How is Parliamentary Democracy undemocratic?

[Catma]

So I was watching these Russel Brand comments, nodding to myself and such, and then Paxman comes out with his comments about democracy. I was all set to explain to him through my TV screen why the two-party system is undemocratic... then I realized he had an accent. These guys were British! With a multi-party parliamentary system that Americans like myself can only dream of!

I got to wondering exactly what the problem is, systemically, with a multi-party parliamentary democracy. I didn't come up with much. Is the issue simply that money still rules elections, even in such a system? So that basically, we can't have democracy until we eliminate the rich (or money)? I mean, that's really basic stuff. Is that all there is? It feels weird to have the problem down to bare bones like that, after considering the American system alone for most of my life.

Basically, there are tons of flaws and injustices in American "democracy", and the system could be far more democratic. At least, until it was bought out. Are there any other issues with a multi-party parliamentary system? What might democracy look like once with influence of capital is eliminated?

[GiantMonkeyMan]

We've got a population of 63 million, an electorate of roughly 45 million potential voters. Roughly 17 million voted for the ConDem coalition and they're the ones who get to propose laws, that's less than a third of the population supposedly voted for the current policies. These laws then get ratified in an unelected House of Lords and then signed off by an unelected Head of State. Parties representing the working class don't get any media coverage and parties representing the right-wing agenda get state sponsored coverage. Pretty much every front bencher was educated at either Oxford or Cambridge and there are four times as many millionaires in parliament than there are women. Local government has no power to set budgets; if they set a deficit budget protecting services, national government has a legal right to take control of local councils and set a cuts and austerity budget instead. Also, individuals voted into parliament suffer no legal ramifications for completely going against the promises the said they would follow in order to get elected and there is no way for the public to recall them from parliament.

I'm pretty sure that multi-party systems across the capitalist world work pretty much the same. The illusion of choice.

[ed miliband]

i'm not very interested in critiquing bourgeois democracy for not being "democratic" enough, but bordiga was bang-on with what he had to say about democracy...


"The division of society into classes distinguished by economic privilege clearly removes all value from majority decision-making. Our critique refutes the deceitful theory that the democratic and parliamentary state machine which arose from modern liberal constitutions is an organization of all citizens in the interests of all citizens. From the moment that opposing interests and class conflicts exist, there can be no unity of organization, and in spite of the outward appearance of popular sovereignty, the state remains the organ of the economically dominant class and the instrument of defence of its interests."

http://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1922/democratic-principle.htm

[Zealot]

So I was watching these Russel Brand comments, nodding to myself and such, and then Paxman comes out with his comments about democracy. I was all set to explain to him through my TV screen why the two-party system is undemocratic... then I realized he had an accent. These guys were British! With a multi-party parliamentary system that Americans like myself can only dream of!

I got to wondering exactly what the problem is, systemically, with a multi-party parliamentary democracy. I didn't come up with much. Is the issue simply that money still rules elections, even in such a system? So that basically, we can't have democracy until we eliminate the rich (or money)? I mean, that's really basic stuff. Is that all there is? It feels weird to have the problem down to bare bones like that, after considering the American system alone for most of my life.

Basically, there are tons of flaws and injustices in American "democracy", and the system could be far more democratic. At least, until it was bought out. Are there any other issues with a multi-party parliamentary system? What might democracy look like once with influence of capital is eliminated?

Are you talking about Proportional Representation? If so, there are at least two major problems I can think of. PR was installed in Germany after WWII to replace the FPTP (first-past-the-post) voting system, otherwise known as a "winner takes all" system. FPTP generally makes it difficult for any third-parties to ever take a share of power, whether extreme or not, but occasionally a party can form a government on the basis of simple majority (rather than absolute majority). This makes it easier, although very rare, for a minor party to form a government even if they didn't win a majority of the votes.

