Thoughts on Democracy?

[Viet Minh]

What is RevLeft's opinion of Democracy?

[Dimmu]

Depends on what type of democracy. I support a direct democracy where people have a say in all of the decisions.

What we have in the "western" world is a fake democracy where you only can vote once in six years for the candidates already chosen by the system.

Its like the South Park episode where they voted for douche or a turd.

Sure you can vote, but it wont bring any difference.

[RGacky3]

Democracy, i.e. the principle of people having control over their own lives and the things that effect their lives, is the fundemental principle behind my philosophy and behind most of socialism.

[NGNM85]

Any socialism that is not thoroughly democratic is fake 'socialism.' The difference between Libertarian Socialism and Classical Liberalism is Libertarian Socialists extend and build on these principles, recognizing that in order to be fully realized, democracy necessitates control over ones' productive life.

[ZeroNowhere]

'Revleft' has no opinion of democracy. My own is fairly similar to Bordiga's.

"The proletarian state can only be "animated" by a single party and it would be senseless to require that this party organise in its ranks a statistical majority and be supported by such a majority in "popular elections" - that old bourgeois trap. One of the historical possibilities is the existence of political parties composed in appearance by proletarians, but in reality influenced by counterrevolutionary traditions or by foreign capitalism's. This contradiction, the most dangerous of all, cannot be resolved through the recognition of formal rights nor through the process of voting within the framework of an abstract "class democracy". This too will be a crisis to be liquidated in terms of relationships of force. There is no statistical contrivance which can ensure a satisfactory revolutionary solution; this will depend solely upon the degree of solidity and clarity reached by the revolutionary communist movement throughout the world."

Communism is not a matter of abstract head-counting, but of class interests. While I do respect the Workers' Opposition, and do not view the Bolshevik government as an organ of working class rule (which has nothing to do with democracy and more to do with the weakness of the proletariat and the fact that Russia was experiencing a crisis of lacking capitalism rather than a capitalist crisis), I think that Trotsky's infamous formulation makes a valid point:

"The Workers’ Opposition has come out with dangerous slogans, fetishising the principles of democracy. They seem to have placed the workers’ voting rights above the Party, as though the Party did not have the right to defend its dictatorship even if that dictatorship were to collide for a time with the transitory mood of the workers’ democracy ... What is indispensable is the consciousness, so to speak, of the revolutionary historical birthright of the Party, which is obliged to maintain its dictatorship in spite of the temporary vacillations in the elemental stirrings of the masses, in spite of the temporary vacillations even in the workers’ milieu. That consciousness is for us the indispensable cement. It is not on the formal principle of workers’ democracy that the dictatorship is based at any given moment, though the workers’ democracy is, of course, the only method by whose help the masses are increasingly drawn into political life."

[Zanthorus]

What is RevLeft's opinion of Democracy?

I don't know about Revleft but...

"...while the democratic party, the party of the petty bourgeoisie, has become more and more organized in Germany, the workers’ party has lost its only firm foothold, remaining organized at best in individual localities for local purposes; within the general movement it has consequently come under the complete domination and leadership of the petty-bourgeois democrats. This situation cannot be allowed to continue; the independence of the workers must be restored." (Marx and Engels, Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League of March 1850)

"As to pure democracy and its role in the future I do not share your opinion. Obviously it plays a far more subordinate part in Germany than in countries with an older industrial development. But that does not prevent the possibility, when the moment of revolution comes, of its acquiring a temporary importance as the most radical bourgeois party (it has already played itself off as such in Frankfort) and as the final sheet-anchor of the whole bourgeois and even feudal regime. At such a moment the whole reactionary mass falls in behind it and strengthens it; everything which used to be reactionary behaves as democratic. Thus between March and September 1848 the whole feudal-bureaucratic mass strengthened the liberals in order to hold down the revolutionary masses, and, once this was accomplished, in order, naturally, to kick out the liberals as well. Thus from May 1848 until Bonaparte's election in France in December, the purely republican party of the National, the weakest of all the parties, was in power, simply owing to the whole collective reaction organised behind it. This has happened in every revolution: the tamest party still remaining in any way capable of government comes to power with the others just because it is only in this party that the defeated see their last possibility of salvation. Now it cannot be expected that at the moment of crisis we shall already have the majority of the electorate and therefore of the nation behind us. The whole bourgeois class and the remnants of the feudal landowning class, a large section of the petty bourgeoisie and also of the rural population will then mass themselves around the most radical bourgeois party, which will then make the most extreme revolutionary gestures, and I consider it very possible that it will be represented in the provisional government and even temporarily form its majority. How, as a minority, one should not act in that case, was demonstrated by the social-democratic minority in the Paris revolution of February 1848. However, this is still an academic question at the moment.

