with the ‘Treaty of Maastricht’ and stipulated the ‘Maastricht Convergence Criteria’ to be fulfilled by its member states for a full accession to the European Monetary Union (EMU). Following that, neoliberalism successfully expanded to Asia in the middle of the 1990s. Japan, Singapore and Thailand have shown a striking economic development after they joined the new economic system. “Finally, the Washington Consensus that was forged in the 1990s and the negotiating rules set up under the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1998 confirmed the global turn toward neoliberal practices (Harvey, 2007, p.25).”

However; during their integration processes into the new system, the neoliberal market rationality created a serious sovereignty crisis for nation-states. In his famous book, which is The Social Contract, Rousseau purported that ‘state’ was established on a formal agreement between ‘people’ and a higher authority. People voluntarily authorised a superior mechanism with an extensive power to prevent chaos and maintain order and safety of their community. They deliberately transferred their individual and collective sovereignties to the institutions of this superior mechanism. Since this agreement was binding both sides, the state became liable to fulfil its duties in exchange for a non-seizable bureaucratic authorization.

People living on a particular demarcated territory for a long period of time and sharing the same language, culture, ethnicity and social rules constitute a ‘nation’. The concept of nation emphasizes the concept of ‘national interest’ with a clarified description of who the people are and what they exactly aim to reach via the agreement they concluded with the state. Because those people also share a common specific target as a member of the same community, beyond the existing social interests, they expect the ‘state institutions’ to purse the ‘national goals’ and protect the ‘national welfare’. Such a contract built between the parties created a ‘nation-state’ based on ‘the right of self-government’. This indicates that there is no other sovereign authority within the national borders apart from the ‘state’ empowered by the ‘people’ of a ‘nation’ with their own free will. On this basis, national sovereignty cannot be intervened in or constrained by any external power to any extent.
“Intervention could aim at inducing a government to change a particular policy against its will, at altering the balance of power between competing groups or classes, or at producing a change in the structure of economic activity within a state (Beitz, 1999, p.119).” The overwhelming dominance of the Western Alliance in international trade has forced almost all underdeveloped and developing countries to restructure their national economies in line with the free market model. Through the financial reconstructing programs consulted by the IMF, World Bank and World Trade Organization, those countries had to apply strict privatisation policies in order to decimate the state interference in the economy for a successful transition to a competitive market. During the transition, most emerging countries could catch a rapid economic growth in the short run with a high foreign capital inflow, but privatisation policies decreased the wealth they gained in the trade of domestic products, which made the economic well-being of these transition countries quite depended on the mobility of external capital or, in other words, the global economic powers directing this capital.

Moreover, the economic interdependence among the countries in banking sector increased their vulnerabilities against the spillover effects of regional and global financial crises. For instance, the Sub-prime Mortgage Crisis in the US and Eurozone Economic Crisis in Europe between 2007 and 2009 severely affected the periphery economies by the sharp falls in capital inflow. They suffered from high borrowing costs and budget deficits in the long run. They even could not weather the storm yet owing to the lack of national productivity for valuable industrial goods and the lack of investment in innovation, research and technology. What’s worse, with the IMF loans and bailout packages they received to recover from the crisis, made them more and more foreign-dependent. This is what exactly happened to Greece, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus, Ireland and Italy in the last decade. These five countries had to give into the long-term IMF intervention in their economic issues.

On the other hand, the countries which adapted to the neoliberal model have realised that they cannot easily reject the market realities. If they act contrary to the principles of the market approach and attempt to tighten the state control over their national economy; they are most likely exposed to aggressive criticism, strict sanctions and isolation in the international arena. They might be punished by the influential credit rating companies such as Standard & Poor’s, Fitch and Moody’s with a significant fall in their credit scores. Given that the capital inflow is extremely important to sustain economic growth in a market economy, it is vital to keep the credit scores high as much as possible for being investible. Brown (2005, p.23) states that “key characteristics of sovereignty are migrating from the nation-state to the unrelieved domination of capital.” The IMF, World Bank and WTO dominated by top capitalist powers enforce periphery countries to implement economic policies in favour of market players rather than ordinary people.