PR was apparently made to stop extreme parties - and by extension smaller parties in general - from ever coming to power again in Germany by giving parties proportional representation but not the ability to completely dominate the political system as would happen under FPTP. So there are tradeoffs. But the other problem with PR is that even if smaller parties get a share of the seats they usually enter into a coalition with either the main opposition or the majority party, which essentially blunts their capacity to have a larger share of power as well. Their proposals have to be accepted by their coalition partners who usually make their own changes to policies, which has the effect of diluting what could have been good policy and, at the worst, can give the appearance that this policy was the work of the major party all along. So whether PR or FPTP, both systems are essentially designed to exclude any other parties with a program that deviates in any major way from the status quo.

But as far as I know, the UK still uses FPTP and the upper house isn't elected - 20 something seats are reserved for the Church of England, some are there on the basis of "birthright", and the rest are appointed by the monarch and Prime Minister. Hardly anything to be envious about.

[tuwix]

Are there any other issues with a multi-party parliamentary system?

Yes. It isn't democracy at all. Democracy from old-greek language means "rule of people". People is meant here as majority. Opposite to that is an oligarchy that is rule of minority. And in fact, so-called "democracies" are just eligible oligarchies and only to some extent. You can vote on some man, but you can't vote who will become a minister of justice, for example. Certainly, the most important part of the system are lobbies sponsored mainly by bourgeoisie.

In the past, it was justified by lack of technical abilities to make direct democracies. It wasn't possible to gather 10 milion nation in one place to vote on all issues. But now in the age of mobile phones, internet, etc, there is a perfect psoobility to vote one everything within seconds. But nobody form ruling classes mentions that. Because it would mean end of their rule. The real democracy is end of bourgeois rule.

[Sharia Lawn]

Regarding parliament, the basic function of the parliamentary body in bourgeois democracy is offer passive confidence to the ordinances and rulings of the committees and departments decided upon behind the scenes of the public, in order to win the confidence of the masses, and to maintain the illusion of democracy and popular sovereignty. The parliamentary or congressional body is then a "talking shop" as Marx called it, a do-nothing dress-up club that feigns popular representation.

Drawing upon Marx's analysis of the Paris Commune government in which he noted that the representational bodies were transformed from mere talking shops as is there reason for existing under bourgeois democracy into real, working bodies that formed the backbone of the revolutionary government, Lenin wrote in State and Revolution that the way out of parliamentarism wasn't the abolition of representational government, but instead it's more complete and thorough realization. This is the premise on which Lenin proposed that executive and legislative power be fused under the Soviet government.


Of course, communists wish to see officialdom and administrative specialization itself cease to exist, but this can only be realized with the development of the global communist society in which all forms of state including democracy no longer exist. The proletarian state cannot abolish officialdom but through smashing the bourgeois military-bureaucratic machine it can lay the foundations for it.


State and Revolution deals with this issue in sufficient detail in Chapter 3.

[Q]

i'm not very interested in critiquing bourgeois democracy for not being "democratic" enough, but bordiga was bang-on with what he had to say about democracy...



http://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1922/democratic-principle.htm
Bordiga was wrong to throw out the democratic baby with the bathwater.

If we define democracy as "rule by the people, of the people, for the people", then it is quite obvious that we're not living in a democracy. Instead we live in an oligarchy ("rule by a small elite"). It is also quite clear that we need democracy in all advanced capitalist societies, to bring our class - the vast majority - to power. So we have to ask ourselves: What's wrong here?

The far left often offers some palliatives: regular elections, rotating offices, recall, sometimes soviets are added (which, paradoxically, are less democratic on a higher level than parliament is). But all of these don't cut to the case, they all start from the premise of having elections. Elections however are not democratic, they are an oligarchic mechanism of selecting people. One of the fundamental reasons of this can be plainly seen in the resources necessary to wage an electoral campaign: Not only do you need tons of money, you also need a willing ear from the established media, good relations with certain influential people, etc. The oligarchic element is built in.

So, what is a democracy then? Well, I have talked about this (http://www.revleft.com/vb/government-vs-no-t184074/index.html) quite a few times recently, so for now I'll just refer to Moshé Machover's excellent essay on the subject (http://www.zcommunications.org/collective-decision-making-and-supervision-in-a-communist-society-by-moshe-machover) (ePub can be downloaded here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/epub-collective-decision-t180663/index.html?t=180663)). Also this video (http://www.revleft.com/vb/lecture-democracy-video-t172673/index.html?t=172673) is very helpful in understanding what it is about.

