Democracy Kills: What's So Good About Having The Vote?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Good review article by the CPB-affiliated Morning Star, but economism is there:

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/85448


Humphrey Hawksley is not another Friedrich Engels.

Yet the BBC correspondent's latest book certainly has the potential to be something comparable to The Condition Of The Working Class in England in 1844, albeit different in the scope and scale of its subject matter.

Democracy Kills: What's So Good About Having The Vote? offers an impressive collection of evidence, including interviews with people at the bottom of the capitalist pile across five continents, to show that the last 20 years of imposed liberal democratic values - usually narrowly defined as the opportunity to periodically participate in elections - has led to the deaths of millions and the impoverishment of many more.

Hawksley is especially robust in his coverage of those countries with which he has had an enduring association, most notably India, Taiwan, Argentina, Ivory Coast, Bosnia, Serbia and Sri Lanka. He also offers a sympathetic although somewhat superficial portrayal of the successes of the Cuban revolution.

Yet Hawksley is certainly no Karl Marx - the fundamental flaw in this book is its almost total decoupling of the rapacious nature of Western capitalism from the export drive behind selling its own very narrow definition of democracy, which locks in the power of supine and capitalism-friendly local elites.

He fails to fully acknowledge that the imposition of casino capitalism via the World Bank and the IMF, far from being an aid to reforming societies as he suggests, actually exacerbates existing social and economic inequalities.

The book has two further blind spots, the result of Hawksley's understandable self-denying ordnance to only comment on those countries he has actually visited.

First, no consideration is given to how capitalism is undermining liberal democracy in its own heartlands through eroding trade union rights and other aspects of civil society - let alone the relentless decline in election turnout, the elite's preferred measure of democracy.

Second, aside from Cuba, the recent successes of socialist movements in south America in offering an alternative model that offers stability and greater democratic involvement are virtually ignored.

There are merely passing references to Venezuela and Bolivia and nothing on Ecuador.

It is hard not to like a book that asks whether we'd rather live in Cuba or Haiti and clearly wants us to answer the former. But getting the correct answer to such a no-brainer question is in itself not enough.

Perhaps with the aid of other contributors the material presented by Hawksley may yet provide a comprehensive account of both the ongoing failures of global capitalism and that of its flawed export product - liberal democracy - over the last two decades.

Nonetheless this is an important book by a good journalist - perhaps it is one that Morning Star readers should give to sympathetic, but non-socialist friends as belated Christmas presents.

[Antiks72]

Democracy is nothing more than tyranny of the majority, tyranny of the mob. Consider the fact that there are people in the U.S. who voted for Bush twice, and would vote for Sara Palin the first time and you quickly realize some people shouldn't have a say

[Winter]

Democracy is nothing more than tyranny of the majority, tyranny of the mob. Consider the fact that there are people in the U.S. who voted for Bush twice, and would vote for Sara Palin the first time and you quickly realize some people shouldn't have a say

Wait, are you a Leftist at all then? Isn't socialism/marxism/anarchism all about liberating the working class, aka, the majority, and having them take control of the state? Do you think that's tyranny of the majority?

[commyrebel]

Democracy is nothing more than tyranny of the majority, tyranny of the mob. Consider the fact that there are people in the U.S. who voted for Bush twice, and would vote for Sara Palin the first time and you quickly realize some people shouldn't have a say you should all for voting instead of a non voting not only because where has there ever been a non tyranny that has succeeded somewhat that hasn't had voting. plus we should focus on educating the people so that stuff like bush doesn't get voted on again.

