Direct Democracy is a bad idea?

[The Red Next Door]

I was talking to my sister and uncle today, I told them that, we need to get rid of representative democracy, because they really do not represent the interest of the people, but my sister said that direct democracy would be a bad idea, because everybody do not vote. And she also stated that the republic works for years even during the Roman empire. Also, when i told my uncle that Obama, sold out on the public option, he said that you have to start somewhere because there so many people against the bill, so he have to find away to get it pass without the dems getting kick out of office.

[RadioRaheem84]

A lot of Americans don't believe in direct democracy. Conservatives think that direct democracy is simply awful. Although most Americans do think that we are a direct democracy or think that we operate that way.

[Kléber]

Representative democracy wouldn't be so corruptible if the representatives were instantly recallable and paid as much as their constituents, like it was in the Paris Commune, and if there were no bourgeois interests with capital to bribe elected officials.

As for Obama, he's demoralized his left wing supporters by watering down the bill (the public option is dead last I checked), and given ammunition to the right-wingers by stalling when he had a majority and letting them build up their forces. If he had forced it through the same way the Republicans do with their legislation, the tea party sheep would see that the gates of hell don't open up, birds continue to chirp, the sun continues to rise, in an America with obligatory insurance. That said, I don't even know how much you could say mandatory insurance qualifies as "reform."

[Robocommie]

Representative democracy wouldn't be so corruptible if the representatives were instantly recallable and paid as much as their constituents, like it was in the Paris Commune, and if there were no bourgeois interests with capital to bribe elected officials.


I like this idea, but how would you work out a mechanism where representatives are instantly recallable without having an election every week?

[anticap]

The OP may appreciate the following: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=16130708051E03FE

As to your family-members' objections to direct [read: "actual"] democracy: the question really isn't whether it measures up favorably to pseudo-democracy X, Y, or Z, but whether anyone is entitled to deny you the opportunity to participate in decisions that will affect you. As I see it, any system where you are so denied is unjust and unacceptable. This would include so-called "representative democracy" [sic]: rubber-stamping one of a selection of ruling-class-approved candidates, who goes on to in fact rule you rather than represent you, making decisions that will greatly affect you without taking your objections into consideration (or, at best, paying lip-service to them), is arguably worse than living under an overt dictator, since it creates the illusion of legitimacy.

[Kléber]

The internet offers great prospects for publicizing debates and information, rationalizing procedures, and saving time, thus contributing to the realization of democracy (electronic politics also contain giant risks though, as the example of Diebold makes clear). The best thing about the internet is that meetings are no longer necessary on every issue; in the workers' councils of the future, all members of a community or workplace could debate online about day-to-day issues and vote at their computer without having to spend hours and hours going to public meetings where a handful of conniving regulars dominate, and you need to rally your friends just to come to the meeting to have a voice. I have relatives from Yugoslavia who tell me, "would you shut up about workers' councils, they were a waste of time, everyone just yelled at each other, the same people still ran the show and got rich off us." But I think the modern advances in communication infrastructure would get rid of some of those problems.

If a neighborhood wacko was trying to start the same initiative every week, I think it should be up to the community how to deal with that, maybe by creating a new rule that you need 10 people to start a recall motion.

[Wolf Larson]

Representative democracy wouldn't be so corruptible if the representatives were instantly recallable and paid as much as their constituents, like it was in the Paris Commune, and if there were no bourgeois interests with capital to bribe elected officials.

As for Obama, he's demoralized his left wing supporters by watering down the bill (the public option is dead last I checked), and given ammunition to the right-wingers by stalling when he had a majority and letting them build up their forces. If he had forced it through the same way the Republicans do with their legislation, the tea party sheep would see that the gates of hell don't open up, birds continue to chirp, the sun continues to rise, in an America with obligatory insurance. That said, I don't even know how much you could say mandatory insurance qualifies as "reform."

