Lanzarote: el papel de la crisis - Fundación César Manrique

power in the exercise of our right to vote in the public sphere. Socio-ecological
dissatisfaction clashes with the limitations of the market and with the poor democratic
quality of the form of public representation which Robert Dahl calls polyarchy.
Obviously, at the end of the day, products are sold and parties win votes, albeit fewer and
fewer as time goes by. And the wheel goes on turning: corporations and governments are of
the belief that, in taking their decisions, they are limiting themselves to meeting the demands
of their customers and voters. This, however, is not true. With every decision they take (and
all of them, with no exception, affect the environment to a greater or lesser extent), they are
interpreting the will of each citizen and each consumer. If the citizens’ wishes are not too
compatible or indeed, are completely incompatible with one another, then the governments
sift them into an order of importance. According to surveys on the citizens’ perception of
socio-environmental problems, this interpretation leaves a lot to be desired. This vicious circle
takes us straight back to the impasse referred to by the ministers involved in Malmö.
Albert Hirshman and Amartya Sen have shown us how to understand this impasse as a
problem of freedom of speech. Loyalty deteriorates because the dissatisfaction felt by people
in their twofold capacity as consumers and citizens fails to find a way out, either in the
private sphere of the market or in the established forms of political representation. When
this happens, the only option left is the use of one’s own voice to make oneself heard, protest
and propose. As a result, and because the services rendered free of charge to all and sundry
by nature’s systems belong to the category of public property, the socio-environmental
conflict becomes a problem of the first order for the man in the street.
What may technically be considered a metabolic imbalance in human society’s relationship
with the biosphere, turns into a democratic challenge within society itself. When
sustainability manages to step out of the circle of the experts, it becomes an emergent issue
for the citizenry and projects itself towards the public scope, calling for an improved quality
of democracy. This is the other democracy, described by Jürgen Habermas as being based on
dialogue and deliberation, on the inclusion of the other as part of the problem and the
solution; the one that looks on the human condition itself as a network of
interdependencies. We need a democracy of participation to find new institutive
consensuses and new public instruments with which to regulate and lead the blind activity
of the market to scenarios of greater sustainability in a democratic manner. This is already
231