The European Union’s ongoing »crisis« has forcefully turned attention to the problematic relation between democracy and capitalism. We use the discussion between Jürgen Habermas and Wolfgang Streeck as our point of departure to demonstrate how the blind spots of the debate obstruct an analysis that is neither utopian nor resigned but tries to identify those conflicts in which citizens may at least hope to democratically unsettle both their national states and the European Union form merely complying to economies every need.