“National state sovereignty has been undercut by neoliberal rationality that recognises no sovereign apart from entrepreneurial decision makers with market criteria, and which demotes the political sovereignty to managerial status (Brown, 2005, p.22).” “When national interests and market interests contradict, states cannot pursue parochial or short-run national interests without worsening their positions (Brown, 2005, p.67).” The state is no longer the only absolute authority on national economic matters and does not pursue only national interests, which is an obvious violation of the agreement between ‘it’ and ‘people’.

Liberal Democracy in Crisis

Beetham (2005, p.56) states that “democracy is about the people of a country exercising significant control over government through elections and other political processes.” It is a system of direct or indirect participation of people into the decision-making mechanism of a state. Democracy is a form of government, but liberal democracy – also called as a Western democracy – is a form of ‘ideological’ government rooted in the classical liberalism of the 19th century. More clearly, in liberal democracies, political representation is based on the liberal democratic principles such as free, fair and competitive elections; the equal protection of human rights, the rule of law, the independent judiciary, just distribution of powers among different branches of government and transparency and accountability of political authorities.

Liberal democracy could be accomplished as long as governmental legitimacy is obtained via free, fair and competitive elections (Tilly, 2007). All political parties must compete under equal conditions to guarantee democratically elected bodies. The electoral threshold must be determined according to the size of constituencies and kept low as much as possible since a high electoral threshold excludes a significant amount of voters from the electoral process. Also, the government usually shows undemocratic actions without an effective constitutional control. They are likely to restrict political freedoms and rights, especially, the freedom of speech and information in order to suppress opposing voices in public.

At this point, the rule of law provides a strict constitutional control over ruling party to protect political freedoms & rights from government suppression. Moreover, the distribution of powers among legislative, executive and judiciary prevents a government from centralising all power by relying on its absolute majority in parliament. These separate institutions built on divided branches check regularly each other in legal base. Consequently, a government cannot easily violate the democratic constitution to consolidate its authority where the rule of law and separation of powers dominates the administrative system. Therefore, in democracies, the independent judiciary is vital to enforce the rule of law and separation of powers efficiently in practice. On the other hand, a democratic government must be transparent and accountable to citizens for its mismanagements and failures. Since it discourages ruling party from cheating with a constant public control, the free press is the guarantee of a transparent and accountable government.

Unfortunately, the “Washington Consensus” has weakened liberal democracy after it redesigned the international economic system in accordance with the market approach. In the last two decades, democratic principles have been considerably decimated by the market rationality. Neoliberalism claims that the main responsibility of a government is to stimulate competition in the global market, which is entirely against the representative role of the government in democratic regimes. Whereas democracy represents public will, neoliberalism represents the market will and intends to transfer political power into a non-representative state authority, the global market. The market’s will refers to the economic interests of the upper-class, the ruling elites. Harvey (2007, p.38) indicates that “neoliberalism has been a huge success from the standpoint of the upper class.” It is imposing an opportunist and lucrative capitalist mentality on the internal markets with the annihilation of state interference.

“Neoliberalism has either restored the class position to ruling elites, as in the U.S and Britain or created conditions for capitalist class formation, as in China, India, Russia, and elsewhere (Harvey, 2007, p.38).” It extended to the lower class with a remarkable mitigation in the middle class by relocating most of the economic welfare among top elites. “Market rationality insists that the role of government was to create a good business climate rather than look the needs and well-being of the population at large (Harvey, 2007, p.31).”Accordingly, a government should not hesitate to limit the rights of working class if the market demands it. It is not surprising that international capital is attracted by the countries where the wages are low, social security is minimal and economic and social rights including the rights to syndicate and strike, are restricted or illegalized by the authorities.

Furthermore, a government cannot easily leave the free market model satisfying the needs of upper-classes and depriving lower-classes of fundamental economic freedoms in that neoliberalism has undermined state sovereignty on national economy through the privatisation of state-owned entities and long-term debt structuring with the help of IMF and World Bank. As a result, government policies have become permanent state policies (Brown, 2006). “The difference between the programs of the political parties is substantially reduced as parties of the Left abandon traditional social-democratic programs of economic intervention, high welfare spending and employment regulation, and became virtually indistinguishable from parties of the centre-Right in their economic policies (Beetham, 2005, p.56).” In this way, by taking the power of affecting politics from their hands, neoliberalism leaves the lower class unprotected against the arbitrary mistreatments of transnational actors. “Markets intensify inequalities between people, by rewarding the already advantaged in terms of personal and financial resources, and penalising the disadvantaged (Beetham, 2005, p.57).”

