The crisis of legitimacy of the political parties and the State explains the popularity of social participation in issues of collective interesto. Two strategies dispute the meaning and extent of participation: one inspired in the functioning of the market and the other arising from the new social movements. Both have common cultural referents even when they express important strategic confrontations. The article raises the problem of the construction of a set of general values for the contemporary democratic system, which doesn't appear to have a solution based on the positions inspired by the market or by the new social movements.