Why do so many leftists (especially /r/ anarchists) push the "le direct democracy" meme like it's actually not mob rule and won't result in a reactionary Boomerdom shithole where you have to stand for the national anthem every 25 minutes or get waterboarded?
Newsflash: in any society with macro level direct democracy 99% of us are eating a bullet
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Thank you.
Reactionary parties such as the M5S in Italy, the AfD in Germany, and state GOP's in the US (notably: California, New Jersey, Kentucky, Louisiana) all push for "true democracy."
I'm not pushing it, but that's dumb.
The situation, as moderated by political elites, has come closer to your scenario than the actual voters have - the American public is substantially less reactionary than the people who get elected because "representative democracy" is effectively a game at this point, and the objective is to gain party power and personal status with as little popular support as possible.
A lot of times, any opposition to this kind of party politics is wrongfully mocked as advocacy of massive, universal direct democracy. As is, direct democracy would likely prove better, though, yeah - at least for a while. Lack of it is how the DNC and GOP maintain power. I don't agree that the masses should be able to decide everything for everybody else, but as-is in the US the only 'safeguard' designed for this basically assumes regional interests on a state-sized level. Many of these states now have multiple populated regions and overall populations larger than the entirety of the US at the time that the American electoral process was created. Lack of direct democracy isn't really protecting ya.
Today the hegemonic ideology tells us there are two options: democracy… or else!
Today, when the USA attacks another country it does it in the name of Democracy. Today, in the EU, when an insignificant minority party takes over the government it does it in the name of "more Democracy." Today, in Africa, the masses thirst for "Democracy" while they already have it, albeit in a version that they can have.
All I know is this. Today, a conscious communist understands that the ideal term and the actual praxis of "Democracy" designate a double-blackmail, a pair that reinforce themselves in holy unity.
Are you suffering from a bad case of Erdogan, Putin, Orbán, Trump?! No problem, all you need is >MORE DEMOCRACY.< For the record, these politicians already and officially stand for "more democracy."
Every leftish theoretician stands for [insert adjective]-democracy! From Cockshott, through Bookchin, to Chomsky, Papa Wolff… The list goes on, really… Just look at their proposed form of "democracy," for crying out loud! A typical tactic they have developed is to compare our current [suboptimal – the story goes!] level [it has grades, they say!] of democracy, and compare it to… to what? Always to historically never-existent ideas!!
With Cockshott:
With Boogchang:
With Chomskeh:
With Wolff:
What happened to good ol' Lenin who intuited that the optimal form of governance for capital was democratic. Of course everyone who sucked on the tits of ideology will retort angrily: "omfg, u totalitarian basstard!"
Well, m'lady: fuck you, and fuck your ilk too. Communists are not, and were never democrats. This might shock you, but this is a historical fact. Marx's and Lenin's strategic advocacy for participation in elections, etc. were all historically conditioned.
Long story short: today our, that is, communist's (regardless of your stupid particular flags – anarcho-, Marxist-etc.-ist), number one actual enemy is called democracy.
Grow some balls, you stupid shits, and read Badiou and/or Zizek on the topic. Working towards "more democracy" will get us nowhere. Our actual goal should be thinking outside of the hegemonic box, and theorizing, then bringing about a society that is more just, egalitarian, etc. than visions of democracy could ever be.
libgen.io
Repeat after me:
The number one enemy of communists today is democracy.
The number one enemy of communists today is democracy.
The number one enemy of communists today is democracy.
The number one enemy of communists today is democracy.
…
Lol liek communism!!!1
The joke is this isn't an argument.
Didn't the thread that claimed he said that not actually have any evidence of him ever having said it?
I did find an article entitled Democracy is the Enemy, but the actual substance critiques the presumptions of functioning within bourgeois democracy and the potential for bourgeois democracy to bring about change. He doesn't actually seem to be criticizing democracy at all, but "democracy" as a procedural tool of the status quo.
Observe the weak-ass democrat.
The first thing he misses, naturally, is what I called the double of actual democratic praxis and democratic ideal. Democracies existed throughout the ages – always under class societies. Naturally, our weak ass democrat, the anti-communist he is, will compare these to communism, but of course since he's weaker than your typical weak ass, he'll do it ironically (hint: since he knows his argument is pure ideology, BUT IT'S OKAY, SINCE IT'S IRONIC, LEL!):
Observe how he confuses a coop-system for a post-capitalist society without any arguments:
Ask for book recommendations, maybe?
*bourgeois democracy; any good leninposter should know the number one task of communists today is to build organs of dual power.
Wow, rude.
