Alain Badiou and Marcel Gauchet, What Is To Be Done? A Dialogue on Communism, Capitalism, and the Future of Democracy (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2016)

Rethinking the Link Between Structure and Collective Action. Capitalism, Politics, and the Theory of Social Movements

“…higher wages, legal protection, social insurances and benefits, pensions, and so on). The workers' struggles, supported and organized by trade unions, against the Fordist organization of labor and production during the "glory days" of industrial society are considered a key example of these movements (Crouch, 2004). The fact that these mobilizations were related to the economic sphere of the working conditions made them easily identifiable with the capitalist dynamics of transformation.…”

“…The "regressive-oligarchic pole" is identified with specific processes that, according to a vast amount of literature (Crouch, 2004;Hutter et al, 2018;Kriesi et al, 2008), have transformed the power structures of Western democracies in the last 30 years. These processes and transformations include: the increased role of supranational institutions and economic actors on national governments; the leading role of governments and executive powers vis-à-vis parliaments and legislative assemblies; the process of separation between decision-making and participation, whereby the governing sphere endeavors to keep itself immune from popular claims, collective mobilization, and social conflicts; the shifting of government outside the setting of democratic competition, namely sector "authorities" purported to be politically neutral, creating forms of "technicization of political decisions"; a consequent growing divide between the rulers and the ruled.…”