Following that, the government has found itself in a politically dead-end. If a government does not pursue economic policies favourable to the market, the dependent and unresisting national economy of its country will be routed with exclusion from the new system, capital outflows or other similar economic and political sanctions. Due to the shaky economy, it may lose the public support and even power in the first next elections. However, if it ignores the voice of lower classes (the largest voting groups) – the complaints about the negative effects of the uncontrolled financial activities in the market on living and working conditions of these classes, it will lose power. In this regard, a government needs to have a mediator role between the market and people. In order to remain in power, it has to mediate the tension between the capitalist political economy and liberal democracy (Brown, 2010), but the important point is whether it is purely neutral in this mediation process indeed.

The Role of Social Welfare State in Neoliberal World

According to Beetham (2005), market rationality knows no culture, geography or nation. Liberal democratic institutions have become dysfunctional in almost every country to a certain extent. In the existing international arena, there is no state which has fully recognised liberal democratic principles. Each country enjoys a different form of democratic governance in parallel with its economic and social development.

Neoliberalism, by its nature, is likely to protect the socio-economic rights and freedoms to the advantage of upper-classes when liberal democracy is based on the equal protection of these rights in a constitutional base under the rule of law. Therefore, this kind of a democratic system cannot function well without being underpinned by the social welfare state in a market economy. The government can be a neutral mediator between the upper and lower classes as long as it is capable of creating the required conditions satisfying the needs of both sides. The free market economy forces governments to compensate for the damages of globalisation on public life without restrictive interventions over the market activities. It underlines that public sector must be able to work with the private sector in harmony; therefore the state has to take necessary initiatives in socio-economic issues, but simultaneously shouldn’t harm the market.

In this context, a state must develop a strong social welfare system with just distribution of wealth, improved public services and a good quality of education and social security for an advanced democracy. However, this is impossible without a nationally productive economy where mutually economic interdependence is inevitable within globalisation. For this reason, developed countries – First World countries – that most enjoy free market model are the ones that most enjoy liberal democracy. Neoliberalism transfers the economic prosperity from lower to upper classes in domestic level and from poor to rich countries in international level with the help of the global financial agencies dominated by the First World – the transnational actors whose country of origins is the developed countries. “Liberal democracies in the First World have always required other peoples to pay politically, socially, and economically – for what these societies have enjoyed, that is, there has always been a colonially and the imperially inflected gap between what has been valued in the core and what has been required from the periphery (Brown, 2005, p.50).”

“There is a corresponding intensification of economic inequality both within countries and between them (Beetham, 2005, p.57).” The West European societies are in advantaged state in terms of democratic governance thanks to their imperial experiences and social democratic heritage. They have a long-standing background of democracy in contrast to the people of emerging / Third World countries suffering from democratic (!) governments with a capitalist mentality. Because they are not economically enough developed to create a social welfare state, they cannot sufficiently apply liberal democracy. They are neither democratic nor authoritarian. They are manipulocratic.

From Democracy to Manipulocracy

Manipulation is defined as the skilful handling, controlling or using of something or someone by artful, unfair or insidious means to one’s own advantage. Neoliberalism is manipulating the democratic institutions in its favour by extending market rationality to every sphere of political life. According to Brown (2005, p.52), “what is unprecedented about this time is to the extent to which basic principles and institutions of democracy are becoming nothing other than ideological shells concealing their opposite.” The free market model seems to abuse the achievements of democracy by creating a competitive political market in which the rule-maker is the upper class, unit is the lower-class and clients are the political parties.

Democracy is expensive. It is about directing public opinion with a close communication and successful advertising campaign. Under the circumstances, political parties need financial support in introducing themselves to the large public masses. Since the ruling elites – interest groups hold the top economic wealth in their hands; political parties align themselves with the particular group/s in return for sponsorship. The candidates lacking in strong connections with ruling elites are automatically eliminated from the electoral process, which made the elections quite far from being free and fair as they must be in liberal democracies. The process turns into a competition in which the competitors are rival interest groups rather than political parties. As a consequence, the government generally serves the market will more than public will in market democracies. “In exchange for their contributions interest groups expect to see their donations rewarded through the promotion of legislation favourable to themselves or the blocking of proposals which might damage their interests (Beetham, 2005, p.48).” Thus, it would not be wrong to claim that democratically elected bodies, indeed, are not legitimate from the point of ordinary citizens because there is less representation for lower classes.

