Ditch democracy

[Kadir Ateş]

This is probably the Bordiga talking, but honestly, let's get rid of democracy. Not just the term--the whole practise as well.

Here's a quote by Camatte that I think suits the occasion:

It is often said that the seeds (or some even say the forms) of democracy are to be found in the origins of the life of our species, in primitive communism. However it is a misunderstanding to see the manifestation of the seeds of a higher form appearing sporadically in an inferior form. This "democracy" appeared in very specific circumstances. Once these had ended, there was a return to the former mode of organisation. For example : military democracy at its beginnings. The election of the leader took place at a particular time and for specific tasks. Once these were accomplished, the leader was reabsorbed into the community. The democracy which appeared temporarily was reabsorbed. It was the same for those forms of capital which Marx called ante-deluvian. Usury was the archaic form of money-capital which could appear in ancient societies. But its existence was always precarious, because society defended itself against its solvent effects and banished it. It was only when man became a commodity, that capital could develop on a safe foundation, and could no longer be reabsorbed. Democracy can only really appear from the moment when men have been completely divided, and the umbilical cord linking them with the community has been cut; that is, when there are individuals.

- J. Camatte, "The Democratic Mystification" <http://www.marxists.org/archive/camatte/demyst.htm>

Thoughts?

[Leftsolidarity]

Dislike

[HEAD ICE]

I wouldn't say that is Bordiga talking. Bordiga had no problem with democratic organization and tactics if conditions demanded it. What he said is that democratic tactics are not inherently better than any other, and there was no reason to hold democracy as an all applying principle for revolutionaries. An "anti-democratic" principle is just as bad as a democratic principle.

[Kadir Ateş]

I think he worded it a bit more strongly than that, at least from what I gathered in his "The Democratic Principle" when he says that the term itself should be avoided--but--that trade unions and parties "the forms" as you put it, could be helpful. But Camatte's quote I think suggests a much harsher condemnation, and develops Bordiga's thought further, in my opinion.

[Kadir Ateş]

Dislike

What aspect of this quote did you not like and please explain why.

[Leftsolidarity]

let's get rid of democracy. Not just the term--the whole practise as well.



Democracy can only really appear from the moment when men have been completely divided, and the umbilical cord linking them with the community has been cut; that is, when there are individuals.


I just don't agree. How would you like me to explain?

[#FF0000]

I just don't agree. How would you like me to explain?

You can start with "why", silly.

[Leftsolidarity]

You can start with "why", silly.

Argghh I'll do my best but I'm pretty tired so I probably won't be that convincing and will most likely type like shit.

I think that scraping democracy is scraping communism. Democracy is the rule of the people and that should be our main focus 1)whether you agree with the people or not, and 2) can manifest itself in different ways.

I think Lenin puts forward a good argument about Democracy in this chapter of The State and Revolution but I'm too tired to completely make sure if this is the right chapter.
http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch04.htm#s6

[ZeroNowhere]

I don't think that there's necessarily much worth in disregarding the fact that the bourgeois democratic state is in fact the highest development of the state developed in class society, and as such the highest development of the contradiction between general and individual interest before such topples itself. This contradiction is manifested in the fact that the state must serve a particular interest, that of the bourgeoisie, in order to maintain itself, an identity of interests made especially notable on the world market through which the state becomes representative of the total national capital, but on the other hand gives political power to the class whose exercise of power would ultimately bring its end, namely the working class. Or, as Marx puts it:


"The comprehensive contradiction of this constitution, however, consists in the following: The classes whose social slavery the constitution is to perpetuate – proletariat, peasantry, petty bourgeoisie – it puts in possession of political power through universal suffrage. And from the class whose old social power it sanctions, the bourgeoisie, it withdraws the political guarantees of this power. It forces the political rule of the bourgeoisie into democratic conditions, which at every moment help the hostile classes to victory and jeopardize the very foundations of bourgeois society."(I discussed that quote a bit here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/reforms-measure-bribery-t155677/index.html?t=155677))

As such, the question is not simply one of abolishing organizational forms. Rather, democracy does represent on one side a progress, the state taking on more or less fully the character of general interest, although on the other side this general interest is still an illusory one insofar as it is based upon abstract head-counting of people with divergent class interests, and hence must take up a position above civil society (although not really) and therefore above the real individuals making up the society, so that things appear in the form of abstract individuals voting and, precisely due to their abstract character as individuals, giving rise to a unity which stands above them and is hence itself abstract. This may be compared to the idealist derivation of God, which begins from the individual as abstract self-consciousness, or the process by which the capitalist class comes into existence in production as representative of the social nature of production. Of course, the state qua representative of the illusory general interest is also the realm of ideology, and hence the democratic state gives rise to the democratic principle as the only means of putting forward the 'real' general interest and so on in ideology, insofar as the general interest is reduced to abstract individual interests and hence there is no real question of collective action, but rather of individuals acting as individuals in the abstract, so that the state comes to represent the collective, or collectivity, as a force independent of and above the individual, hence apart from the real collective action of individuals.