So, in understanding this, the parliamentary question becomes simply a tactical question. After all, we know that communists or the working class at large will never win political power through this oligarchical institute. Yet, at the same time, parliament is the political institute in capitalism, one where communists can work in to spread their political propaganda. The same goes for elections, even more so, as it is more "concentrated": The whole of society is momentarily gripped by politics and then it makes sense for communists to present their programme in it, wage a campaign. So, parliamentary work can be useful to see momentary "snapshots" of communist political support in the population and to wage a permanent campaign against the capitalist's representatives.

[argeiphontes]

The United States was never intended to be a democracy, but a representative republic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic#Liberal_republics). The "founding fathers" wrote openly about the need to protect the propertied interests from the rabble. Noam Chomsky talks about this all the time.

[Sharia Lawn]

Yes. It isn't democracy at all. Democracy from old-greek language means "rule of people". People is meant here as majority. Opposite to that is an oligarchy that is rule of minority. And in fact, so-called "democracies" are just eligible oligarchies and only to some extent. You can vote on some man, but you can't vote who will become a minister of justice, for example. Certainly, the most important part of the system are lobbies sponsored mainly by bourgeoisie.

In the past, it was justified by lack of technical abilities to make direct democracies. It wasn't possible to gather 10 milion nation in one place to vote on all issues. But now in the age of mobile phones, internet, etc, there is a perfect psoobility to vote one everything within seconds. But nobody form ruling classes mentions that. Because it would mean end of their rule. The real democracy is end of bourgeois rule.Of course, communists support the organizational mechanisms conventionally associated with democracy (adherents of Bordiga's take notwithstanding) but they certainly do not support the rule of "the people" insofar as "the people" is a cross-class category, a superficial category purposed solely with duping the masses into seeing the rule of "the people" as being representative of and geared toward the interests of anyone other than the ruling class, the class that owns the means of production and who the state is sociologically bound and begotten to - in this epoch the bourgeoisie.

No, communists aim for the rule of one class, our class, the proletariat - regardless of what percentage of "the people" that consists of in a given time or region.

[argeiphontes]

"the people" is a cross-class category

Only in capitalism. In communism, there are no classes.

[Sharia Lawn]

Only in capitalism. In communism, there are no classes.In communism, there is no state or politics.

[Q]

The United States was never intended to be a democracy, but a representative republic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic#Liberal_republics). The "founding fathers" wrote openly about the need to protect the propertied interests from the rabble. Noam Chomsky talks about this all the time.This is actually correct. The whole 'democracy' lingo in US discourse only became popular after WW2.


Of course, communists support the organizational mechanisms conventionally associated with democracy (adherents of Bordiga's take notwithstanding) but they certainly do not support the rule of "the people" insofar as "the people" is a cross-class category, a superficial category purposed solely with duping the masses into seeing the rule of "the people" as being representative of and geared toward the interests of anyone other than the ruling class, the class that owns the means of production and who the state is sociologically bound and begotten to - in this epoch the bourgeoisie.

No, communists aim for the rule of one class, our class, the proletariat - regardless of what percentage of "the people" that consists of in a given time or region.
A common misconception, raising quite a few issues. How, for example, would our class rule if not democratically? "Ah!", Trotskyists then often answer, "through the revolutionary party of course! ". This in turn justifies basically repeating all the problems of 1917 all over again and we learn nothing.

No, communists are (or rather, should be) consistent fighters for more democracy. Since our class makes up the vast majority of the population in all of the advanced capitalist countries, we would rule through the general popularion. This leaves open the question of the third world (where our class isn't the majority), but that's somewhat of its own topic.

Through the revolutionary self-emancipation of the working class, we liberate the entirety of humanity. Democracy is crucial to achieve this.