In this situation, what’s worse, a government does not need the approval of each electorate to be legitimate in democratic regimes since the electoral and representative systems dedicate the political authority to majority rule. What ruling party has to do is to continue receiving the support of majority with the help of its sponsorships. In market democracies, a government has no such a goal to take more public support than it really needs. For who owns the power, it is enough to consolidate the loyalty of its existing supporters and suppress the opposing political movements to stay in power. To achieve it, it usually follows an identity-oriented policy based on the characteristic differences in society, seeks to manipulate public opinion via media channels and benefits from the failures of representative democratic systems.

Manipulation of the Characteristic Differences

Social economic classes just refer to the people who belong to same income group. They are mostly not homogenous but composed of varied ethnic, religious, linguistic or ideological groups. People may find certain political parties closer to them just because of their distinctive identities. Since the political party programmes are similar to each other in terms of economic commitments, political actors mostly pursue a party policy targeting a distinct voting group in society. For this reason, in periphery democracies, governments are usually established by the populist political parties targeting the most crowded ethnic, religious or ideological group/s to occupy the majority of seats in parliament.

Although there is no remarkable improvement in their socio-economic situations, most of the people tend to continue to support the same political party because they feel privileged with their distinctive identities thanks to the relevant party. The religious groups might be promised with more exclusive rights to form an association whereas the linguistic groups might have the right to education in their mother tongues if the political party that they are supporting wins the election. However, the identity-oriented party policies are discriminative in terms of minority rights given that the politicians aim to take the support of large masses. In a market economy, the government cannot fairly distribute the national wealth within the population when it does not have a strong social welfare system. To avoid displeasing them with miserable living conditions, through identity-oriented policies, it only satisfies the basic needs of its loyal supporters with additional social aids. It rewards them with an easier access to public services and state officials.

Additionally, the ruling party, on purpose, deprives the relatively less amount of people voting for opposition parties of these opportunities. It discriminates these people due to their ethnic, religious or ideological characteristics or different living-styles as long as it can have the support of critical mass to remain in office. As a result, opponent groups become second-class citizens in their own countries. This is a typical political strategy of the anti-democratic governments to prevent the expansion of masses that maintain their lives with government supplies. However, these policies intensify social divisions in public by increasing intolerance against differences. Beetham (2005, p.23) states that “true democracy is not a just statistical democracy, in which anything a majority or plurality wants is legitimate for that reason, but communal democracy, in which majority decision is legitimate only if it is a majority within a community of equals.”

Manipulation of the Public Opinion

The free press is one of the building blocks of democracy to make government transparent accountable to citizens. In democracies, citizens choose who will rule according to their own judgments about what the best is for them. The media and communication channels have an extensive power in shaping people’s judgments in that they can reach large public masses. Consequently, the free press is very important in protecting public opinion from misleading statements and disinformation.
However, “whole media channels can be controlled through private ownership or through government control of state-owned media (Beetham, 2005, p.24).” They are commonly used as a propaganda tool to justify government policies and blacken opposing views. Interest groups usually have their own private media to support the government by distorting facts and public polls. The people are manipulated by fake impressions while the opponent media is suppressed by the government with the claim that its activities jeopardise the social order and national security. Consequently, in periphery market democracies where most of the people are uneducated, apathetic and ignorant owing to the lack of a qualified educational system and democratic political culture, there is a continuous manipulation of public opinion via media. Therefore, citizens are not able to call the government to account for corruption allegations and administrative failures.

