There’s a widespread recognition on the US and European left that our democratic institutions are failing. From Bernie Sanders’s campaign for a political revolution against the structures of US oligarchy to Rebecca Long-Bailey’s pitch to abolish the UK House of Lords and deal the British state a “seismic shock,” prominent democratic socialists are well aware that the movement for a more just social order is inextricable from the drive to democratize our political systems.

The problems are familiar: corporate and elite influence over decision-making and legislation, unchecked executive power, distant and unaccountable representatives. Our political systems alienate those subject to its decisions and threaten to stymie any socialist government that comes to power. Less clear, however, is what concrete changes might begin to address these problems.

One fruitful source of ideas is the political and constitutional writing of Karl Marx. That might come as a surprise, considering Marx is normally thought of as a purely economic thinker, with little to say about the design of constitutions and political institutions.