Obama has always been nothing but a spokesman for Keynesian corporate capitalism and never intended to sign single payer into law let alone fight for a public option. You need to understand his rise to power- the DLC [democratic leadership council] is behind Obama he has never in reality been a socialist or leftist progressive. I'm not trying to be rude but you, along with the right wing Tea Baggers, have fallen for propaganda. A part of you actually believes Obama is a socialist. Obviously. Too many of us on the left apologize for this slime ball when we should be in the streets raising hell.

I'll write a long drawn out detailed map of sorts showing the reality of the situation [outside of the obvious fact no democrat or republican is a friend of our cause]. Too many on the left have fallen for MsM propaganda. The Obombya administration proves [or should have] once and for all we cannot reform our political system. We live in a corporate plutocracy and Obama is simply the new spokesman or CEO working for the private profits of billionaire stockholders in the USA corporation. The people be dammed. Profit over people. Perpetual war. Nothing has changed. The word change is a dirty word now. The writing has been on the wall concerning Obama for some time before he even took the oath. Google Obama DLC. He's been in bed with the blue dogs all along- even before he was voted in. In fact- that was how he was voted in. He has the full support of the Democratic Leadership Council and if I need to explain who they are I'll have to be on RevLeft explaining a great deal of other things.

There is no lesser of two evils when it comes to so called liberal capitalist and so called conservative capitalists. Not when you're a revolutionary. Both are working to implement the same agenda and the partisan game is a lie. Obama's chief of staff, the same man who got the Wall St funding for Obama's campaign, rigged a pro Iraq war congress in 2006 well after we all knew the Iraq war was bullshit. The same man, Rahm Emanuel, also wrote [in collusion with the insurance/pharma companies] the health care legislation- the same legislation Mitt Romney signed into law. Obama is simply the new spokesman for the DLC. It's that simple and the DLC is no different than any other cabal/organization of conservative capitalists. They are in fact neoconservatives. I implore you to read Rahm Emanuel's book entitled "The Plan; Big Ideas For America" and you'll see all of the policies Obama has fought for are coming straight out of the DLC. There's so much continuity from the Bush administration I don't even have time to highlight it all. the wars, the Bush Clinton free trade agreements, the privatization of education, the privatization of health care....a lesser known fact [among many others] is Obama tried to deregulate World Bank/IMF funding to up and coming industrial nations. This was a direct attack on labor in South America and other so called third world nations. Obama used Bush era signing orders to override a democrat bill which put regulations/oversight on World Bank and IMF loans. I'll post about that in great detail later. The overall point is...we need to stop even a small tiny amount of apologizing for Obama/democrats. Just how the right wing libertarians always support republicans we on the left all too often apologize for democrats. It needs to stop if we are to move forward. We should be raising hell.

[Kléber]

A part of you actually believes Obama is a socialist. Obviously.
So obviously you had to emphasize its obviousness because actually, I've never said anything of the sort.


The overall point is...we need to stop even a small tiny amount of apologizing for Obama/democrats.
When did I apologize and for what?

I was shat on by friends and family who had liberal illusions in his slogans because I was public about my refusal to vote for a pro-torture, anti-worker imperialist warmonger, but now that his right-wing policies are evident, even my girlfriend won't defend him anymore (and she'll take any opportunity to argue with me!). I hate Obama as much as the next communist but you have to be more patient with people who are still thinking in terms of "I want healthcare" and don't know the difference between a socialist and a fascist. The way to talk to those people is to show them how Obama hasn't come through on his promises. If they hear you calling him names, they'll think you are a teabagger and ignore all your valid socialist criticisms (I've been called a racist and almost beaten up before for making much more mild criticisms of Obama's administration).


