I struggle to find the points in your posts. Yes capitalism has a great many problems. I agree about doing something about it, but are you also suggesting democracy is bad?
Bourgeios “democracy” isn’t actually a people’s democracy, even though its sold as one. Its really an oligarchy/aristocracy/capitalist dictatorship.
We shouldn’t allow capitalists to define democracy as bourgeios parliamentarism, especially when that form of government works against the interests of the vast majority of people.
Socialist / people’s democracy. It takes different forms in different countries, and many countries in the global south that are currently capitalist are starting on that socialist road.
You’ll need to educate yourself on the history of socialist states yourself, I can’t do that for you.
I asked because you said there were multiple variations.
I ask because the qualifications seem to be more idealistic and aspirational than mechanistic. None of the descriptions I’ve seen present significant obstacles to the corruption that plagues our current system. A “solemn declaration” doesn’t do much against emergent behavior. The founding fathers were against political parties too, that didn’t prevent them.
Every system is corruptible. The form of corruption changes to suit the underlying system, but given enough time every system can be compromised. Even pure direct democracy can be manipulated by popular demagogues.
I’m asking, specifically, what part of whichever variation of a “people’s democracy” you specifically have in mind makes that democracy invulnerable to corruption and manipulation? Not intentions, but actual structural features.
That’s not smug or rhetorical, I’m legitimately curious. If I’m mistaken, and there is some fundamental property that achieves what I’m asking, I’d like nothing more than to know what it is.
Liberal democracy isn’t democratic, and electoralism as a means of systemic change doesn’t work. Socialist democracy does work, and delivers far higher rates of approval and perceptions of democracy being effective.
I would argue the core issue is more fundamental. Liberalism holds the rights of private property as inviolable, thereby placing them beyond public debate. It’s a system that establishes an economic structure where the critical decisions over resources and labor are made by the few who own the means of production. Such an arrangement is irreconcilable with any meaningful definition of democracy.
I think I agree with you, but your messaging could use some work. I feel like most people who aren’t already in the same groups as you might struggle with the terms you use. It might be simpler to say “capitalism corrupts democracy” because my original read of the post made it seem like its anti democracy.
It’s not really that capitalism “corrupts” democracy, it’s that all states serve the ruling class, and the political formation reinforces that. Capitalist democracy is democracy for capitalists, dictatorship for workers. In a socialist state, the political power is held by the workers, it becomes democracy for the working class and dictatorship for capitalists, landlords, etc.
i suspect that “messaging” only works if you’re sufficiently conservative.
liberals and leftists alike agree (to different levels) that conservatives; especially maga; are less educated and entitled and that’s why easy messaging slogans like “stop the steal” and “there are only 2 genders” works so well for them since it doesn’t require them to get off their asses to do sufficientlyvigorous research to educate themselves on how that messaging oversimplifies the issue.
also, liberals complain that the democratic party needs to improve it’s messaging to broaden their appeal to american voters. the problem with this seems to be that that american voters share some degree of academic laziness when it comes to understanding the issues, but they’re still generally more educated than maga so slogans don’t work as well. you can see examples of this over and over again on social media when people complain that nobody “reads beyond the headlines.”
i’m learning that one of the key differences between leftists and liberals is the effort to self-educate with ANY kind of academic rigor (ie more than google searches) and doing so enables them to see past any sort of messaging and that most of the messaging that has been successfully adopted has been created by people with with a political agenda in mind.
i think that pushing the democrats to improve their messaging is a misdirection because any messaging for liberals is going to automatically contradict the education any better educated crowd (compared to maga) has received.
i also think that the biggest barrier for any liberal to understand why they’re stuck in neo-liberal fascist late-stage capitalist world is doing their own research with SOME kind of academic rigor since it take A LOT of effort to not only change the way most of us have been taught to live, but also been educated and inculcated since birth.
I struggle to find the points in your posts. Yes capitalism has a great many problems. I agree about doing something about it, but are you also suggesting democracy is bad?
