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Showing posts with the label "capitalist democracy"

"What drives democracy?"

 Via Corey Robin The fashionable fear in the media and academia of the working class as the bacillus of populist authoritarianism is very much in conflict with the empirical evi dence of decades of history, including contemporary history: "Many observers fear that [capitalist] democracy is currently at risk — including in the United States and some European countries. Some commentators blame less-educated members of the working classes for the democratic backlash....But are industrial workers really an anti-democratic force? In a new study, we systematically examine how citizens have sought to promote democracy in about 150 countries. Here’s what we find: Industrial workers have been key agents of democratization and, if anything, are even more important than the urban middle classes....We investigated all major mass protest movements around the world from 1900-2006, and recorded who dominated each movement — industrial workers, urban middle classes, rural laborers, ethnic
This was written in 1984:  The extent of criticism varies greatly from one part of the Left to another, but there is at least no disposition now to take the Soviet regime as a “model” of socialism: indeed, there is now a widespread disposition on the Left to think of the Soviet regime as an “anti-model.” How could it be otherwise, given some of the most pronounced features of that regime? The socialist project means, and certainly meant for Marx, the subordination of the state to society. Precisely the reverse characterizes the Soviet system. Moreover, the domination of the state in that system is assured by an extremely hierarchical, tightly controlled, and fiercely monopolistic party aided by a formidable police apparatus. Outside the party, there is no political life; and inside the party, such political life as there exists is narrowly circumscribed by what the party leadership permits or ordains — which means that there is not much political life in the party either. Ess