Has communism existed? In the sense Marx described it? I wasn't being ironic in saying it hadn't, but in suggesting an agreement that this lack of precedence had any weight whatsoever.
Did I?
I suggested that you read the header of a Holla Forums thread about someone you didn't like without checking to see if the OP's claim was accurate.
Zizek has another article on Lavalas that basically suggests the same thing as the Democracy is the Enemy article. You rec'd a Badiou text in your first post - but does Zizek, who you also mentioned, make an argument in one of his books that's substantially different from those of his articles? If so, yes - I'd like to read that.
No. The days when Lenin's insight on "proletariat vs. bourgeois democracy" was instructive or ideologically potent is over, not because it holds no value, but because the ideological environment changed. In his time the tyranny of pre- and proto-capitalist societies ruled, while genuine capitalist societies were only slightly better for the masses, if at all.
Today everywhere from the global periphery to the central powers are democrats. Only fools cry the song of "no true democracy," only losers fight for a "better, truer, type of democracy."
No. Communists must adapt. Today's message must be: absolutely no democracy. Zero. Nada.
Again,
If we can't provide a post-democratic vision, the fascists will overtake us, for they already dare to be post-democratic, though their vision is a masked form of barbarism.
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Because Mob Rule is fun
that's not adapting. That's killing any chance of mass support for communism.
MS5 isn’t reactionary. There socdem.
Direct democracy prevents the formation of an eleate class. It didn’t result in any crasy shit in Athans.
Direct Democracy is in my material interest, a one party state isn’t.
That’s because they aren’t democratic. Also we don’t live in a democracy, we live in a republic.
Kinda misses the truth of OP's point about the right calling for le true democracy. I don't think this is necessarily insincere on their part, they know that bourgeois democracy splitters constituencies to the point that if they appeal to a hardcore reactionary minority constituency while eclectically mixing pseudo-populist/anti-capitalist rhetoric for everyone else they know they can govern.
Most of today's fascists have taken power democratically and this is quite unlike the era of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, and the Japanese fascists who all came to power through anti-democratic means.
In a now dead thread, someone rejected my notion that diret democracy should be a necessity for socialism, and I didn't have time to answer, so might as well do it now.
Considering the leftists pushing for direct democracy included Marx and Lenin (before the material conditions of Russia fucked everything up), I don't mind at all.
Representative democracy is a sham, and I hardly need to argue the point here on Holla Forums. Past that, what else do we have? Dictatorship, direct democracy and sortition. I'm not even going to fucking bother dicussing dictatorship, as it is ultimately anathema to socialism, and a pox upon the house of any cuck who advocates for it beyond a revolutionary or civil war situation. In order tor each the goal of every cook learning how to goovern the State, this can only happen via direct democracy or sortition; he should not relegate his part of running the State to anyone, as happens in a dictatorship or representative democracy. People in power entails people in direct control of the State, and if we are ever to have a hope of the State withering away, it will only be so because the people have learned how to govern their lives and societies by themselves, without the need of the State apparatus.
So this demand is not up to discussion: past revolutionary and civil war phases, it's direct democracy or bust, or even sortition where possible.
This thread is abit, isn't it?
If you've actually talked to people you'd realize that the majority is absolutely abhorred by democracies. What is the average voting participation percentage globally? Say, 50-60%? From those who actually show up to vote how many do actually think that they are conscious citizens, changing or at least defending their status quo? 10 to 20%?
What percentage actually believes in democracy? And by "belief" I don't mean "gives lip service to" but actual deeds: who regularly discuss and watch parliamentary coverage, who read 2+ newspapers a week, who reads beyond the titles of internet articles, who… should I go on?
How many of you, defenders, re-definers, re-contextualizers, re-actualizers of democracies actually believe in democracies? None. And you all know it.
So talk to regular people, and they will tell you, and you will understand what they say if you have the ears. And when you witness them vote for and join fascist parties, or more mundane, naturally, just switching from one to another, without aim or reason – a truly democratic outlook –, you'll better see on the one hand the implicit anti-democratic subtext in the fascist politics, and realize that is their number one strength, and on the other, see the lost souls never-ending quest for democracy, in which there's no actual aim or goal.
You either let our potential allies join up with implicit anti-democrats (whose form of anti-democracy is barbarism), or you let them wonder aimlessly, worse, you join them, playing the reformist game, losing them and yourself too in the process, or, finally, you proclaim yourself a 21st. century communist, and attack democracy on all fronts in order to save what is worth of its legacy, and surpass it.
thats not just in contrast to the thinkers you listed, but literally to every 19th century leftist thinker and Marx himself!
21st century called, and it wants its prosthesis back, grandpa
Of course. I want political discisons to be made by the people, which includes me. Not some Intellectual Elite.