[Tim Cornelis]

Yes. It isn't democracy at all. Democracy from old-greek language means "rule of people". People is meant here as majority. Opposite to that is an oligarchy that is rule of minority. And in fact, so-called "democracies" are just eligible oligarchies and only to some extent. You can vote on some man, but you can't vote who will become a minister of justice, for example. Certainly, the most important part of the system are lobbies sponsored mainly by bourgeoisie.

In the past, it was justified by lack of technical abilities to make direct democracies. It wasn't possible to gather 10 milion nation in one place to vote on all issues. But now in the age of mobile phones, internet, etc, there is a perfect psoobility to vote one everything within seconds. But nobody form ruling classes mentions that. Because it would mean end of their rule. The real democracy is end of bourgeois rule.

I've seen you make similar claims about the meaning of democracy and socialism in other threads. It's an etymological fallacy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymological_fallacy


The United States was never intended to be a democracy, but a representative republic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic#Liberal_republics). The "founding fathers" wrote openly about the need to protect the propertied interests from the rabble. Noam Chomsky talks about this all the time.

A "representative republic" is a [liberal] democracy. At least, I was taught that "democracy" is not the same as "majoritarianism" and that a democratic political system is deemed to protect the rights of minorities (to an extent), as opposed to always follow the majority.
I cringe whenever a right-winger says "The US is not a democracy, it's a republic" because in essence they mean the same thing. More properly, it would be "The US is not a majoritarian system, it's a democracy".
So Chomsky is wrong, the US was meant to be a liberal democracy (although perhaps not explicitly) and it is a liberal democracy.
Incidentally, the Greek word for republic is 'demokratia' (which means democracy as well).

[Blake's Baby]

No Greek 'democracy' had a parliamentary system, so 'democracy' as the Greeks understood it won't get us very far to understanding modern representative democracy.

So, to return to the OP, what is 'undemocratic' about the British (or other multi-party) system as opposed to the US system?

For much of Britian there is in effect a 2-party system anyway. Which are the two parties may be different 100 miles away but where you are (the tyranny of small decisions here) you chose between the incumbent and the party that is most likely to be able to beat them. Or you 'waste your vote'. In other places it's true there may be a real possiblity of one of three or more parties being elected; but there aren't very many places like that and anyway on a national level, it' been either Labour or Conservative for a century. The Liberals (the 'centre' party) have been junior partners in a few administrations in that time but haven't been the main party of government since WWI. In some places there is effectively a one-party system. The city I live in has 3 MPs (sent to central government in London) and 54 councillors (who make up the city council). Of those 57 representatives, 55 (all 3 MPs, 52 of the 54 councillors) are from the Labour party. So, the multi-party system (here) doesn't actually produce results very different to the two-party system (if one forgets Ralph Nader, the Greens, Ross Perot, etc) in the USA.

But, what's undemocratic about that anyway? Of course, we don't have a 'democracy' in the literal sense anyway, we have plutocracy. The biggest party machine, with the most money, support from big business and most influential press backers, is the one that win the election. In Britain, the Conservatives try to form a coalition of big business and small business; Labour tries to form a coalition of the trade unions and big business; the Liberals try to pick up votes from the 'professional middle class', and various single interest groups. In Scotland and Wales there are 'nationalist' parties that have their focus firmly on local development with less control from London; locally in various parts of Britain the Greens also have bases, as do a variety of 'socialists' and 'fascist' parties, and UKIP which is an anti-immigrant, anti-European party that isn't technically fascist. there are also various 'independents' that have secured (usually local) election on specific local issues like hospital closures and opposing road-building schemes and suchlike. For elections to the European Union, all of these parties compete so there are actually three different election 'maps' of the UK - the local council (municipality/county elections); Westminister (central government) elections; European Union elections. And in Scotland and Wales there's another tier between 'local' and 'central' too.

What out of all of this can be classed as 'democracy'? The system of central government we have was described as 'elective dictatorship' and I think that's pretty accurate - the system of voting choses a party that will govern for 4-5 years and if it's not a minority government it usually can do pretty much what it wants (which is usually what its powerful backers want it to do as all the parties represent management teams for British capitalism).

