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Freedom can be an empirical description of conditions in a society, without an ideological character. For instance, Marx characterizes freedom as such in his Critique of the Gotha Program: "Freedom consists in converting the state from an organ superimposed upon society into one completely subordinate to it".
By this rule, so is supporting socialism in any way. You can say that socialism is technically the best for the proletariat, but it's still your opinion that the best for the proletariat is what should be done. One may as well say that human freedom is the best for the full enjoyment granted by freedom, and this could still be based in reality and facts, in a rational principle. Additionally, ethics are rational principles... and rational principles can also be part of ideology.
Democracy is a cornerstone to any socialist project, but that shouldn't be confused with the idea that the majority is always right. It's an imperfect political value, but a necessary political value. And, as a political value, we should look forward to it disappearing in a later communist society.
I still thinking that democracy and direct democracy is a strengh for the worker. They can change the society by their vote and counter the bourgeoisie power.
Personally, i think it's probably the best that's out there. At least with the democratic system you get a choice what party governs the country.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy
The term originates from the Greek δημοκρατία (dēmokratía) "rule of the people", which was found from δῆμος (dêmos) "people" and κράτος (krátos) "power" or "rule" in the 5th century BC to denote the political systems then existing in Greek city-states, notably Athens; the term is an antonym to ἀριστοκρατία (aristokratía) "rule of an elite".
Democracy doesn't necessarily mean the same thing to everyone. Ask a Mormon, a Quaker, and a Jehovah's Witnesses what Christianity means, and they'll also tell you different things. Ask RevLeft what communism means, well, you get the picture.
To someone who lives in a nation that claims to be a democracy, if they have "mainstream" political views, then their vision of democracy will probably be pretty much exactly how their own political system works. If they have a president, then they'll imagine democracy to have a president. If they have a parliament, then tney'll imagine democracy to have a parliament.
If it's just a choice between either rule by the people or rule by an elite, the choice for anarchists is clear. But are those the only choices? If you're not ruled by the people or ruled by an elite, then who rules?
Consider the situation in which the world breaks up into billions of nations - each person becomes his own nation. Are these nations democracies? Yes. Are these nations dictatorships? Yes.
See also: http://reddit.com/r/socialism http://www.reddit.com/r/anarchistnews http://reddit.com/r/anarchism
The only slaves who are happy, are the crazy ones.
Democracy is necessary for socialism.
If the power will be held in a minority, the minority therefore will be a class of it's own, controlling the means of production. Therefore they will compose an elit and their new class' interests will be intergrated in the choices they will take for the commune.
I don't know, it's just my opinion/theory.
If you take a majority rules definition of democracy, and assume that 50%+1 versus 50%-1 become the impasse that the democracy ideal serves to solve, it creates a divide and two classes. One class, the 50%+1 class dominates and controls the means of production. This is synonymous to current society just with a larger ruling class. Still approximately half of the population is subjugated under the other half's rule and we are back to a class-conflict pre-revolution society. In short democracy is a progressive ideal in this world, a world without progress, but as soon as revolution grabs hold permanently, democracy will become as much of an evil as most people consider monarchies today.
Democracy is a great thing. In the US, the way we set it up, is 'Majority rule, Minority rights'. Of course RNC and Dems are unbelievably corrupt, but it still applies.
Without Democracy, there is no such thing as communism.
No this is nonsense. That 50%+1 does not represent a CLASS, because is nothing that defines or unites them apart from this one vote. It is entirely possible that people who were members of the winning side in Monday will be members of a losing side for the next issue discussed on Tuesday.
IMO, one of the major problems with democracy is inclusion. This problem will arise even though "direct democracy" is the method of decision-making, since the knowledge and interest that a person have in a certain issue will be different from person to person. People will still resort to following the "experts" lead while deciding on which alternative to vote for, even though they don't understand how they will benefit/not benefit from this alternative.
Another problem with democracy is the tendency to vote about every little single decision that has to be made. Some decisions are best placed in the hands of the experts (as in experts in that specific field of knowledge).
