If Washington, DC Mayor Vincent Gray signs a bill mandating big retailers pay a living wage, he’ll do more than raise workers’ remuneration.

He’ll establish a potent precedent for powerful corporate actors like Walmart. Threaten to shelve construction plans, as the retail giant has warned it will do if the legislation is approved, and democratic governments will remain undeterred. He’ll demonstrate that elected officials, instead of being cowed by businesses that blackmail, can bring them to heel. He’ll prove that policies which corporations bitterly oppose, which negatively affect their best efforts at unbridled accumulation, don’t have to be deep-sixed.

At issue, in other words, is the relationship between democracy and capitalism. Can the prerogative of capital be curtailed, or must self-governing communities accept the terms that corporations dictate?