As has already been suggested, the unelected second chamber (unlike the 'democratic' US Senate) is a pre-democratic form, as is the unelected head of state (as the UK is a contitutional monarchy). So no democracy there either.

Anyway, enough constitutional history. I hope this is going someway to dispelling your illusions in a multi-party bourgeois 'democracy'.

[argeiphontes]

So Chomsky is wrong, the US was meant to be a liberal democracy (although perhaps not explicitly) and it is a liberal democracy.


Sorry I was unclear. Chomsky only quotes the undemocratic writings of Madison et al.



Incidentally, the Greek word for republic is 'demokratia' (which means democracy as well).

Not that it matters, but demos means people. Republic is the res publica, the public thing.

[Red_Banner]

Well, with the US, there is no democracy in the overwhelming majority of workplaces.

No syndicalism, no workers self management.

[Blake's Baby]

...
Not that it matters, but demos means people. Republic is the res publica, the public thing.

And what does 'public' mean? Does it not mean 'of the people'?

[argeiphontes]

Good point.

It would be good to eliminate distortions of democracy. I would like to live in a real democracy.

[reb]

The problem isn't so much as to how democratic the state is or not, or how free the market is or not. Capitalism can exist under any sort of state from liberal turn of the century Britain to state-capitalist Russia. Putting a bunch of other people in charge, even if they're the people you are backing, won't change the underlying economic and social relations. To quote Engels, the modern state, no matter what form it takes, is a capitalist machine. Capital would still hold all of the economic levers even if we had the people we wanted in charge of the state, and the state would have to obey the law of value.

[Alexios]

Bordiga was wrong to throw out the democratic baby with the bathwater.

He didn't. Bordiga critiqued democracy as a principle of revolutionaries; the sort that you're promoting in this post here. His point was that democracy is neither inherently good nor bad, thus it shouldn't be worshiped for the sole sake of being 'rule by the people' or whatever idealistic moralism one wants to create.


If we define democracy as "rule by the people, of the people, for the people", then it is quite obvious that we're not living in a democracy. Instead we live in an oligarchy ("rule by a small elite"). It is also quite clear that we need democracy in all advanced capitalist societies, to bring our class - the vast majority - to power. So we have to ask ourselves: What's wrong here?

Right, we live in a republic. There is a difference.



So, in understanding this, the parliamentary question becomes simply a tactical question. After all, we know that communists or the working class at large will never win political power through this oligarchical institute. Yet, at the same time, parliament is the political institute in capitalism, one where communists can work in to spread their political propaganda. The same goes for elections, even more so, as it is more "concentrated": The whole of society is momentarily gripped by politics and then it makes sense for communists to present their programme in it, wage a campaign. So, parliamentary work can be useful to see momentary "snapshots" of communist political support in the population and to wage a permanent campaign against the capitalist's representatives.

The vast majority of the working class has barely been involved in politics over the last several decades. Electing a 'communist' party into parliament/congress is difficult enough. Spreading propaganda from within the bourgeois state is even less likely.

[argeiphontes]

To quote Engels, the modern state, no matter what form it takes, is a capitalist machine. Capital would still hold all of the economic levers even if we had the people we wanted in charge of the state, and the state would have to obey the law of value.

Engel's statement is a statement about what exists currently, not what can exist in the future. It would be extraordinarily difficult to elect people I want, but once the people are in charge, I don't see what would prevent them from changing the economic relations by decree. If enough people aren't convinced, it would just be a dictatorship, that's all. That seems like the only difference to me.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

It's undemocratic because, for example, the Bourgeois State which administers elections purges those minority voters who might vote against Capital's interests. In the 2012 US election, alone the State of Colorado saw half a million Voters' votes not being counted.

"Democracy" has nothing to do with elections. Democracy is when the government is run by the poor.

[Blake's Baby]

Engel's statement is a statement about what exists currently, not what can exist in the future. It would be extraordinarily difficult to elect people I want, but once the people are in charge, I don't see what would prevent them from changing the economic relations by decree. If enough people aren't convinced, it would just be a dictatorship, that's all. That seems like the only difference to me.

