Have We Ever Had a Democracy?
In short, my answer is no.
I base this answer on two things:
1.) A definition of democracy as a system where we all have a say in our affairs and may change conditions which are unsuitable to the majority.
2.) The absence of this principle in our judicial, economic, and political systems where instead Big Money rules.
In the same-named article which I won't simply clone here, but which you can read here in full, I elaborate on this and discuss the brief germination of political democracy in our history which was quickly stifled by our democracy-free economic sphere. I conclude that we not only need to clean up our politics, but also our concept of business ownership and governance.
I quote: "How is democracy to succeed when it is only implemented among the least powerful in society while the most powerful keep all their power? And, yet, if we who hold little personal power unite, our sheer numbers can overpower the plutocrats. Next time, we should disarm them, though."
Note: I just thought that sharing this article on caucus99percent, where careful thinkers can be found, would be a good thing; but I was unsure whether to reprint it here in full. I am new here. By the way, can anyone explain to me the difference between creating a "New Essay" and a blog entry here? Thanks.
Comments are always very welcome.
Comments
Welcome Dirk Droll...
and thanks for contributing here, we hope to see more.
They are one in the same, the wording is a nuance of the software.
Ah, thanks.
Ah, thanks.
~ Dirk Droll: Exploiting others is not self reliance.
Certainly a corporate oligarchy now
People hate the government (in part because we continue to disable and defund it), but they have not learned to equate corporations (mainly fuel and finance) as their real enemy. Maybe we're moving that way....
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
the oligarchy's main corporate organs
I think I'd add the "defense" industry to fuel and finance (considering half of our taxes go into military spending), and maybe Big Pharma and the health insurance industry.
~ Dirk Droll: Exploiting others is not self reliance.
Hello, Dirk Droll!
I think they used to say, "It's not a democracy, it's a republic". But these days it is more like an oligarchy or plutocracy. It's been worse since Citizens United.
But democracy is the ideal, so hopefully this year's and next year's terrible democratic failures will cause some rethinking and redesigning to bring us closer to true democracy.
It's entirely up to you whether to post excerpts here with a link or to repost the whole article (when it's your article; others' articles should be excerpted under the usual fair use rules). Whichever you prefer.
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IMO, we've always been a plutocracy.
In the colonies, the East India Company was very influential. Most of the Founders were well to do--and they were working within the framework created by colonial Governors appointed by the Crown and the appointees of those Governors. According to wiki, in terms of wealth and class, there was little difference between them and the Loyalists, except that the Loyalists may have been slightly wealthier on average.
I don't think John Hancock was include in the above count, but he certainly was wealthy, as were other influential colonists who were not among the delegates to the Constitutional Convention per se.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United_States-
it has gotten worse
Still, in the olden days, America was mostly an agricultural nation, so many small farmers and homesteaders could own the means of their production. Nowadays it is much harder to escape the slavers.
~ Dirk Droll: Exploiting others is not self reliance.
republic sophistry
That "it's not a democracy, it's a republic" sophistry always annoyed me deeply. What were they smugly announcing? That they LIKED being denied a say in their affairs, or just that they enjoyed the less privileged were being thrown under the bus whereas they got it made?
Maybe some were saying this to confirm that our system was rigged from the get-go. Only, nobody who spoke like this to me ever seemed to fall into that category.
Anyway, I hope some of those smug grins are finally fading.
--
And thanks for confirming the site's etiquette won't object to me reposting articles of mine in full.
~ Dirk Droll: Exploiting others is not self reliance.
What We Must Remember
There are far more of us than there are of them.
They have to sleep sometime.
Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.
when the enforcers will go on strike...
And we (at least many among us) are their enforcers. The more we learn not to do their bidding, the more we take back our power.
~ Dirk Droll: Exploiting others is not self reliance.
It's a wonder that Hamburg and Bremen
old Hanseatic City states, have survived and are allowed to govern themselves within a federal construct.
Perhaps the past is the future.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
Welcome. Those two are the same thing:
Creating a "New Essay" and a "blog entry." It's an inconsistency that was baked in at birth. There are a few of them, but that's just part of the character of the site.
About your question. I live in the US but I've never experienced what I would call a democracy: Informed people casting votes that they thoroughly understand in uncorrupted publicly-funded elections. I am aware that such democracies do exist in other places.
Some say Democracies can scale up to a large size. In my view, they cannot scale without a social scaffolding — let's call it a "Department of Democracy" — that is tasked with testing justice standards and measuring the improvement in the lives of all participants, over time.
(There would be no point in forming a democracy or forming any sort of government at all, if the lives of the people were not continuously enhanced and improved over time.)
Most large democracies are nested — democracies inside of democracies inside of democracies — that are purported to efficiently deliver justice to large numbers of people, like a union of states or provences. I call them Potemkin democracies. At best, such democracies maintain some semblance of order, at worst, they are structurally predatory, like a democratic chicken factory or democratic plantation:
"The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them."
My view is:
1. A Democracy does not exist unless citizens are deeply informed about every issue they must vote on.
2. Citizens cannot become truly informed unless they live in liberty.
3. Liberty cannot be fulfilled if citizens do not have a sense of personal security.
4. There is no personal security when citizens live on the edge of peril and dislocation, lacking a social safety net.
5. A social safety net will only be guaranteed when the people are constitutionally guaranteed Universal Human Rights. Among these rights are freedom from hunger, affordable housing, and comprehensive health care.
I hope to live in a democracy soon.
The ancient Greek political theorists from the time of Plato's Republic were the first to develop the ideas that became modern democracy, while owning slaves. The founders of the United States were among the first to install a modern democracy, while owning slaves. Some of them would argue that a democracy was an unstable form of government and insisted it would inevitably be co-opted by an oligarchy.
They were the ones who got it right.
Hope you have a great experience here.
Your friend,
Pluto
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
the United States is too large for democracy
and with a limited number of representatives we're given candidates to vote for, rather than ones we choose, by people with money, who can afford to publicize their candidates.
Faux democracy, much like we were told the Soviets had when party members would be given ballots of pre-approved candidates. Did that actually happen or was that propaganda? In any case, we're not far from that here in this country.
It would work in small groups, small towns being the most obvious. In large cities it's much more difficult but at least it's a little more likely than on a statewide or national level.
that's exactly what we have in the U.S.
Candidates pre-approved by the establishment is exactly what we have in the U.S., with extremely few exceptions.
This guy elaborates on it:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJy8vTu66tE]
Bernie Sanders rocked the boat a little, intentionally or not. Let's hope that efforts like brandnewcongress and a general awakening will produce ever more monkey wrenches. Ultimately, it will proably take a groundswell at the local level, such as I tried to suggest here: APC
~ Dirk Droll: Exploiting others is not self reliance.
We are a Republic and never a Democracy
When asked what form of government the Congressional Congress had created Ben Franklin said, "Madam we have given you a Republic if you can keep it." It was intended as a Republic ruled by an elite of well educated landowners. Women, blacks, indigenous people need not apply. The whole idea of one person one vote is totally alien when you have counted a huge class of people as only 3/5ths of as person.
We've made progress but power to the elites is baked into the way congress operates and the way elections happen. It's why we have 50 state Presidential elections rather than a single federal election. And why a group of so called Super Delegates can effectively control who gets to run for President is a perfect example. its why the overhaul of the government is nearly impossible. The rulers get to make the rules and they are going to give up that power lightly.
A Republic is a form of
representative (instead of direct) Democracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_republic
The reason we have 50 state elections instead of one national one is because we have a Federation, a federal government with some level of supremacy over a collective of individual states. If we had only one state, we could still have a representative democracy. Many countries do.
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X