State centrism – the view that individual policy proposals represent a solution to problems of capitalism narrows the scope of political inquiry – the aff insulates leftist politics from a consideration of the myriad manifestations of unequal power relations

Nick Pearce, “What should social democrats believe?” Institute for Public Policy Research, 19 September 2013, https://www.ippr.org/juncture/what-should-social-democrats-believe#note1.

The realist critique

In related vein, a broad grouping of thinkers has taken liberal and egalitarian theories to task on realist grounds.7 From a range of perspectives they contend, inter alia, that visions of ideal distributions or patterns in society are utopian and unrealisable, that conflict over values and interests is ineradicable, and that any social order is always a constellation formed from power struggles rather than reasoned consensus. They challenge standard accounts of what animates political engagement and argue that too often democratic and progressive forces privilege procedure and deliberation over passions, argument and the real stuff of politics, denuding themselves of energy and ideas, and cutting themselves off from political discourses that might have greater purchase on popular sentiments.

For obvious reasons, these currents of realist thinking may tip easily towards fatalism or accommodation of the status quo, and even to a 'Machiavellian' machine politics. Many realists seek to temper the rhetoric and policy ambitions of reformers, to wean them off the bold claims that history and social science show will tend not be realised, leading to disappointment and frustration. There are obvious reasons in contemporary economic and social conditions for heeding such caution.

But there is radical potential in these forms of realism too. Like relational egalitarians, realists draw attention to the actual rather than ideal worlds of political and social relations, helping to ground politics in everyday concerns and practices. They argue against the assumption of end states that can be realised to 'order society' and overcome its antagonisms. This helps to broaden the canvas of politics and the potential scope of political action, while challenging the state-centrism of much centre-left thinking. It enables political action to reach into the public arguments that take shape around culture, identity and valued public goods, without seeking either to channel these arguments into privileged forms of political expression or to expunge them from procedural deliberation. As the theorist Bonnie Honig puts it:

'...[I]t is around [public things] that equality and liberty and justice take shape. When they become mere procedural values, or when the form they take has to do with targets or indicators, they become shapeless and unrewarding values. They can only do work that makes us value them if they are situated in the material life of citizens or residents together.'8

Realists are also attentive to systematic concentrations of power. Accordingly, they give substantial weight to how the rules of the game in a democracy are configured and to the ways in which the realm of democratic politics can be expanded, rather than closed down by technocratic or market imperatives. Erring towards the view that powerful interests and forces will always be at work at different sites of power - whether in the state, market or community - draws renewed attention to questions of political inequality, democratic accountability, and whether the norms governing different realms of public life can prevent the domination that results from concentrations of power. Conversely, many realists also argue against attempts to depoliticise public goods through privatisation or new public managerialism, and thereby seek to widen the scope of politics and challenge the subordination of democracy to market imperatives. Paradoxically, therefore, realist politics may offer a richer, more varied and innovative palette of options than more apparently ambitious traditional forms of egalitarianism.9