Ah, right, it's just 'bad leadership'.

For an 'Anarchist' into the SPUSA, you make a good Trotskyist.

[Queen Mab]

Well, with the US, there is no democracy in the overwhelming majority of workplaces.

No syndicalism, no workers self management.

I think this is also a good point to make. People spend more time in the workplace under the authority of a boss than any time they spend interacting with the machinery of the state. Treating democracy as a political doctrine divorced from the economic sphere is a liberal fallacy.

[argeiphontes]

Ah, right, it's just 'bad leadership'.

No. But I believe in using legal and illegal means, and more than one strategy.



For an 'Anarchist' into the SPUSA, you make a good Trotskyist.

Since I just said "legal and illegal means" does it make me a Leninist too? I pick and choose what sounds reasonable, not blindly following any person or believing any ism. I try my best not to base my arguments on appeal to authority.

I joined the SPUSA because I read their positions and found that I agreed with most of them. Also, because I think they have the greatest chance of any kind of success.

Thanks for the personal attack though, there's not enough of that on this board. Do note though that personal attacks are the last refuge of people who don't have anything else to say.

[Blake's Baby]

You think that joining the SPUSA and claiming that the only problem with bourgeois democracy is it's 'extraordinarily difficult' to get elected, is compatible with being an Anarchist?

The point about Trotskyism is that it's always 'bad leadership' (of the unions, the Labour party or whoever) with no analysis of the structural role these organisations play.

The state isn't bad because the wrong people are in charge of it.

[argeiphontes]

The state isn't bad because the wrong people are in charge of it.

My goal would be a society with only the amount of government that's justified by necessity. How that happens is a matter for debate. I can separate ends from means.

edit: I can also separate individual from class, and influence from determinant. It's important not to think in black and white terms.

[Sharia Lawn]

A common misconception, raising quite a few issues. How, for example, would our class rule if not democratically? "Ah!", Trotskyists then often answer, "through the revolutionary party of course! ". This in turn justifies basically repeating all the problems of 1917 all over again and we learn nothing.The issue that is raised here is the conflation of democracy in the formal sense and mechanisms, conventions, or organizational features that function democratically. I think there is a distinction to be made between formality and essence here in which even if an organization or state constitutionally endows itself with "democracy" it doesn't mean that it will actually function that way or that it will be what is organizationally best for the workers' state or party.

Of course, you somehow interpreted "communists do not support the rule of the people" as "communists are against democratic organization" and twisted, distorted, and caricaturized my argument in kind.

The essence of what I am saying is that communists aim for a dictatorship of the proletariat, a regime that actively excludes other classes from power. Through doing so, we rip to shreds the illusion of "the people," that wretched liberal expression that blurs class lines and binds the working class to the capitalist state under the pretext that they are all equal before the law. The proletarian revolution and establishment of the workers' state cleaves the people in two along distinct lines, between the proletariat and their class enemies.


No, communists are (or rather, should be) consistent fighters for more democracy. Since our class makes up the vast majority of the population in all of the advanced capitalist countries, we would rule through the general popularion. This leaves open the question of the third world (where our class isn't the majority), but that's somewhat of its own topic.

Through the revolutionary self-emancipation of the working class, we liberate the entirety of humanity. Democracy is crucial to achieve this.Of course, the workers' state and workers' party both need a democratic performance because that is what is best for their efficient operation. I'm not objecting to the need for democracy, but instead the formalization of democracy into some sort of divine saving grace that is inseparable from the existence of proletarian rule. The only reason I say we need democratic institutions is because I believe that is what's best for the workers' state - not out of some abstract egalitarian communalist principle.

The problem is that even in countries that the proletariat is the majority of the population, there is no way to ensure that the entire proletarian class will be supportive of socialist revolution let alone have adequate capabilities to actually administer the revolutionary state. And this is the core of my point, about communists not supporting the rule of "the people." Communists seek to exclude not only non-proletarian classes but elements of the proletariat that actively seek to undermine the workers' state or support political ends antithetical to maintaining the health and robustness of the proletarian state.