Now of course the thing may take a different turn in Germany, and that for military reasons. As things are at present, an impulse from outside can scarcely come from anywhere but Russia. If it does not do so, if the impulse arises from Germany, then the revolution can only start from the army. From the military point of view an unarmed nation against an army of to-day is a purely vanishing quantity. In this case--if our twenty to twenty-five-year-old reserves which have no vote but are trained, came into action--pure democracy might be leapt over. But this question is still equally academic at present, although I, as a representative, so to speak, of the great general staff of the Party, am bound to take it into consideration. In any case our sole adversary on the day of the crisis and on the day after the crisis will be the whole collective reaction which will group itself around pure democracy, and this, I think, should not be lost sight of." (Engels to Bebel, 12th of December 1884)

"The [March 1850] Address, composed by Marx and myself, is still of interest today, because petite-bourgeois democracy is even now the party which must certainly be the first to come to power in Germany as the savior of society from the communist workers on the occasion of the next European upheaval" (Engels, On the History of the Communist League)

The above Engels' quotes being nicely confirmed by:

"1. Faced with the growth of the revolutionary workers’ movement in every country, the bourgeoisie and their agents in the workers’ organizations are making desperate attempts to find ideological and political arguments in defense of the rule of the exploiters. Condemnation of dictatorship and a sense of democracy are particularly prominent among these arguments. The falsity and hypocrisy of this argument, repeated in a thousand strains by the capitalist press and at the Berne yellow International Conference in February 1919, are obvious to all who refuse to betray the fundamental principles of socialism.

2. Firstly, this argument employs the concepts of “democracy in general” and “dictatorship in general “, without posing the question of the class concerned. This nonclass or above class presentation, which supposedly is popular, is an outright travesty of the basic tenet of socialism, namely, its theory of class struggle, which Socialists who have sided with the bourgeoisie recognize in words but disregard in practice. For in no civilized capitalist country does “democracy in general” exist; all that exists is bourgeois democracy, and it is not a question of “dictatorship in general", but of the dictatorship of the oppressed class, i.e., the proletariat, over its oppressors and exploiters, i.e., the bourgeoisie, in order to overcome the resistance offered by the exploiters in their fight to maintain their domination." (Lenin, Theses on Bourgeois Democracy and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat)

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

Any current socialist movement that doesn't wish to bring about the full democratization of society is about as obsolete as one that doesn't respect womens rights.


"The Workers’ Opposition has come out with dangerous slogans, fetishising the principles of democracy. They seem to have placed the workers’ voting rights above the Party, as though the Party did not have the right to defend its dictatorship even if that dictatorship were to collide for a time with the transitory mood of the workers’ democracy ... What is indispensable is the consciousness, so to speak, of the revolutionary historical birthright of the Party, which is obliged to maintain its dictatorship in spite of the temporary vacillations in the elemental stirrings of the masses, in spite of the temporary vacillations even in the workers’ milieu. That consciousness is for us the indispensable cement. It is not on the formal principle of workers’ democracy that the dictatorship is based at any given moment, though the workers’ democracy is, of course, the only method by whose help the masses are increasingly drawn into political life."

This paternalistic view of workers is more out of date today than serfdom was when it was written. It is bs like this, that the party is above the will of the people (for their own good , of course), that leads to things like gulags and political prisoners. Democracy, democracy not only in the bourgeois political arena but also over the economy, is not a means to an end but an end into and of itself.