[RedSonRising]

Democracy is nothing more than tyranny of the majority, tyranny of the mob. Consider the fact that there are people in the U.S. who voted for Bush twice, and would vote for Sara Palin the first time and you quickly realize some people shouldn't have a say

The problem is certainly not the system of democracy itself, but the education and political mental state that individuals of most sub-classes are subject to through their lives within the structure of hierarchical economics- capitalism- hidden behind and justified by centralized representative institutions prone to manipulation. Class antagonisms have manifested themselves in modern politics through an illusory dichotomy in which the individual is an organ separate and opposed to "society" at large, the majority. What this concept reveals through careful thinking is that only certain individuals, aka capitalist proprietors, are threatened by the interests of those who produce with their labor. In reality, the interests of one should never conflict with the interests of many, because true equality of the law, of opportunity, of access, and control over one's labor and life would never result in one person being threatened or needing to threaten the interests of another. In a classless system, cooperation yields exponentially more beneficial results than any attempted exploitation, which by the very definition of proletarian democracy would not exist.

So any tyranny in creating policy you may think exists in the intentional design of democracy, specifically proletarian democracy, is willful control over one's own civil environment- which I think is sort of what MOST people would actually call freedom.

It becomes a dangerous thing- something you seem to be simultaneously advocating and condemning through your rejection of democracy- when one group of people has the power over others to decide who exactly "should/shouldn't have a say."

If you don't think empowering every individual with the ability to dictate the political decision-making process is something desirable, I'm not sure what you're doing here on Revleft. If you were confused in asserting that majority-based Democracy inherently trumps any freedom of choice for individuals with different/minority tastes and wants, then I hope I helped in clarifying that basic matters of personal freedom and general public welfare are almost never to be in conflict when the laboring people of a society are in control of their own communities and lives.

[robbo203]

QUOTE

"Humphrey Hawksley is not another Friedrich Engels.

Yet the BBC correspondent's latest book certainly has the potential to be something comparable to The Condition Of The Working Class in England in 1844, albeit different in the scope and scale of its subject matter.

Democracy Kills: What's So Good About Having The Vote? offers an impressive collection of evidence, including interviews with people at the bottom of the capitalist pile across five continents, to show that the last 20 years of imposed liberal democratic values - usually narrowly defined as the opportunity to periodically participate in elections - has led to the deaths of millions and the impoverishment of many more. "

How on earth can it be argued that something called "democracy" had led to the deaths of millions etc. This is ludicrous. You might argue that the imposition of something called "neoliberal capitalism" which supposedly embraces "democracy" -actually a very very feeble version of democracy called "representative democracy" - has had this consequence but even that is far too sweeping an assertion. Would these deaths have been avoided if, say, a more statist version of capitalism had come to prevail?

The reference to Engels is particularly ironic since he actually saw the extension of the franchise as something that was hugely positive.

The franchise has been, in the words of the French Marxist programme, transformé de moyen de duperie qu'il a été jusquici en instrument d'emancipation — transformed by them from a means of deception, which it was before, into an instrument of emancipation.[458] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/l%20n458) And if universal suffrage had offered no other advantage than that it allowed us to count our numbers every three years; that by the regularly established, unexpectedly rapid rise in our vote it increased in equal measure the workers’ certainty of victory and the dismay of their opponents, and so became our best means of propaganda; that it accurately informed us of our own strength and that of all opposing parties, and thereby provided us with a measure of proportion second to none for our actions, safeguarding us from untimely timidity as much as from untimely foolhardiness — if this had been the only advantage we gained from the suffrage, it would still have been much more than enough....
Does the reader now understand, why the ruling classes decidedly want to bring us to where the guns shoot and the sabers slash? Why they accuse us today of cowardice, because we do not betake ourselves without more ado into the street, where we are certain of defeat in advance? Why they so earnestly implore us to play for once the part of cannon fodder?
The gentlemen pour out their prayers and their challenges for nothing, for nothing at all. We are not so stupid. They might just as well demand from their enemy in the next war that he should take up his position in the line formation of old Fritz, or in the columns of whole divisions a la Wagram and Waterloo, and with the flintlock in his hands at that. If the conditions have changed in the case of war between nations, this is no less true in the case of the class struggle. The time of surprise attacks, of revolutions carried through by small conscious minorities at the head of unconscious masses, is past. Where it is a question of a complete transformation of the social organization, the masses themselves must also be in it, must themselves already have grasped what is at stake, what they are going in for [with body and soul]. The history of the last fifty years has taught us that. But in order that the masses may understand what is to be done, long, persistent work is required, and it is just this work which we are now pursuing, and with a success which drives the enemy to despair.(Preface to Class Struggles in France)

Its not the vote that is the problem, it what you do with it

[Antiks72]

Wait, are you a Leftist at all then? Isn't socialism/marxism/anarchism all about liberating the working class, aka, the majority, and having them take control of the state? Do you think that's tyranny of the majority?