We should be raising hell.
Don't know what you mean by this exactly. Militant strikes are always good, and political independence from the Democrats is beside the point. But politically uneducated people on life support who are getting screwed over by the insurance industry, may or may not feel that a bunch of college kids "raising hell" has anything to do with them. We should always maintain the highest principled opposition to Obama in slogans and statements, but the best way to get people into the socialist movement is not always by appealing to their higher reasoning and saying Obama is Bush III, end of story. It can be much more effective to appeal to wallets and stomachs with a transitional approach that says, we want the same basic social reforms you want, here's how Obama failed to deliver. Demanding the reforms he is too afraid to support, like genuine socialized medicine paid for by the bourgeoisie, makes plainly evident the contradiction between his words and his actions.

[Q]

Since I read this article (http://www.revleft.com/vb/democracy-oligarchyi-t119643/index.html?t=119643) I actually think elections are not the way forward. They constitute identity politics and an oligarchy on a very fundamental level, thus anti-democratic. As opposed to that selecting representatives by lottery (so, a kind of jury system) is a far more fair system in actually representing the people, not only by just randomly picking persons out of the population, but also because these only sit for one term (unless the population is extremely small).

Of course recall, average workers pay and having a limited mandate (up to a year, or less), that Kléber was talking about, still apply.

[syndicat]

i think a better method is have a system where issues that are controversial can be forced back to the directly democratic discussion and decision of assemblies, as in neighborhoods or workplaces. Also, requiring the representatives to make regular reports to the base assemblies. It's okay if a representative body makes decisions about which there is little disagrement or disagreement that be readily got over through discussion. But sometimes this is not the case. So the idea would be a petition is allowed for force the vote back to base assemblies, without requiring a huge proportion of residents to sign the petition, some small percentage.

I think "mandates" (where representatives cannot budge from positions of their base assemblies) and immediate recall are too impractical. But delegates should not work fulltime as politicians, but continue at least part of the time in some regular job, so be in contact regularly with their constituents, and be paid an ordinary worker's wage. Those offer additional restrictions on developing into a separate oligarchy, divorced from the base.

[Wolf Larson]

So obviously you had to emphasize its obviousness because actually, I've never said anything of the sort.


When did I apologize and for what?

I was shat on by friends and family who had liberal illusions in his slogans because I was public about my refusal to vote for a pro-torture, anti-worker imperialist warmonger, but now that his right-wing policies are evident, even my girlfriend won't defend him anymore (and she'll take any opportunity to argue with me!). I hate Obama as much as the next communist but you have to be more patient with people who are still thinking in terms of "I want healthcare" and don't know the difference between a socialist and a fascist. The way to talk to those people is to show them how Obama hasn't come through on his promises. If they hear you calling him names, they'll think you are a teabagger and ignore all your valid socialist criticisms (I've been called a racist and almost beaten up before for making much more mild criticisms of Obama's administration).


Don't know what you mean by this exactly. Militant strikes are always good, and political independence from the Democrats is beside the point. But politically uneducated people on life support who are getting screwed over by the insurance industry, may or may not feel that a bunch of college kids "raising hell" has anything to do with them. We should always maintain the highest principled opposition to Obama in slogans and statements, but the best way to get people into the socialist movement is not always by appealing to their higher reasoning and saying Obama is Bush III, end of story. It can be much more effective to appeal to wallets and stomachs with a transitional approach that says, we want the same basic social reforms you want, here's how Obama failed to deliver. Demanding the reforms he is too afraid to support, like genuine socialized medicine paid for by the bourgeoisie, makes plainly evident the contradiction between his words and his actions.
I misread your position. I'll admit when I'm wrong. Sorry, I'm surrounded by liberals in Oakland/SF/Berkeley and suffered the same, lets say, social scorn [as you said you experienced] early on when I was scoffing at the idea of supporting Obama. Sorry, I'm still angry about it and have a tendency to sniff out liberals where they don't exist. Call it a case of misplaced I told you so's or anger or whatever. I guess in my own selfish way I want to see 24/7 condemnation of that prick. He's completely marginalized our momentum. There is no more left. Poof! Gone. And no, I don't mean raising hell as in college kids mindlessly screaming Obama is Bush. We should be drawing a rhetorical line in the sand and to this day the line between liberal and socialist is blurred to the point of collusion. It's this collusion that needs to stop. We need to completely separate ourselves from the current political paradigm. As I said Obama's administration has blatantly shown the younger generation that this system will NEVER operate with the best intentions of the working class in mind. Never.