[ZeroNowhere]

We are communists, we are not concerned with the 'will of the people'. Our concern is rather with the working class movement, and as such we do not have any democratic 'eternal principles' to assert against this. If most (ie. 50%+x) workers oppose the furtherance of the political struggle for working class interests in a crisis, then, to be brief, that is their problem. 50% + 1 is not a magic number, and not every opinion is in line with the furtherance of the proletarian dictatorship. We are not paternalistic, and believe that the liberation of the working class will have to be the act of the working class itself, as after all revolutions are not made ideologically and arbitrarily, we simply consider it, one could say, somewhat authoritarian to tell workers to stop fighting in earnest in their interests because it turns out that 51% are against this. We uphold no revolutionary paternalism, merely revolutionary totalitarianism.

To summarize, the Party is above the will of the people. The horrors of Soviet primitive accumulation and accelerated development, if they exceed those of the same process of capitalist development in the democratic West, which is questionable, do so not because of incorrect principles, but rather due to haste.

[bricolage]

"Every time an anarchist says, "I believe in democracy," there is a little fairy somewhere that falls down dead." - JM Barrie (Peter Pan 1928)

[Dimmu]

"Every time an anarchist says, "I believe in democracy," there is a little fairy somewhere that falls down dead." - JM Barrie (Peter Pan 1928)

What? Anarchism is about direct democracy where every individual will participate.

[Viet Minh]

Depends on what type of democracy. I support a direct democracy where people have a say in all of the decisions.

What we have in the "western" world is a fake democracy where you only can vote once in six years for the candidates already chosen by the system.

Its like the South Park episode where they voted for douche or a turd.

Sure you can vote, but it wont bring any difference.

In the op I had a rant about that, but I thought it might pigeonhole the thread a bit. But yeah in the UK we don't have Democracy, we have a vote for one of two parties, who both lie in their manifestos and ignore the voters until the next election, four years down the line. With modern communications technology we have the perfect chance to implement real Democracy imo


Any current socialist movement that doesn't wish to bring about the full democratization of society is about as obsolete as one that doesn't respect womens rights.


This paternalistic view of workers is more out of date today than serfdom was when it was written. It is bs like this, that the party is above the will of the people (for their own good , of course), that leads to things like gulags and political prisoners. Democracy, democracy not only in the bourgeois political arena but also over the economy, is not a means to an end but an end into and of itself.

I agree with that, but thats exactly why Socialism is not necessarily compatible with Democracy in this era, in the West. Basically the working class of Marx and Engels are largely extinct, and certainly nowhere near the majority needed for radical socialist revolution. Ironically it tends to be the working class who join the ranks of the BNP, whilst the Red Action types are trendy student hippies. No disrespect intended to that group they are a great force against fascism thats just the way I sees it.

On the other hand you could argue that now is a better time, with better literacy, better mobility, a ready made 'underground' via the internet and mobile phones, arguably more freedom to convert others to the cause, and a post Cold War enlightenment of sorts.

[Viet Minh]

What? Anarchism is about direct democracy where every individual will participate.

Forgive my ignorance, but without a Government, wthout law, what is there to vote on? :confused:

[bricolage]

What? Anarchism is about direct democracy where every individual will participate.
Meh, I took it from here (http://libcom.org/library/democracy), I haven't even read the whole article, I just thought that opening line was funny...

I don't even really know what to make of this whole democracy thing, I don't even know what people mean by it most of the time. I do think from my experiences in what could be called the 'anarchist movement' there is this fixation with democracy, with community/neighbourhood/other such words councils/committees/other such words, often a fetishisation of process (ie. consensus decision making) and this belief that if you keep voting and keep having votes you are getting somewhere. I recently witnessed someone who described themselves as an anarchist praising the Bolivarian 'revolution' because of the democratic channels it set up... I think all of this completely misses the social relationships of capitalism that persist throughout, I don't think you can vote your way into communism.

