Democracy, a terrible lie

[Clarksist]

EDIT: i accidently put this in the wrong forum... i just now realized this so if an admin would be so kind to move this to theory, or delete it so i can repost it in thoery

Okay, I know what a lot of people think when they hear me say, "Democracy is antithetical to freedom."

First they think I'm crazy, then they think I must be a Nazi. But actually, I am completely against democracy for the same reason most people are against dictatorships, and I thought I'd talk this over with some well educated people on the subject.

I hear constantly that the key to true socialism, communism, and anarcho-communism is democracy. And for a while I accepted this ideal. I mean seems fair enough. But under the surface democracy is as many Marxist writers say, "dictatorship of the majority". This is far too true.

It dawned on me that democracy is a terrible idea when I heard that what Marx meant by "dictatorship of the proletariat" didn't actually have to mean an unchallenged ruler, but any authoritive figure that gave rule to the proletariat.

All of this led me to realize the even when you take out the capitalist perversion on democracy, you still have the same fundamental problems. If a country is divided up 30%; 10%; 10%; 20%; 20%, than the country is controlled by less than a third of the citizens, and seventy percent are left of the proceedings.

I consider myself an anarcho-communist, and a big block of anarcho communism talks about the consensus of the people. I am assuming this means a democracy style form. (if it does not someone please correct me)

Democracy is Greek for "government of the people" but it is only government of some of the people. I am very interested in what everyone thinks about democracy, and just as important what can replace democracy as a more fair system.

[comrade_mufasa]

I completely forgot who said this but, "Democracy is not the greatest form of goverment possible, its just the best we have"

[NovelGentry]

t_wolve_fan likes to call it Tyranny of the Majority.

Personally, as has been brought up recently in the division of labor thread... I think the formality of it all will disappear. Society can exist without a need to vote and determine every single thing, by a portion or by a majority. I believe it will exist this way. Democracy is the path towards such a society, but I'm not so sure it is the end itself. This isn't to say that other systems will be the end, it is merely to say that voting on all things is not particularly necessary.

The need of society can be determine by simple discussion and fairness. What we should seek is to create a system where no one can impose their will onto another. However, it is difficult to deny that a significant majority will not be able to do this regardless of whether we make it formal or not. If 80% of the population is willing to kill the other 20% the most the 20% can do is try and fight them off. So no, if 80% decides that the 20% will be killed, should the 20% just say "ok, kill us?" Obviously not. I would expect them to fight and I think they are justified in doing so. There are certain things I will not agree with, however, I will respect a majority if they do agree with it.

Really, I think all this flies out the window when society develops far enough, materially and technologically speaking, to make such control obsolete on all fronts.

Control by anyone that is less than the whole will become obsolete with such progression. For example say it was possible for everyone to make whatnever they wanted/needed using a simple device that destroyed atoms, harvested the subatomic particles, and reconstructed them into whatever complex form the user wished the device to. That is, you could feed it grass and produce a vehicle.

It's all science-fiction sounding, but it's an obvious possibility. At such a point even control by a mjaority becomes obsolete. There's no longer any reason to withold anything, because technically anyone can make anything.

Any level of control at this point becomes restrictive of the possibilities of human society to grow and is an obvious infringement to the freedoms of those who are disallowed access to such things.

Just something to think about.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2005, 03:16 AM
All of this led me to realize the even when you take out the capitalist perversion on democracy, you still have the same fundamental problems. If a country is divided up 30%; 10%; 10%; 20%; 20%, than the country is controlled by less than a third of the citizens, and seventy percent are left of the proceedings.
Isn't this alleviated by simply requiring 50%+1 for a decision to be made? :P

Haha, seriously though, moving along to the actual question of direct democracy in an anarchist or communist society, I think you're missing some important points.

While consensus is ideal, it's not always posible - there will never be a world in which we all agree on everything. The beauty of an anarchist/communist society is the option to "opt out". If the result of the democratic process is so abhorent to you that you just can't bring yrself to carry out whatever decision was made, unlike under current systems, there's nothing to stop you from leaving and doing yr own thing! In capitalism, there are mechanism s in place that insure this can't happen (and if you find a loophole, they've always got the state to crack yr skull . . .) - but in a communist society, if a community or collective is making decisions that you just can't live with, then you are free to associate yrself differently (depending on specific situations, this may not even require physically relocating).

I mean, really, why would you sign up to work at the "Straight-Edge Shoe Factory Collective" if you like smoking dope at work?