Of course, as with the capitalist as representative of the social nature of the product, or indeed God as negation of the subject's negation in the world, this does not lead to real society, or the social subject as synthetic with the object, but rather ultimately the state takes the form of the particular interest precisely because it must be in opposition to the individual interest, whereas the real social interest (which, of course, does not exist in capitalism per se) has no such opposition. Individuals cannot control the state because they cannot control society, and hence the state, which appears as a means of social control, in fact, insofar as it is a bourgeois state, is essentially a representative of the class which represents society in the production process, the capitalist class, an effect particularly pronounced on the world market.

In that case, it isn't necessary to do away with the democratic form in the most abstract sense, namely as a simple form of organization based on universal voting, but rather to make it a form subject to the rule of social individuals, in other words a means of actual collective action. This may not be achieved through any formal alterations, but only through abolishing capital to give rise to the real social individual, at which point universal voting ceases to be a mere illusory form and rather becomes a means of actual social control, a form of social organization rather than a state-form. In other words, as a form wielded by actual social individuals, rather than a form standing above them as an abstract general interest which is nonetheless asserted to be the only real means of determining the general interest in the democratic principle because it takes all of these abstract individuals into account. As Marx puts it:


Asine! This is democratic twaddle, political drivel. Election is a political form present in the smallest Russian commune and artel. The character of the election does not depend on this name, but on the economic foundation, the economic situation of the voters, and as soon as the functions have ceased to be political ones, there exists 1) no government function, 2) the distribution of the general functions has become a business matter, that gives no one domination, 3) election has nothing of its present political character.

Democracy must cease to stand above the individual, and rather be subjected to the individual through them featuring as a concrete individual, which can only happen when civil society's dissolution constitutes them as real social individuals.

This does not, of course, mean that we support the democratic principle as such, which would be equivalent to saying that we support the proletariat because we support the general interest or will of 'the people', when in fact none of these exist under capitalism, and the democratic principle is explicitly based upon the myth of the general interest determined by counting people in the abstract, while we, as communists, support the particular interest of the proletariat and can hardly then take it up as a sectarian principle that 50%+1 support must be gained before action in the interests of the proletariat gains our sanction, nor can communism be based on eternal principles such as 'anti-authoritarianism', 'economic democracy' (ugh) and so on (or eternal principles in general), precisely because its real basis is the particular interest of the proletariat and hence any morality we have is sophism, in the sense of not representing the real social interest because there is none.

In fact, one could say that morality only takes the form of 'eternal principles' because it doesn't exist in ordinary life, and as such ultimately appears either as a list of imperatives pulled out of somebody's rectum or as the imposition of God, but that's a subject for another day. If morality is to have concrete existence, it must be connected to real interests, but it would hardly make sense to criticize the proletariat for not representing the real general interest (any more than criticizing the bourgeoisie because they have no moral 'right' to the product, in other words the 'property is theft' angle). If anything, under capitalism the bourgeoisie is in fact the class which represents society in the production process, but the result of crisis is that the alienation of society from the individual comes to be felt as a concrete lack by the proletariat which is hence forced to take up the mantle of society and the general interest itself, although this comes into conflict with the bourgeoisie's economic role as representative of society and hence leads to the negation of this and the return of object to subject, individual to society, and so on, in other words the prerequisites of concrete ethics ('human morality', as I believe Engels called it).

On the other hand, I'm not sure that the Camatte quote is necessarily by itself a condemnation of democracy as such. It is correct that democracy as such can only come about when there are individuals, and the human individual is only produced initially through the divorce of individual and community, in other words alienation. However, Camatte refers to this as the cutting of an umbilical cord, a phrase which I think that Marx may have used as well, which is simply to say that democracy as such presupposes the development of man over the stage of herd-animal, which in fact forms a prerequisite for human society proper; nonetheless, communism is hardly the elimination of the human individual, which could only represent a regression, but rather does not fall onto either side of antagonisms such as those between 'individualism' and 'collectivism', 'altruism' and 'egoism', but rather sees each as a one-sided expression of a division inherent to class society between individual and society, subject and object, and hence does not 'support' either side but rather transcends each abstract opposition. The division between society and individual is a prerequisite if the individual is to be developed in actuality, but nonetheless materialism resolves the human essence into the ensemble of social relations (one can compare this to Wittgenstein's private language argument), and hence communism, practical materialism, does not seek to perpetuate this division but rather eliminate it and return the human essence to the human individual. We do not seek to recreate the umbilical cord, and certainly not to glorify it, but rather to reconstitute the individual the real, concrete social individual, the social being.

That was a bit rambling, but I'm tired. Sorry about that.

[robbo203]

It depends what you mean by democracy doesn't it? It comes in different forms. There is the representative democracy of liberal capitalism, barely a democracy at all and in practice more akin to a plutocracy; there is delegative democracy where delegates are instructed by their constituents or party organisation on how they must vote; there is direct democracy in which individuals vote on the issue under discussion. This last is the strongest form of democracy and, I have no doubt, will be the dominant form in a communist/socialist society.