[thesadmafioso]

Democracy is only ideal when the necessary preconditions for its capacity to properly represent the interests of the working class to be realized have been met. Such an implement of government is going to be inherently subject to the ideological hegemony of any society, meaning that it will naturally be unfit to be a progressive force for the proletariat when it is applied in the wrong context. Capitalist democracy is something quite separate from socialist democracy due to notable discrepancies in the factors of political socialization present under these very different systems, and that distinction needs to be made when discussing the system of democracy in a vacuum. This needs to be accounted for as democracy is something which is entirely dependent upon factors separate from the means of democratic government, it will be entirely different when applied by a bourgeoisies state as opposed to a proletariat state.

[T-Paine]

While I certainly don't represent RevLeft's opinion, I consider unrestricted democracy a potential threat to freedom and rights (yes I believe in the "bourgeois liberal invention (http://www.revleft.com/vb/unfair-restriction-v-t140025/index.html?p=2044033#post204).") A tyrannical majority is not much better than a tyrannical despot. So regardless whether direct or indirect democracy is used, it's important to me that there is some charter or constitution that establishes what power cannot be used for. As we all know constitutions are violated all the time, but having one I feel prevents and rolls back some cases of abuse.

I have to respect leftists for their undying love of direct democracy, for if we had it at certain points in America's history all of this country's leftists would have been executed. (They wouldn't be the only ones either...)

[Dimmu]

Forgive my ignorance, but without a Government, wthout law, what is there to vote on? :confused:

Just because there is no centralised government to rule, does not mean that there will be no "laws". In an anarchistic society decisions will be made from the bottom-up and will be based on cooperation rather then hierarchy.


I do think from my experiences in what could be called the 'anarchist movement' there is this fixation with democracy, with community/neighbourhood/other such words councils/committees/other such words, often a fetishisation of process (ie. consensus decision making) and this belief that if you keep voting and keep having votes you are getting somewhere. I recently witnessed someone who described themselves as an anarchist praising the Bolivarian 'revolution' because of the democratic channels it set up... I think all of this completely misses the social relationships of capitalism that persist throughout, I don't think you can vote your way into communism.

Most anarchists would agree with me that direct democracy is the way to go. Most anarchists will also agree with me that consensus is not needed, since its just creates "watered-down" decisions because everyone's opinion has to be satisfied.

[smashcapital]

I agree that direct democracy is the way to go. In a direct democracy people will be able to vote in their own best interest. In my opinion not having a democracy or having representative democracy opens the door for corruption and those given the decision making ability will not vote or make policies in the best interest of the overall working class. Anarchists are just optimistic hoping that the people will vote on policies in their best interests or that will be for the greater good of society in general. After all are we really empowering the working class if the working class does not have all of the decision making abilities?

[Revolution starts with U]

We (anarchists) are not idealists. We don't want strong democratic control becuae we HOPE people will vote in their interests. We want it because they WILL.
Democracy is not some voting process, tho that is a part of democracy. It is the process of expression of the individual. Democracy (People power) is taking power away from the privelaged elite and returning it to the people at large.
50+1 % is mob rule. It may be democratic in comparison to certain other systems, but it is not democracy, per se.

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

We are Americans, we are not concerned with the 'will of the people'. Our concern is rather with the Afghan Liberation movement, and as such we do not have any democratic 'eternal principles' to assert against this. If most (ie. 50%+x) Afghan's oppose the furtherance of the political struggle for Afghan interests in a crisis, then, to be brief, that is their problem. 50% + 1 is not a magic number, and not every opinion is in line with the furtherance of the imperialist dictatorship. We are not paternalistic, and believe that the liberation of the Afghans will have to be the act of the Afghan people itself, as after all liberations are not made ideologically and arbitrarily, we simply consider it, one could say, somewhat authoritarian to tell Afghans to stop fighting in earnest in their interests because it turns out that 51% are against this. We uphold no revolutionary paternalism, merely revolutionary totalitarianism.

To summarize, the Party is above the will of the people.

The same lines can be used to justify the use of force, terror, and exploitation of any class of people over another. Despite popular disdain for some policy it needs to be done lest the enemy get a foothold, that one is probably the most commn cliche used by authoritarians that irks me.

