Why Bourgieous Democracy is bull

[OneBrickOneVoice]

This is an arguement we as communists are faced with almost daily, the question of liberal democracy vs. worker democracy. I would like to devote this thread to posts about the problems and bullshit of bourgieous liberal democracy.

My main thoughts are that a worker, especially a leftist, will not be able to raise campaign funds because he is a worker and would have a base of workers who do not have money to donate, get major party backing, and thus, will not be able to campaign, get press and get his message out. That is why we are faced with the choice of one corporate backed millionaire businessman or another in every election, and our governments are filled with wealth bourgieous 99.99% of the time.

[MrDoom]

That is precisely it. There is no representation of workers.

[RedLenin]

Two reasons why liberal bourgeois democracy is utter bullshit.

First, the constitutions of "democracies" are based around the idea of protecting private property. That is the entire basis of the United States constitution and, hence, it is inherently antithetical to the interests of the working class. Even if workers had political representation (which they do not), they would most likely not be able to change the entire basis of the constitution.

Second, as has been mentioned, political power is reserved for the bourgeoisie. Workers simply cannot afford to get into office. In elections, it basically comes down to this principle. Whoever spends the most money and markets themselves best, while destroying the opposition most mercilessly, gets elected. You will never see an SP-USA president.

So, liberal democracies are not democracies at all. They are bourgeois dictatorships.

[Ander]

The way I see it, liberal democracy is capitalism incarnate. So, why not just use your arguments against socialism/communism versus capitalism and apply them to this dispute?

I hope that made sense...

[RebelDog]

I think bourgeois democracy must constantly keep up the pretense that is somehow 'democratic' and legitimate. In the UK we live in a 'representative democracy'. This is a true statement spoken by politicians all the time but they have got it upside-down. We do live in a representative democracy but its not the workers or voters who are being represented, its the establishment. Who are politicians representing when they privatise public services against the wishes of a hostile public? Their real masters.

"Social reforms are never carried out by the weakness of the strong but always by the strength of the weak."
Karl Marx

I think this quote from Marx is a truism throughout modern human history and whether bourgeois democracy exists or not has no effect on the truth of the statement. I think people get conned in to thinking they have won things through the bourgeois democratic process when the fact is they might gained more by refusing the compromise of bourgeois democracy.

[BobKKKindle$]

It should be further noted that once representitives are elected, they are not subject to recall by the people who elected them to the legislative assembly, and the people have minimal influence in determining their decisions once they are in positions of power. Under Socialism, if we still utilised a system of representation, instead of direct democracy, the representitives would be vastly more accountable to their constituents and subject to recall at all times.

On a related note, the Capitalist class exercises a cultural and ideological hegemony through their control of the means of communication, which means that Socialist parties are unable to adequately express their views, meaning that the small proportion of proletarians that actually choose to vote will inevitably vote for parties that represent bourgeois interests - or - if they percieve race and nationality to be important antagonisms - Parties representing misguided and divisive ideologies.

But for me the real reason why Capitalist society is fundamentally unrepresentivie and non-democratic, is that, even if bourgeois democracy in theory allows for representation, the means of production and all economic resources are under the control of the Capitalists, preventing workers from having real control over the world in which they live.

[manic expression]

It is effectively an oligarchy. The rich gain control of the government, while everyone else has little to no representation. Their "freedom" and "representation" is only available to those who can afford it.

Just off the top of my head.

[crippled sloth]

Media in capitalist democracy controlled by market forces to favour capital class and capitalist ideology. For me this is the really big one, and the reason the electoral system doesn't instantly deliver a socialist society.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Manufacturing-Cons...a/dp/0099533111 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0099533111)

Also, direct democracy is the favoured form, with the roles of elected representatives kept to an absolute minimum. Maximum popular involvement in the decision making process is the key.

[The Grey Blur]

But what about, like in Sweden, if there is a cap on how much each party can spend on campaigns?

[Vargha Poralli]

i don't know about other countries but i guess why it sucks here in India. here all the rich assholes give tons on money to the bastards who run the parties and those bastards who run in elections use it to fool people. some substantial number of people here basically sell their votes to highest bidder. and the rich assholes(most of them don't even go to vote) get what they want from those bastards at the expense of poor Indian workers and peasants from whom they go(bough)t those votes. :angry:

edit:

P.S: Even though i have many criticisms of the Communists parties of India, they are(both CPI and CPI(M) and their respective Trade Unions) are the cleanest parties i.e they don't get large amounts as funds from big businesses.