Manipulation of the Representative Democratic Models

Liberal democracy is a representative form of governance mostly based on parliamentary and presidential systems. Nevertheless, despite their strengths and weaknesses in different governmental branches – executive, legislative and judiciary – branches, liberal democratic institutions have been eroded in both systems. In a parliamentary system, a government has a chance to consolidate its authority in the law-making mechanism, the legislative, as the executive power belongs to the parliament as well. Once it reaches a superior number of seats in the parliament, it becomes able to push the opposition out of both the legislative and executive processes (MacFarland, 1987). In this way, without facing any struggle, it can legislate for what the market stands for and intervene in the judiciary through necessary legal amendments to relieve itself of the judicial control.

“Legislatures have the least ability to check the government in a parliamentary system when the governing party enjoys a large majority in parliament, and the main opposition party is not seen as a credible alternative government (Beetham, 2005, p.39).” On the contrary, “legislatures can have the greatest checking power in a presidential system when the legislature is controlled by a different party from that of the president (Beetham, 2005, p.39).” In a presidential system, the legislative and executive branches are entirely separated organs. Their members are selected via different elections and usually at different times. However, the neoliberal market rationality can leak into all governmental branches in a presidential system as wells as in a parliamentary system.

Lobbying is the key factor that opens all doors to the market will in presidential systems. The ruling elites could directly affect the legislative and executive processes in return for their financial assistance to representative candidates. The political careers of these candidates are depended on the top elites financially supporting them rather than the political parties they are associated with, which makes them quite inaccessible to the public. In contrast to privileged elites, it is difficult for ordinary citizens to force policy-makers to pursue a particular policy and withdraw a particular decision. As a result, there is a low public control over government and state officials in presidential systems.

What does Manipulocracy exactly refer to?

The neoliberal market economy was born and grown in the US where the social welfare state has been almost abandoned. The market rationality is even dominating national security with the socio-economic and political life in the US. Liberal democracy has evolved to an unprecedented form of governance no more representing the public will but in which the public will authorizes the decision-making mechanism in the American Presidential System. This is why, in my opinion, it had better been called manipulocracy instead of democracy.

Neoliberalism is manipulating democratic institutions through disinformation set by media channels, social divisions in public with rising intolerance against characteristic differences and distorted representative democratic models. Liberal democratic principles such as justice, equality and human rights are losing their meanings due to the double-standards applied in the recent global economic order to different social and economic classes in domestic politics and periphery and core countries in international politics.

Neoliberalism has been turning the periphery states into little Americas in which rich have become richer and poor have become poorer. Neither the US and nor its replicas in the Third World are liberal democracies; however, in contrast to the US, the replicas lost much of their national sovereignty to globalisation. In this manner, neoliberalism does not allow emerging democracies of the developing world to be a social welfare state and also threatens social democracies of the developed world such as the European Union Members. Democracy has transformed into a manipulative regime in the new global order. It has become the “tyranny of the majority” or, in other words, the “oligarchy of an elite minority” by taking advantage of democratic freedoms and rights, which is the only reason that it is still working in a market economy.

Conclusion

With the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, neoliberal market rationality was introduced to the global economic order as an alternative to communism. The First World – West – reshaped the structure of international trade and business according to the free market model. As a result, neoliberalism has significantly weakened nation-state sovereignty with restrictions on state authority over the economy via the removal of trade barriers among nations. In this way, it became able to force the national political authorities to follow certain economic policies favourable to the interests of transnational actors.
Market rationality claims that the role of government is to satisfy the needs of market rather than public. Since it is based on a maximum profit and minimum cost, international capital is interested in periphery countries where the economic and social rights of working class are legally limited by authorities. On the contrary, liberal democracy emphasizes the equal protection of these rights in a constitutional base regardless socio-economic well-being, which creates a strict tension between market economy and democracy. Neoliberalism manipulates the liberal democratic system in favour of ruling elites. The democratic political environment protected by liberal democratic institutions is destroyed in order to eliminate state intervention in economy and harmful policies to market interests. In this regard, the existence of social welfare state underpinned by social democratic values is highly important to mediate the tension between the upper and lower class. However, due to their economic incapability in responding the needs of both classes simultaneously, periphery democracies cannot mediate this tension.

In conclusion, the Third World is suffering from so-called democratic regimes whereas the First World is enjoying democracy because it holds necessary financial resources to be able protect its social welfare state. Nevertheless, as well as the US-dominated international economic order prevents the emerging democracies from developing a social welfare state, it dismantles the existing social welfare systems of liberal democracies in the developed world.

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