Once any state or revolutionary council or whatever is no longer acting as the majority of the people would want then it is itself an enemy of the people and should be done away with. As T-Paine pointed out the rights of minorities must be protected against mob rule, but the notion of any group ruling without popular consent questions the virtue of such a revolution. It would be preferable to have no revolution than one which results with a proletarian dictatorship, or any dictatorship for that matter forget the bullshit propoganda name placed on front of it.

[Zanthorus]

TOnce any state or revolutionary council or whatever is no longer acting as the majority of the people would want then it is itself an enemy of the people and should be done away with.

And, what exactly is this amorphous mass you call 'the people', besides a phrase taken from the rhetorical arsenal of populists?

"On May 4 the National Assembly met the result of the direct general elections, convened. Universal suffrage did not possess the magic power which republicans of the old school had ascribed to it. They saw in the whole of France, at least in the majority of Frenchmen, citoyens with the same interests, the same understanding, etc. This was their cult of the people. Instead of their imaginary people, the elections brought the real people to the light of day; that is, representatives of the different classes into which it falls." (Marx, The Class Struggles in France 1848-50)

[Rafiq]

I have to respect leftists for their undying love of direct democracy, for if we had it at certain points in America's history all of this country's leftists would have been executed. (They wouldn't be the only ones either...)

Yeah, except fuck no.

If America had direct democracy, we'd be living in fucking socialism right now and would have done so in 1910's.

What, you think governers represent the people? You think presidents represent us? Senators? Reporters?

I have a suspicion you live in a dark, empty room with all the doors shut with a TV in front of you and a computer telling you "The American people's" opinion.

Maybe they don't like the word, but the ideas, they are all over them.

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

To be fair, the have been times in the history of the usa that the rights supposedly given to everyone were trampled and socialists were lynched, and many more have been incarcerated or even executed by due process.

[Geiseric]

Those actions weren't undertaken by normal people, most of the time it was petit bourgeois or it was a group as radically to the right as the KKK who did it to show an example. Do you think that the mass of american people wanted to lynch african americans and chinese immigrants? Answer is no. Those people are mislead by the bourgeois to thinking the enemys are the socialists and immigrants rather then the bourgeois themselves. Racism and greed are learnt behavoirs, people aren't like that once they're born.

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

I agree, the majority of the american people didn't approve of lynching in all cases. However there is clear documentation that in several cases entire communities came out to support mob justice. They may have been led astray but it still very much happened.

[smk]

there can be no equality without democracy.

[Viet Minh]

I agree, the majority of the american people didn't approve of lynching in all cases. However there is clear documentation that in several cases entire communities came out to support mob justice. They may have been led astray but it still very much happened.

Thats true but thats 'mob justice', not judicial process. If there was direct democracy its quite possible people would have greater faith in the justice system, and their right to participate in some way, or it being representative of their beliefs. Otherwise people will take the law into their own hands, and that happens almost everywhere.

[StockholmSyndrome]

The responses from ZeroNowhere and Zanthorus really hit the nail on the head as to why I no longer call myself a Marxist or a communist. They don't care about the will of the people, but the will of history. This is no better than the current state of affairs where parliamentary bodies have been captured by the will of capital. There won't be any room for liberal bourgeois fantasies once the high priests of the faith of historical materialism have taken power.

[eric922]

I know I'm new here and I'll admit my understand of Socialism is rather limited as I'm still learning, however I feel like I should give my 2 cents on this matter. I feel that Socialism and Democracy are two sides of the same coin. I believe that Socialism is all about extending Democracy into the economic sector. Without Socialism democracy is slowly transformed into a capitalist oligarchy and without democracy socialism will over time be turned into a dictatorship, not of the proletariat, but of one man.

[StockholmSyndrome]

Eduard Bernstein, Evolutionary Socialism Ch. III., Sect. (c):
Democracy and Socialism:

"I am not concerned with what will happen in the more distant future, but with what can and ought to happen in the present, for the present and the nearest future. And so the conclusion of this exposition is the very banal statement that the conquest of the democracy, the formation of political and social organs of the democracy, is the indispensable preliminary condition to the realisation of socialism.

