There are many foundational roots of this crisis that must be addressed to create a more inclusive and effective democracy in the years ahead. One that needs urgent attention is the fact that our current economic structure is inimical to the ideal of an inclusive democracy.

Simply put, there can be no political democracy without economic democracy.

Consider a few examples of our current crisis of economic and racial inequity. Black and brown people are vastly more likely to be infected and die from Covid-19 than white people—a reflection of chronic, structural disparities in access to health care and clean air and water. In the economic collapse sparked by the pandemic, 40 percent of those losing jobs had incomes of $40,000 or less—a working-class constituency disproportionately composed of Black and brown workers. And the reason these jobs were so easily shed stems from a modern system of labor that is premised on highly precarious working conditions in which workers are outsourced, stripped of benefits, and vulnerable to the vagaries of an unreliable market. All this is taking place in the context of an economy in which dominant corporations and vested interests, from Amazon to private equity firms, are gaining more and more dominance.

The upshot of this interrelationship between political and economic inequity is that there can be no political democracy without meaningful transformation of our economic system. Specifically, a stable, sustained, inclusive democracy requires an approach to economic policymaking that dismantles concentrations of economic power and wealth and embeds greater participation in and accountability to the most affected communities—and, in particular, to Black and brown communities. Without attending to the economic and racial inequities of our current economy, democracy is fundamentally unstable.

Read the full article about rethinking economic structures by K. Sabeel Rahman at Knight Foundation.