Bourgeios “democracy” isn’t actually a people’s democracy, even though its sold as one. Its really an oligarchy/aristocracy/capitalist dictatorship.
We shouldn’t allow capitalists to define democracy as bourgeios parliamentarism, especially when that form of government works against the interests of the vast majority of people.
What alternative do you propose to “bourgeois parliamentarianism”?
Socialist / people’s democracy. It takes different forms in different countries, and many countries in the global south that are currently capitalist are starting on that socialist road.
And what is the difference that makes it invulnerable to the weaknesses encountered in bourgeois parliamentarianism?
You’ll need to educate yourself on the history of socialist states yourself, I can’t do that for you.
A good place to start is the PRC’s five dont’s, a list of things to avoid at all costs from bourgeois democracy.
I asked because you said there were multiple variations.
I ask because the qualifications seem to be more idealistic and aspirational than mechanistic. None of the descriptions I’ve seen present significant obstacles to the corruption that plagues our current system. A “solemn declaration” doesn’t do much against emergent behavior. The founding fathers were against political parties too, that didn’t prevent them.
Every system is corruptible. The form of corruption changes to suit the underlying system, but given enough time every system can be compromised. Even pure direct democracy can be manipulated by popular demagogues.
I’m asking, specifically, what part of whichever variation of a “people’s democracy” you specifically have in mind makes that democracy invulnerable to corruption and manipulation? Not intentions, but actual structural features.
That’s not smug or rhetorical, I’m legitimately curious. If I’m mistaken, and there is some fundamental property that achieves what I’m asking, I’d like nothing more than to know what it is.
Liberal democracy isn’t democratic, and electoralism as a means of systemic change doesn’t work. Socialist democracy does work, and delivers far higher rates of approval and perceptions of democracy being effective.
I would argue the core issue is more fundamental. Liberalism holds the rights of private property as inviolable, thereby placing them beyond public debate. It’s a system that establishes an economic structure where the critical decisions over resources and labor are made by the few who own the means of production. Such an arrangement is irreconcilable with any meaningful definition of democracy.
Absolutely. It’s democracy for the few, dictatorship for the many.
I think I agree with you, but your messaging could use some work. I feel like most people who aren’t already in the same groups as you might struggle with the terms you use. It might be simpler to say “capitalism corrupts democracy” because my original read of the post made it seem like its anti democracy.
It’s not really that capitalism “corrupts” democracy, it’s that all states serve the ruling class, and the political formation reinforces that. Capitalist democracy is democracy for capitalists, dictatorship for workers. In a socialist state, the political power is held by the workers, it becomes democracy for the working class and dictatorship for capitalists, landlords, etc.
i suspect that “messaging” only works if you’re sufficiently conservative.
liberals and leftists alike agree (to different levels) that conservatives; especially maga; are less educated and entitled and that’s why easy messaging slogans like “stop the steal” and “there are only 2 genders” works so well for them since it doesn’t require them to get off their asses to do sufficientlyvigorous research to educate themselves on how that messaging oversimplifies the issue.
also, liberals complain that the democratic party needs to improve it’s messaging to broaden their appeal to american voters. the problem with this seems to be that that american voters share some degree of academic laziness when it comes to understanding the issues, but they’re still generally more educated than maga so slogans don’t work as well. you can see examples of this over and over again on social media when people complain that nobody “reads beyond the headlines.”
i’m learning that one of the key differences between leftists and liberals is the effort to self-educate with ANY kind of academic rigor (ie more than google searches) and doing so enables them to see past any sort of messaging and that most of the messaging that has been successfully adopted has been created by people with with a political agenda in mind.
i think that pushing the democrats to improve their messaging is a misdirection because any messaging for liberals is going to automatically contradict the education any better educated crowd (compared to maga) has received.
i also think that the biggest barrier for any liberal to understand why they’re stuck in neo-liberal fascist late-stage capitalist world is doing their own research with SOME kind of academic rigor since it take A LOT of effort to not only change the way most of us have been taught to live, but also been educated and inculcated since birth.