Liberal Democracy, Citizenship and Class: Unresolved Contradictions of Capitalism

Abstract

With the post-war expansion of the welfare state, which provided a material basis for the adoption of social right as complementary to civil and political rights components of citizenship, there emerged an omnipresent conviction to assume that the institutionalization of citizenship in liberal democratic societies has not only deflected the threat of social instability but it has also eclipsed social class struggle from the plane of history. Contrary to this prevailing interpretation, which has failed to take into account the fragile nature of the social right component of citizenship, it will be demonstrated that the establishment of citizenship has not surmounted the inveterate contradictions of capitalist social relations.