Współrządzenie („good governance”) technoliberalizmu a demokracja partycypacyjna. Państwo w krzywym zwierciadle ekonomii głównego nurtu
Good governance of technoliberalism versus participatory democracy. State in a distorting mirror of mainstream economics

Summary/Abstract: The article gives an idea about the ideological basis for a political program whose goal is to further reduce the function of the state in the economy and to be a controlling instrument for social life. That basis is supplied by the mainstream economics and ‘new political economy’ developed from this mainstream economics’ groundwork. It postulates the evolution of the process of supremacy under the name of governance. The state should be limited to the function of steering, whereas the function of rowing should be given to other actors, especially civil society organizations. The slogan has become an ideological catchphrase for the technoliberalism, eliminating the idea of participatory democracy from the public discourse. However, the program ignores the real problems of governance brought by global capitalism, as for example, the need for cooperation between countries to develop boundary conditions for the use of the global ecosystem and manpower. Moreover, in the triad of market, state and civil society, the last is still a class socjety where the industrial conflict is the axis of its organization and functioning. In addition, members of national societies want to be involved in global pop culture and worldwide supermarket of consumption, and at the same time, do not want to cut the roots of tradition and national identity based on language, religion and historical reminiscence. The nation state is still the only real instrument to shape the collective destiny of political and civic community. Therefore, it must be the distribute, protective, productive and developmental state. However, the state itself is not transparent and generates additional costs of its functioning. It creates a regulatory order whose operation is the burden of transaction costs for the society. These costs range 30–50% of GDP. Functioning of the state in such conditions make it possible for companies and business groups to do a political rent-seeking. In such case, the practical challenge is not to create a low-cost state, but the state which effectively uses public funds to achieve the objectives dictated by the macrosocial rationality. For this, however, there is a need of efficient control of the state bureaucracy and the political state’s personnel. Possible form of such control is the participatory democracy of citizens aware of their interests and thus, fully empowered.

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