I think that is an issue that no one wants to talk about because they are scared of the hypothetical reality of such a scenario and are thus unprepared to answer questions relating to it.

[argeiphontes]

The essence of what I am saying is that communists aim for a dictatorship of the proletariat

Some communists do this. Others aren't so keen on dictatorship. It implies minority rule.



a regime that actively excludes other classes from power.


How do you do this? Since the proletariat is the majority of the people, then what's the difference between DoP and just democracy? In which case, maybe it would be nice to stop using the term 'dictatorship'.

[argeiphontes]

The problem is that even in countries that the proletariat is the majority of the population, there is no way to ensure that the entire proletarian class will be supportive of socialist revolution let alone have adequate capabilities to actually administer the revolutionary state.

Then you've already lost, haven't you? "The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself." That's a democratic principle if I've ever heard one.

[Firebrand]

Democracy is an excellent and highly moral system of government, and it's a terrible shame that we don't live in one. What we have instead is a "choose the colour of your oppressor's tie", multiple choice dictatorship.

[Remus Bleys]

Some communists do this. Others aren't so keen on dictatorship. It implies minority rule.



How do you do this? Since the proletariat is the majority of the people, then what's the difference between DoP and just democracy? In which case, maybe it would be nice to stop using the term 'dictatorship'.
:laugh::laugh:

Your post is so contradicting. First you say "Im against dictatorship because minority rule" Then you go on about how the proletariat is the majority.

The DotP excludes the other classes for the purpose of eliminating other classes, and only then, the proletariat eliminates itself as a proletariat.

The only communists opposed to the DotP are anarchists.

[argeiphontes]

I apologize for being unclear. If the proletariat is the majority, why do you use the term 'dictatorship' then? What's the difference between that and just majoritorian democracy? That's all I'm asking. The word and/or concept of dictatorship implies minority rule, but why do you need it when you're the majority?

I was also under the impression that council communists and left communists don't have a DoP in their plans.

[Blake's Baby]

I apologize for being unclear. If the proletariat is the majority, why do you use the term 'dictatorship' then? What's the difference between that and just majoritorian democracy? That's all I'm asking. The word and/or concept of dictatorship implies minority rule, but why do you need it when you're the majority?...

You infer the idea of minority rule. Dictatorship doesn't imply 'minority rule' at all. It implies absolute power.


...I was also under the impression that council communists and left communists don't have a DoP in their plans.

The Council Communists can speak for themselves (as I draw a distinction between 'Left Communists' and 'Council Communists' which not all the people that chose those two labels do); but, no, Left Communists are (with the proviso that I mentioned) enthusiastic supporters of the notion of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. What we're generally not keen on is the dictatorship of the party over the proletariat. In Marx's famous phrase, 'the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves'.

'All power to the soviets' and 'for the international power of the workers' councils' (actually a slogan of the Situationists, who were heavily influenced by Council Communism) are both in line with the political positions of the majority of the Communist Left. This is the political machinery of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Perhaps it's the Impossiblists of the SPGB you're thinking of. They are very wary of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat'.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

As well as the excellent theoretical points raised by Blake's Baby, and the relevant Bordiga quote posted by Ed Miliband, there is one simple, undeniable truth that negates the possibility that we in Britain live in a democracy:

I despise, and have done for some years, a huge, huge number of things about Britain and the way its society is run, yet I have not had, do not have, and will not have, any potential power or opportunity with which to change any of these things I do not like. Whichever definition of democracy you choose to use - rule of the people, rule of the majority etc. -, the society we live in is run on almost diametrically opposite lines.

That's why we're revolutionaries - i'm sure many here are familiar with the quote "protest is when I say I do not like something, resistance is when I ensure what does not please me does not occur anymore". We are not here to protest some minor flaws in bourgeois democracy such as campaign financing, we are here to resist the capitalist class, backed by the state (which itself is managed by the political class), in its continued assault upon our living conditions, freedoms and dignity.