Yes, of course. I haven't made up my mind about all the details of how everything should be done. I still have lots of reading to do.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Democracy is nothing more than tyranny of the majority, tyranny of the mob. Consider the fact that there are people in the U.S. who voted for Bush twice, and would vote for Sara Palin the first time and you quickly realize some people shouldn't have a say

No, no, no, no, no.

Liberal Democracy is the problem, as particular political system born out of Capitalism. In any case though, it's problem is not that it leads to 'tyranny of the majority.' Rather, as Lord Hailsham (yes, a Lord) correctly said three decades ago, liberal democracy in Britain has led to 'elective dictatorship.' In other words, as turkeys (voters) we get to vote for either having our heads cut off or being shot in time for christmas. That is the electoral choice we face.

Real democracy is something that anybody should value. I cannot see how any sane leftist (or even Capitalist, indeed anybody with pretensions that aren't Fascistical) can deny the need for democracy. However, as Socialists, we must show people, and indeed educate people (rather than telling them that they are too stupid to vote because they were duped by the likes of Bush or Palin) on the flaws of the Capitalist economic system, and indeed its accompanying political mode: liberal democracy. Then, we must also offer our own alternative - a real participatory democracy that goes from the grassroots up. We need to offer people a democracy where they can make a difference, where they are part of politics, not just some abstract voter who cannot get involved because they have neither the money nor the contacts, as is the case with Capitalism.

[robbo203]

. However, as Socialists, we must show people, and indeed educate people (rather than telling them that they are too stupid to vote because they were duped by the likes of Bush or Palin) on the flaws of the Capitalist economic system, and indeed its accompanying political mode: liberal democracy. .


There are many "political modes" accompanying capitalism apart from liberal democracy or do you think Nazi Germany and the state capitalist regimes of the Soviet Union and China were not capitalist?

[Antiks72]

No, no, no, no, no.

Liberal Democracy is the problem, as particular political system born out of Capitalism. In any case though, it's problem is not that it leads to 'tyranny of the majority.' Rather, as Lord Hailsham (yes, a Lord) correctly said three decades ago, liberal democracy in Britain has led to 'elective dictatorship.' In other words, as turkeys (voters) we get to vote for either having our heads cut off or being shot in time for christmas. That is the electoral choice we face.

Real democracy is something that anybody should value. I cannot see how any sane leftist (or even Capitalist, indeed anybody with pretensions that aren't Fascistical) can deny the need for democracy. However, as Socialists, we must show people, and indeed educate people (rather than telling them that they are too stupid to vote because they were duped by the likes of Bush or Palin) on the flaws of the Capitalist economic system, and indeed its accompanying political mode: liberal democracy. Then, we must also offer our own alternative - a real participatory democracy that goes from the grassroots up. We need to offer people a democracy where they can make a difference, where they are part of politics, not just some abstract voter who cannot get involved because they have neither the money nor the contacts, as is the case with Capitalism.

This is gonna get into the whole bottom up/top down thing and I'm not going to argue about it. Frankly the masses here are stupid, and need to be led around by their nose rings. Seriously.

[leninpuncher]

This is gonna get into the whole bottom up/top down thing and I'm not going to argue about it. Frankly the masses here are stupid, and need to be led around by their nose rings. Seriously.
And I suppose you've been an enlightened leftist all your life? I wonder how you balance your socialism with your hatred of the common man.

People are being led around by their "nose rings" at the moment. That's the problem; not some inherent stupidity.