But ditch democracy? Is Camatte being serious? I think he is the one who is mystifying the term.

In any society, but particularly in modern industrial societies, there are issues that involve many, have repercussions that are fundamentally social in their ramifications and that therefore call for joint decisionmaking of some sort. Now you can resolve those issues in basically one of two ways - either by some form of democratic arrangement (democracy meaning rule by the people) or you can leave it up to a small elite or even a single individual to resolve. This second type of arrangement is generally called a dictatorship.

The call to "ditch democracy" in this context is tantamount to accepting the need for a dictatorship. Ive encountered this argument before amomg those who consider that democratic decisionmaking is some kind of monstrous dictatorial imposition upon the individual. This is an anarcho-capitalist wet dream frankly. These free market idealists postulate a society of completely atomised individuals who assume responsibility for no one else but themselves and the effect of whose actions are completely privatised and born by themselves. As if this were remotely possible.

In the real world there are multiple issues that, of their very nature, require joint decisionmaking because their impact is social. Try to imagine for example trying to operate even a simple transportation system without some form of joint decisionmaking. Hilariously, when I put this argument to some anarcho-caps a few years back, the answer I got was that individuuals should be allowed to purchase sections of the motorway and install their own tolls as a revenue raising device. Presumabvly we are talking about thousands of tolls along a 100km stretch of motorway. These people arent inhabiting the same planet as the rest of us.

Lets be frank here. Democratic practice is absolutely essential to the operation of a communist/socialist society which recognises our mutual interdependence. What we need to do is not "ditch democracy" but transcend the very weak and bourgeois form of democracy - representative democracy. We need to become more democratic not less so because the world that we live in requires this. That does not mean not being able to fart in the priivacy of your own home without the democratic mandate of the people. Of course not. There is an optimum balance to be achieved between the ability of the individual to do his/her own things and for society at large (and most especially at the local level) to have a say in certain matters.

It is in respect of this last requirement that we cannot sensibly contemplate ditching democracy because the only other alternative then would be dictatorship. While democratic decisionmaking may result in poor decisions being made just as as under a dictatorship, it is the principle of equality - that we should all have an equal say in social affairs - that elevates even the poorest decision made via the democratic process over the most technically competent decision imposed by some technocratically minded dictatorship

[Jimmie Higgins]

I wouldn't say that is Bordiga talking. Bordiga had no problem with democratic organization and tactics if conditions demanded it. What he said is that democratic tactics are not inherently better than any other, and there was no reason to hold democracy as an all applying principle for revolutionaries. An "anti-democratic" principle is just as bad as a democratic principle.

Well, in a way, yeah I don't think a working class revolution should have democracy on principle in the abstract. I mean if there was a revolution by workers, the way they reorganize society shouldn't be on the basis of just one person one vote on a population-level (like would reactionaries or fascists get an equal vote when their goal is to destroy the new society?), but as far as how should a majority class of the population organize itself to rule, by and far democracy seems like the best option for allowing a huge number of people to come to a common decision on something. I think the specific way that people organize their democratic decision-making organs will probably vary and depend on the conditions in which the revolution took place, but I can't see how else workers could effectively make collective and mass decisions other than some kind of democratic means.

[Cleansing Conspiratorial Revolutionary Flame]

Only through Democratic Control and Confrontation can the Working Class truly emancipate themselves from the yoke of Bourgeois Society and Exploitation; Founding a Proletarian Society based upon Direct Democratic Control, Labor, Respect and Dignity. Without Democratic Control, there can be no emancipation of the Proletariat as without Democratic Control the Proletariat is unable to liberate himself/herself from Bourgeois Society and through this disregarding of Democratic Control inevitably allows for futility in the experimentation and implementation towards a Proletarian Society to occur.

[ZeroNowhere]

Only through Democratic Control and Confrontation can the Working Class truly emancipate themselves from the yoke of Bourgeois Society and Exploitation; Founding a Proletarian Society based upon Direct Democratic Control, Labor, Respect and Dignity. Without Democratic Control, there can be no emancipation of the Proletariat as without Democratic Control the Proletariat is unable to liberate himself/herself from Bourgeois Society.This could be of some Merit if it did not sound like a Collection of Slogans taken from some Presumably Proletarian (but Not Really) Communist Party.

[Dunk]

I think when some people hear "democracy" they automatically envision liberal democracy, structured upon the nation-state. It's understandable anti-capitalists would experience revulsion to it or want to utterly reject this current organizational form. But there's a difference between the top down imposition of bourgeois democracy for influence over the nation-state, and the reorganized form of the bottom up democratic means which the producers will possibly control both production and society after they seize the means of production.

Common ownership of the means of production cannot exist if production is not controlled commonly.

[Kadir Ateş]

Thanks to all who critique my suggestion and gave thoughtful comments. The thread was meant to provoke serious discussion, as opposed to inquiring into which of Stalin's massacres was the best/what song we're all enjoying at the moment.


This could be of some Merit if it did not sound like a Collection of Slogans taken from some Presumably Proletarian (but Not Really) Communist Party.

Hilarious, thank you!