Feudalism, with its unbending organisations and corporations, had to be destroyed nearly everywhere by violence. The liberal organisations of modern society are distinguished from those exactly because they are flexible, and capable of change and development. They do not need to be destroyed, but only to be further developed. For that we need organisation and energetic action, but not necessarily a revolutionary dictatorship. 'As the object of the class war is especially to destroy distinctions of class,' wrote some time since (October, 1897) a social democratic Swiss organ, the Vorwärts of Basle, 'a period must logically be agreed upon in which the realisation of this object, of this ideal, must be begun. This beginning, these periods following on one another, are already founded in our democratic development; they come to our help, to serve gradually as a substitute for the class war, to absorb it into themselves by the building up of the social democracy.' 'The bourgeoisie, of whatever shade of opinion it may be,' declared lately the Spanish socialist, Pablo Iglesias, 'must be convinced of this, that we do not wish to take possession of the Government by the same means that were once employed, by violence and bloodshed, but by lawful means which are suited to civilisation' (Vorwärts, October 16th, 1898). From a similar point of view the Labour Leader, the leading organ of the English Independent Labour Party, agreed unreservedly with the remarks of Vollmar on the Paris Commune. But no one will accuse this paper of timidity in fighting capitalism and the capitalist parties. And another organ of the English socialist working class democracy the Clarion, accompanied an extract from my article on the theory of catastrophic evolution with the following commentary:

'The formation of a true democracy – I am quite convinced that that is the most pressing and most important duty which lies before us. This is the lesson which the socialist campaign of the last ten years has taught us. That is the doctrine which emerges out of all my knowledge and experiences of politics. We must build up a nation of democrats before socialism is possible.""

[Thirsty Crow]

The responses from ZeroNowhere and Zanthorus really hit the nail on the head as to why I no longer call myself a Marxist or a communist. They don't care about the will of the people, but the will of history. This is no better than the current state of affairs where parliamentary bodies have been captured by the will of capital. There won't be any room for liberal bourgeois fantasies once the high priests of the faith of historical materialism have taken power.

For all your posturing, you didn't really answer one of the most important questions here: what exactly is "the people" in the rhetorical construction (correctly ascribed to populists) of "the will of the people"?
I suppose you'd refer to a body politic consisting of every "certified" citizen of a given nation-state ruling over a territory.
In that case, you are totally blind to the fact that the option of socialism did not, will not and can not come to the fore at the polling booth. In other words, the privileged tend to act in order that their privilege may be maintained. I'm sure that even the most cursory glance at historical periods of revolutionary upheaval show how representative democracy is nothing but a tool when it comes to class struggle.
That being said, I think that you're well aware of this, and the implication is the3 following: you'd rather have the dominated and subjugated wait until the bosses reach sudden enlightenment and decide to play fair. It's really hard to guess whose interests are in a better position. Like, really hard.

[StockholmSyndrome]

"I say expressly transition from a capitalist to a socialist society, and not from a 'civic society,' as is so frequently the expression used to-day. This application of the word 'civic' is also much more an atavism, or in any case an ambiguous way of speaking, which must be considered an inconvenience in the phraseology of German social democracy, and which forms an excellent bridge for mistakes with friend and foe. The fault lies partly in the German language, which has no special word for the idea of the citizen with equal civic rights separate from the idea of privileged citizens.

What is the struggle against, or the abolition of, a civic society? What does it mean specially in Germany, in whose greatest and leading state, Prussia, we are still constantly concerned with first getting rid of a great part of feudalism which stands in the path of civic development? No man thinks of destroying civic society as a civilised ordered system of society. On the contrary, social democracy does not wish to break up this society and make all its members proletarians together; it labours rather incessantly at raising the worker from the social position of a proletarian to that of a citizen, and thus to make citizenship universal. It does not want to set up a proletarian society instead of a civic society, but a socialist order of society instead of a capitalist one."---EB

[RATM-Eubie]

I love democracy. I believe in a system of democracy like they have in Venezeuela. With participatory democracy and representative democracy.

