But is the recognition available to citizens of contemporary
liberal democracies "completely satisfying?" The long-term future
of liberal democracy, and the alternatives to it that may one day
arise, depend above all on the answer to this question. In Part V
we sketch two broad responses, from the Left and the Right,
respectively. The Left would say that universal recognition in liberal
democracy is necessarily incomplete because capitalism creates
economic inequality and requires a division of labor that ipso
facto implies unequal recognition. In this respect, a nation's absolute
level of prosperity provides no solution, because there will
continue to be those who are relatively poor and therefore invisible
as human beings to their fellow citizens. Liberal democracy, in
other words, continues to recognize equal people unequally.