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I do. I believe in e-democracy in a stabilized mature socialist/communist economy, although some form of vanguardism is arguably justified in the short term (DOTP). You cheap shot against Cockshott idealizing athenian democracy as slaveholding is ridiculous, obviously direct democracy can co-exist with class society and democracy alone doesn't eliminate class distinction - only revolution and the working classes seizing/collectivizing the MOP and implementing socialism can do that. However democracy is needed under socialism because the alternative, to have a smaller group control things risks having an elite re-introduce a class society. Both MLs and anarchists agree on this point, they just disagree on whether it was inherent in the vanguardist vision itself or whether due to revisionism. Frankly:
sounds like borderline fash entryism. What exactly is your alternative?
Neo-Smithian pseudo-Marxists get the bullet too.
Wait a second….
I guess you mean us as in Holla Forums?
Well honestly I don't believe this, but I'm also not one of the "democracy god" types. I can take or leave democracy honestly, I don't have much effect on any policy, so if a communist party took power and stopped listening to boomers wanting it to go back, I wouldn't care.
Democracy in the workplace though, that's important if it is within a larger framework of "checks and balances".
wow there are a lot of autistic here
But, the issue is that democracy really is the best system we have, outside of getting very, very lucky with revolutionaries (who only succeed with what can only be called democratic/popular support off the people). It's a conundrum. There is some degree of great man-ism here for sure.
TLDR: direct democracy is for a mature socialist society when the new generation has been raised in socialist conditions. I.E. the soviet 'new man' and therefore not reactionary, as all the former porkies have long since been suppressed. Direct democracy isnt a substitute or a contradiction to DOTP. Direct democracy for the working class, no democracy for porky.
Nice level of discourse there. Try literally addressing any point i made.
What’s you’re alternative? Dictatorship of the Bureaucrats.
The "democratic communist's series of paradoxes":
but it's worse!
but it's even worse!
but it's much, much worse!!
AN ABSTRACT PROOF OF THE FAGGOT'S FOLLY:
This is the worst posting I have ever seen. Bad formatting, contrarian, uninteresting…
I'm amazed.
checkem
I genuinely want you guys to start listing out actually perfect forms of governance.
is this satire
I genuinely want you to list even remotely acceptable forms of democracies that actually exist(ed)!
You're describing the effect of alienation of the average voter here, both as a result of spending all their goddamn time working, which leaves little time to actually educate themselves or participate in civil activity of any kind, and on the other hand a system set up to deliberately individualise all activity and discussion: splitting people apart into individual voters, who get all their information in commodified form their favoured media outlets, only discussing their views within a limited circle that is usually an echo chamber. There's reason communists have tended to advocate delegative models in which the lowest level are face to face bodies, and usually functional institutions at that - the workplace a neighborhood committee for example. This combined with publicly owned media tend would tend to eliminate the idiocy bought on by capitalist alienation.
You're also dead wrong about Marx and Lenin being against democratic organisation: Marx advocated a model based on his observations of the Paris commune, he literally said that they had "discovered the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat", and as for Lenin, he advocated an expanded version of marx's model in State and Revolution. As others have pointed out, it's necessary to distinguish between the degeneration that occurred in Russia due to unfavourable material conditions, and what Lenin actually advocated.
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democracy is absolute shit even when pure
would you rather have 1 king who lords over you and can spend your life or violate your "rights"…
or allow literally everyone to do it?
No. I'm describing the life cycles of democracies here. Each and every one that so far have existed. They are born, they age, they fall. Pre-capitalist democracies portrayed the same cycle. Your hasty and unmarxist (not restricted to the economy) evocation of a vague (and trendy) "alienation" is completely meaningless. One could just as easily bastardize the term "alienation" to these contexts: I'm alienated from my girlfriend; the electricity bill is alienated from me; the heat of this bathwater is alienated from me. Each and every case of "alienation" of this list had the same relation to Marx as yours did: none.
That's the economy, stupid.
That's the economy, stupid.
>Notice how the democratic "communist" changes from the form of political power to the economic base at will just to shill for his emptied out concept of democracy
And the idiocy of the hamburger alienated from my stomach.
No. Again. Historically contingent, strategic positions.
No, Marx was better than that. He advocated for the cutting edge of what he could get his hands on. Same with Lenin. Marx wasn't a static thinker, neither Lenin – just look at their personal development, ffs. In other words Marx didn't extract "ultimate truths" or dogmas from the Paris commune, rather, he critically positioned his theory faced with new conditions and their lessons.