[ComradeMan]

What is RevLeft's opinion of Democracy?

It doesn't fully exist yet.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

This thread needs more Bordiga and less democracy-hugging.

[Viet Minh]

This thread needs more Bordiga and less democracy-hugging.

You're outnumbered! :thumbup1:

[RATM-Eubie]

Only problem with a direct democracy in my opinon and i dont know if other feel the same way is what if people are not fully informed on the issues and they are voting on issues they have no idea about or no background knowledge about? Would that be a problem in your guys opinion?
Opinions on this issue?

[Viet Minh]

Only problem with a direct democracy in my opinon and i dont know if other feel the same way is what if people are not fully informed on the issues and they are voting on issues they have no idea about or no background knowledge about? Would that be a problem in your guys opinion?
Opinions on this issue?

In a truly democratic society there is freedom of the press, so there is always the danger of 'rabble-rousing', fearmongering etc. But I have faith that the majority of people are moderate and fair, more so than the average person would be individually. I think people are pushed to extreme views by extreme conditions to an extent, and in a system where people had a certain amount of control over their own lives and were generally happy they would not need radical change. I'm thinking here in terms of immigration, which is one possible example of the tyranny of the majority. If the system was fair to everyone, and immigrants had the chance to work, the nonsense about them seeking benefits (which they have every right to do) would be gone, then of course there's the argument they're taking our (low paid menial) jobs :rolleyes: deytookuurjobs! If they're taking 'your women' sorry I cant help you there! :lol:

[Demogorgon]

While I certainly don't represent RevLeft's opinion, I consider unrestricted democracy a potential threat to freedom and rights (yes I believe in the "bourgeois liberal invention (http://www.revleft.com/vb/unfair-restriction-v-t140025/index.html?p=2044033#post204).") A tyrannical majority is not much better than a tyrannical despot. So regardless whether direct or indirect democracy is used, it's important to me that there is some charter or constitution that establishes what power cannot be used for. As we all know constitutions are violated all the time, but having one I feel prevents and rolls back some cases of abuse.

I have to respect leftists for their undying love of direct democracy, for if we had it at certain points in America's history all of this country's leftists would have been executed. (They wouldn't be the only ones either...)
A majority tyranny may be horrible, but so is a minority tyranny and the latter is more common. When one criticises democratic rule on the grounds it may lead to horrible consequences, one must be able to demonstrate that something else will lead to better outcomes.

The Constitutional point only answers that to an extent, because Constitutions are still drawn up and amended according to the political process. Is that process itself to be democratic or is it to be something else better equipped to respect people's rights?

Certainly there has to be a Constitution. I mean that literally as "has to be" rather than "should be", because a Constitution is just something a political system has. There may or may not be a written document called the Constitution, but there will be a constitution in the broader sense that there will be rules as to the political process-even if these rules are informal and unwritten.

Presuming we go further and actually write them down into a document we call "The Constitution", I do agree that certain things ought to go into it. That is to say that it should guarantee a state of affairs most conducive to democracy. That is to say both the classic things like freedom of speech and also things like equality of economic resources (without which people are not equal political actors) and the easy availability of accurate information and a diverse media.

The most important thing however is not institutional, it is cultural. That is to say the political culture, not the whole culture. By this I mean the political culture needs to embrace democratic values. To put this in concrete terms the Iraqi constitution is clearly more democratic on paper than the American constitution yet nobody in their right mind would claim that Iraq was more democratic. Of course America itself is one of the least democratic countries in the west owing both to problems with its political system and with its political culture, but whatever its problems it is a damn sight better than Iraq.

As it happens we know to some extent what does make people more respectful of the democratic process and less inclined to want to target nasty policies at others, a greater degree of equality is one. Perhaps most significant however is that the more democratic the workplace the more likely people are to embrace democratic values in wider society and the less likely they are to support policies that are intended to attack minority groups or whatever. These points I think bode well for Socialist Democracy.