This collusion only ends up strengthening capitalism. Many of us talk like revolutionaries but act like Keynesian reformists. As I said Obama's administration should have, by now, shown the younger generation that this system will NEVER operate with the best intentions of the working class in mind but instead capitalism and this representative plutocracy is coming out smelling like roses. It's the older generation who should have no excuse for being played like suckers. Becuase this is indeed what has happened. The left was just played like suckers and we're basically saying thank you please may I have another. It's rather pathetic. We're impotent and it's largely due to our naive collusion with the democrat party and or acceptance of people who do collude with their agenda. You know what I'm talking about. Within our ranks there are many of us who have defended Obama. Why? The sort of dual reality many of us live in needs to go. Say one thing or think one thing and do another. I think it's time to turn up the heat on liberals. Whats going on now is is akin to collective insanity. And sorry again for misreading you but It's been my experience most people [even on the socialist left] have been tainted to some extent by the MsM propaganda. I'm talking about people here in the Bay Area I've known for years....they just threw caution to the wind during the elections and put all of their energy behind Obama and still refuse to see the writing on the wall. It's like watching people being brainwashed. Stubborn loyalty. Seeing all of this happen first hand has somewhat eroded my <i> faith</i> in the lefts ability to see objective reality. Again, I have a tendency to be harsh with people I simply suspect of being liberal [as in Democrat apologists]. Sometimes I try to flush them out. Hit and miss. I'm an asshole either way.

[MetJeBrood]

But going back to the topic of direct democracy,
what form of direct democracy would you want to see?
But pleas keep in mind that, especially in a multiple party system
the media has enormes influences on the public opinion,
for e.g. my local social democrats party has almost dubbel in just
a few weeks by some stupid fake ass media show..
How can you with the quick changing believes of the masses create a good working democracy?

[scarletghoul]

Direct Democracy alone isn't enough. You would have to change the whole economic and social system too. I mean, if you kept the capitalist system in amerika and got some direct democracy the upper classes would still rule through propaganda. And there would still be people who wouldnt bother voting like your sister said.

If however you completely change the socio-economic structure so the means of productions are collectively owned etc, then the situation changes entirely. You can't just have direct democracy on its own with no other changes. Thats why we''re communist revolutionaries and not just direct democrats

[MetJeBrood]

You actually managed to completly avoid any form of awnser to my question :)
How can you with the quick changing believes of the masses create a good working democracy? From what you wrote i undestand that you believe that when we would completely change the system everyone would turn into communists? Assuming this would be the case and completely forgetting about socialist, anarchist, facists and any form of liberalism or conservative suckers.. I think there would be multiple communist parties/groups, and the masses would still be easily influenced and have quick changing political views.. How can you have a form of direct democracy when the masses are so easy to influence and manipulate?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Since I read this article (http://www.revleft.com/vb/democracy-oligarchyi-t119643/index.html?t=119643) I actually think elections are not the way forward. They constitute identity politics and an oligarchy on a very fundamental level, thus anti-democratic. As opposed to that selecting representatives by lottery (so, a kind of jury system) is a far more fair system in actually representing the people, not only by just randomly picking persons out of the population, but also because these only sit for one term (unless the population is extremely small).

Of course recall, average workers pay and having a limited mandate (up to a year, or less), that Kléber was talking about, still apply.

I should stress that Paul didn't put too much emphasis on lottery term limits (certainly against shorter ones for very technical positions, for instance), and he has reservations about average worker pay (but never addressed this being incorporated into a demarchic system).