A rather elastic concept, if you start thinking in particulars.
ok, boring, already addressed
doesn't even connect to the topic, boring, good job
2/10
This isn't even empiricism, you fool. You are missing the point of the challenge:
1) Take up democracy's word for itself. When did it actually exist, according to its own principles? The answer: in the present -
never; in the past or in the "far away" - always. Since the split between its actuality and its ideal is constitutive of the actual (in other words: democarcy is always dependent on a heavy non-reflective ideological load)
2) Take up communism's word for itself. When did it actually exist, according to its own principles? In the Paris Commune, in Russia in 1917, in Catalonia in 1936, in Hungary in 1956 (tankies – those who actually conform to the dictionary definition – suck my dick), in Paris in 1968, and so on. But some (Badiou) would say: with Spartacus, with Müntzer, etc.
uninformed reply/10
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Isn't it spectacular (read: our doom) that some of our comrades (read: enemies) can only think (read: ideologically wallow) in terms of economics under the pretense of thinking about democracy?
Like, seriously, how does this faggot even think, for crying out loud? In his mind these problems only pertain to… the ideal of democracy? Like, holy shit. His whole argument boils down to:
Holy. Shit. The faggot is so deep into demo-cuckery that he won't even realize that you could discuss the economy against a different political background.
"Leninists are neo-Blanquists" is an extreme take but leninhat in this thread might be an example of this.
Literally, for fuck's sake, our so called democracy takes 10 minutes of your time every four years for it to function smoothly while capitalism takes 60% of your adult life, and this faggot blames… the economy… for… not leaving us enough time… with this supposedly-otherwise-perfect democracy?
i cant even
You have not the slightest idea what Blanquism (or Leninism, for that matter) even means.
I said the *effects* of alienation you spastic, like the symptoms of a disease. I never claimed any of the things I listed were alienation in and of themselves.
You seriously think that this doesn't induce the kind of apathetic stupidity you see in your average voter?
No shit. You cannot separate "the economy" from politics and to attempt to do so is anti-marxist.
No, you said, and allow me to quote you:
That is, not the alienation of the wage system, not of workers, but as explicitly stated by you, alienation of voters, in general. You are twiddling with Marxist terminology while raping the meaning. Good job.
Polemics are great and all, but does anyone have a positive vision of a non-democratic system for collective decision making?
Ooh! I can help with this!
For starters I don't advocate parliamentary democracy or consider it to be in any way a functional system. What I was addressing is the idiocy of your average person, not the dysfunction of the system itself.
Oh for fucks sake, I was talking about the alienation that the voter experiences as a fucking worker and you fucking well know it. Perhaps I phrased it awkwardly but you should be able to figure it out if you have half a brain in your head.
Switzerland has a pretty healthy functioning direct democracy option for the populace and it didn't collapse unlike the communist places that were barely more than historical footnotes.
Well, gosh, I guess it's too bad everybody since Marx has been able to talk about these terms separately while knowing they are interconnected (since they signify things that the other can not encompass)! But I guess the base-superstructure thing is just an oversimplifying fad.
Lead us, user!
>1) Take up democracy's word for itself. When did it actually exist, according to its own principles? The answer: in the present - never; in the past or in the "far away" - always.
Yup, all that's left for us is to adopt Democratism-Switzerism as the leading ideology, and all the world will glitter in direct-democracy.
What's that? Not everybody gets to be the banking capital of the world? That's racist!
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this tbh
Now that's a hot take.
You have autism, don't you?
This. I want to see OP explain how he thinks the DotP should be structured.
And Leninhat followed that with this:
I mean, for fucks' sake - at least Aristide isn't dead.
I can back user up - he said "average voter" and Leninhat for some reason thought that included the bourgeoisie.
I probably should have been more specific, I tend to forget just how autistic this place can be.
wow, problem solved, thanks Rosa
Statistically speaking the "average voter" includes way more bourgeois than "average citizen," since there are laws, practices in every democracy that makes this so. Regardless, and putting aside these facts, "voter" is (or aims to be) a neutral term, and since a capitalist society includes the proletariat, the bourgeoisie, the lumpenproletariat, the farmers, and so on, naturally "voter" includes porky as well, indistinctively.
Is it a surprise then that Lenin mopped the floor
of polemics with her every time he bothered to answer?
And this is not mentioning the overwhelming ideological power and political influence the bourgeois has. For every bourgeois voter there are three proles willing to vote for his – and against their own – interests.
Wow, still no responses. Surprising.
Not everyone lives in burgerland, where I live voting is compulsory - not that it makes much difference, our politics is still retarded as hell just like any other bourgeois democracy. That aside, I've already stated that I phased it poorly.
You alienated your intended meaning from your actual phrasing.