[Patchd]

Originally posted by Permanent [email protected] 30, 2006 03:35 pm
But what about, like in Sweden, if there is a cap on how much each party can spend on campaigns?
I didn't understand the question but...
If what you meant was that each party had a limit on how much they could spend on campaigns, then our arguments could still be applied, as even though each party has an absolute maximum they could spend on campaigns, not each party gets the same amount to spend. I'm pretty sure that if this is what you meant, the socialist/communist parties would still not get the same amount to spend on campaigns.

I have an analogy for this when I try to explain this to my "less" intelligent friends, you guys who seem to be even more intelligent than me would probably find this pretty crap, but I'll write it out anyways:

There are 3 people, 1 of them is a worker (voter), 1 represents a capitalist, and the other person represents a communist/socialist. Both the capitalist and the communist wants to debate, but they have tapes covering their mouths so both cannot get their message across to the voter. You must have the strength (power) to be able to take off the tape, within a capitalist society, this power lies with the bourgeoisie, as they have the wealth to be able to fund parties etc. So this allows the capitalist to take off his/her tape. He/She can now get their message across to the voter, the communist however, still retains that tape, so the proletarian only hears one side of the story. Automatically, the capitalist has won the debate, and who will the proletarian vote for? The person who managed to say what they had to say, or the person who did not speak?

I then usually add something onto that afterwards to illustrate the different capitalist parties. I know its a bit shite, but I just thought it may be useful to someone. :blush:

[Joby]

All right. Let's not start a party sympathetic to the labor cause.

And let's no get anywere, either.

We need to build a party. One with a platform that shows how similiar the republicrats are, and one the people can rally around.

How else are you going o start stuff without a grassroots campaign?

[( R )evolution]

Just as you said, in order to run a compent campigan you need lots of money. Workers can not fund this. In order to gather this money they must accept "donations" from business and such. And even if a candiate is able to get elected will he be able to with-stan the coprruption and the lobbyist in the bourgeouis political frame-work?

[RebelDog]

Many socialists/communists have got involved in the bourgeois democratic process, got elected and came out the other end as neo-liberals and no threat to the status-quo. An objective analysis of this phenomenon might conclude that bourgeois democracy had 'done its job' on such people and mollified any 'democratic' threat to ruling class hegenomy. Look at the great number of British Labour Party MP's who now zealously embrace the free-market who would previously never been involved in the privatisation of public services, etc. Its a shame that the working class have to constantly taught that lesson but bourgeois democracy cannot last forever, like the economic system that makes it possible.

[candistyx]

What the controlling party can realisitically do, even allowing for socialist parties to get power - is maintain the status quo, regulate the status quo, babysit the economy. If you try and do anything radical, not specifically left radical either, then the entire system is set up - consiously and openly to react against that, to prevent "extremists" from doing things - even with the backing of a majority if they get it. Almost all constitutional representitive democracies have built into them, both through the state, the constitution and through intertwined commercial entities, features to prevent anyone doing anything that diverges too far from the status quo. Even if the first thing a new party does is changes the constitution all the other "checks and balances" will prevent too much radicalism.

Checks and balances protect us from repression, which is why its easy to convince people of their goodness - but they also prevent people from taking power by wholy parlimentary route, they are a double edged sword which has served the bourgeoise well.

[Intelligitimate]

I think everyone here knows what the Marxist theory of the State is. But just to clarify for some, I will quote Lenin's State and Revolution:



“The state is a product and a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. The state arises where, when and insofar as class antagonism objectively cannot be reconciled. And, conversely, the existence of the state proves that the class antagonisms are irreconcilable.”




“Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich – that is the democracy of capitalist society.


In his The Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems; Thomas Ferguson sets out to prove that "The American political system is not ... driven by votes. Public opinion has only a weak and inconstant influence on policy. The political system is largely investor-driven, and runs on enormous quantities of money"

While Ferguson isn't a Marxist, he has basically set out the case for the Marxist theory of the State (at least in how it applies to bourgeois democracy) better than anyone before him. I think any Marxist seriously interested in critiqueing bourgeois democracy in the US should pick up a copy of this book. It's a little out of date, as it was wrote during the Clinton administration, but Ferguson's analysis is spot on.

[piet11111]

i find it a bit odd that many here seem to say that the only reason democracy is a failure
is because workers dont have the money to get a campaign going.

democracy is like a rigged slotmachine even if we got to play it we would not win.
the capitalists made this system and they control it we would never be able to make it work for us.

the only thing we can do is smash this system in the revolution any other path is sure to lead to failure.