Probably because the first two would require a different thread?
Saying what the great new alternative to democracy is is off topic for a thread about why democracy sucks? Please.
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Y'all democrats need Satan.
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Okay, that actually made me laugh, well done lenin-hat.
This thread is already a complete shitshow, hijacking it would be an improvement. Perhaps I'll start: what do you think of bordiga's proposal for technocratic administration of communist society?
A better analogy would be that you are advocating that people abstain from vaccines all together because they are imperfect and offering no alternative.
Correction. OP was a complete mess (just look at that shit). Should have been locked, and OP banned for 10 minutes as a warning. I saved (or hijacked, if you prefer) the thread at post no.4. Compared to OP everything so far has been a net improvement, and surprisingly on (hijacked) topic. As an unexpected bonus the thread even had keks.
I think of all variations of technocratic proposals as (intentionally, or due to being clouded by typically STEM ideology) misinterpreting or outright disregarding the problem posed by the basic organizational form of democracy.
Going with your analogy your "democratic vaccine" has no better success-rate than a vaccine filled with homeopathic "medicine" has. Sure, placebo shows up in statistics, but a strategy that prefers it, dogmatically accepts it, even, as "our best hope" to thinking about alternatives is laughable.
Which you have already declined to do.
Are you the one who doesn't comprehend his own written words?
No, that was me (seriously let it go already), but I sort of agree with , It'd be nice if you offer an alternative we can discuss. At the moment this thread has the same problem a lot of leftcom criticism of the historical communist movement has: it's all critique with no proposals as to what to do about the problem (and I say this as someone with leftcom sympathies).
I'm willing to outline the contours of the problem that can hint at some concrete steps tomorrow. 9AM here, had no sleep. It will be Lacanian influenced, but what can you do.
I agree, but I genuinely wanted this thread to keep to this spirit to post no.4. since OP was basically an incomprehensible sign pointing in a direction.
Fair enough. Start another thread if you want, I'll look for it tomorrow.
Because they don't realise that the majority belief isn't same as theirs. Let them learn the hard way.
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Because they are real leftist unlike communists.
*R e d F a s c i s t
eh, good job I guess.
Your problem is not with direct democracy.
Your problem is with a setup where 50.1% of the population can force anything they want on the remaining 49.9% purely by winning a poll and an authoritarian police state will enforce results of said poll by force.
Note that, all other things equal, representative democracy does not actually solve this problem. You just think it does because it completely bypasses popular vote in the first place, by allowing the capitalists to corrupt the few representatives to act in their favor. This is then sold to people like you as a victory of reason of moderation over dumb masses. It's not.
And yes, capitalism is in fact a moderating force over violent and tribalist tendencies of common people. But note that it's also a cover to keep the police state look unthreatening. It immediately acts with all the necessary brutality whenever financial interests of capitalists are involved. Also note that periodically capitalism falters and tribalists take over anyway. If you wish to prevent this, the solution is not to support capitalists. It's to dismantle the police state.
New England Town Meating
'direct democracy' = dictatorship of the lumpen
During the DOTP, I think a Cockshott like plan works. Sortition of administrators(immediately recallable by the population and short term positions) with an electronic direct democracy(deals with all political and economic spheres of life). The administrators are there solely to follow though with and mediate the citizens votes. Obviously as time goes on these tasks will become less and less as we move towards communism.
Only the masses have it in their interest to move on to a different system, if they are reactionary, then so be it, they are the only ones who will look out for their own survival.
Perhaps to the communist. But to communism, democracy is its greatest ally, and the greatest enemy to capitalism. For Aristotle, and for all the great thinkers up until recently, communism meant only the reign of the poor.
P A T C H W O R K
I don't see democracy working outside of groups of 150 people & having these groups federate.
heh
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First of all, Athens never had a full democracy. It was a slave holding society where only free adult males could vote. Second, those people voted for the idiotic, disastrous Syracuse campaign that caused Athens to lose the Peloponnesian War and their empire.
There's literally nothing wrong with this. Leeches may have been bad but the alternative of ending medical practices would have been far worse.
I frankly find all arguments about the so-called "Tyranny of the Majority" theoretical and even specious until empirical evidence supporting them is actually found when full democracy with all its intricacies is actually attempted. What is full democracy? It includes production and the workplace. It uses approval or score voting for multiple choices. It has proportional representation. It doesn't allow private wealth to be used to campaign for office. Can you name a country with all of these things, especially the first?
Until they theories are actually tested with full democracy, I don't find them persuasive. Democracies of the masters, democracies of the lords, democracies of the bourgeois don't prove a thing.
shoot a Boomer for Jesus. he was a Socialist