All democracies are fake democracies.
Sun, 2008-03-02 14:12
#1
N.Beltov
All democracies are fake democracies.
Sun, 2008-03-02 14:12
#2
N.Beltov
Got your attention, did I? I've been thinking about this question and the history of democracy and I've come to the conclusion that it's more helpful to talk about democracy in such terms as I have with the title of this thread, rather than talk about it as if the present is some pinnacle of development. All democracies are flawed, all democracies are underdeveloped, and you can go right back to Ancient Greece, with its slave underpinnings, to the present liberal democracies with their assumed economic un-democracy and, while there is development, the story is far from over.
That's it. Discuss.
Sun, 2008-03-02 14:19
#3
Just drop the notion of an ideal as something that can exist. Ideals are to think with, not to find or build...go with Aristotle, not Plato!
Oh, and all communication is flawed communication...
Sun, 2008-03-02 14:28
#4
Cueball
That is why you should dispose of the idea of communication entirely and go with discourse, as the term "discourse" eliminates the idea of "unflawed" communication as something which preserves the intent of speaker, an impossible ideal, and replaces it with a idea sender and reciever create meaning as a joint process within the discourse.
My two cents.
Sun, 2008-03-02 14:29
#5
N.Beltov
Boarsbreath: It just seems a useful assertion to me. Perhaps claiming that all democracies are underdeveloped might be more precise if less provocative. That would dispose of democracy as an ideal and replace it with democracy as something subject to development, something with a beginning in time (and therefore, an end!), something more Aristotelian and less Platonic.
[ 02 March 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]
Sun, 2008-03-02 14:31
#6
Cueball
Fuck those guys go with [i]the[/i] Derrida.
[ 02 March 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]
Sun, 2008-03-02 14:37
#7
N.Beltov
[i]the[/i]?
Sun, 2008-03-02 14:40
#8
Cueball
Well of course, seeing as it is dead he really just exists as object/concept in the discourse, right? Like [i]the[/i] concept, or [i]the[/i] idea.
[ 02 March 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]
Sun, 2008-03-02 14:45
#9
N.Beltov
Excuse me, that should be [i]the Idea[/i]. If you're going to summarize Hegel, put it the way he would have.
ETA: Perhaps I've misunderstood "any" idea as Hegel's Idea.
[ 02 March 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]
Sun, 2008-03-02 14:51
#10
Cueball
Yes.
Sun, 2008-03-02 15:00
#11
Cueball
In anycase, the Derrida is free of any falsely attributed notions of the intent of the organ sack that was once associated with it.
Sun, 2008-03-02 15:31
#12
N.Beltov
It sounds like the Derrida was free of notions and intentions even when the organ sack was functioning. But I still smell some transcendental pretensions.
Or did someone just fart?
Mon, 2008-03-03 16:48
#13
Heck no, nothing stops us treating texts as just texts.
Of course nothing stops us from treating them as having authors either (the Derrida sack of organs collected his royalties).
SO: always footnote to your deconstructionists: it's a slap in the face to them -- and they can't complain, having helped create that meaning anyhow!
Mon, 2008-03-03 17:16
#14
Maysie
quote:
That is why you should dispose of the idea of communication entirely and go with discourse
Rather than discourse (so dry) I lean towards baked goods. Brownies mean communism, cookies are capitalist (duh of course). You see where I'm going.
For the past week on Facebook I've been doing a back and forth poking with Frantz Fanon. It's been so beyond my hegemonic expectations. You know what message I get? "You have just poked Frantz Fanon. Frantz will be informed the next time he logs in."
Like, whoa, Matrix flashback time, dudes. I think I need some lemon pie.
Mon, 2008-03-03 19:59
#15
saga
What are you guys smokin' in here? [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]
Mon, 2008-03-03 20:39
#16
Democracy is the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on the people. There has never been, and never will be such a thing for the following reasons:
1. The ruling elites aren't that stupid.
2. The ruled are.
Take Alberta. Consistently Tory. Why? Stupidity, plain and simple. "But people just need to be educated". Bullshit. People don't [i]want[/i] to be educated. They want to get theirs. And, thems that gots it, they wants to keep it. Worse than that it that thems that [i]don't[/i] got it, want them that do to have it anyway, 'cause they don't know the fucking difference.
Those in power are in power for one simple reason: they know that the vast swaths of people are too goddamn ignorant to do anything about it. If the masses of tv-addled hoopleheads get uppity, whisper "gay marriage" and it'll all go away.
Time for another Lucky. Excuse me.
Mon, 2008-03-03 20:49
#17
saga
quote:
Originally posted by Jingles:
[b] If the masses of tv-addled hoopleheads get uppity, whisper "gay marriage" and it'll all go away.
[/b]
[img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]
[b]
quote:
Time for another Lucky. Excuse me.[/b]
[img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]
Tue, 2008-03-04 01:50
#18
Catchfire
I'm not sure if I should tell Beltov this, but he effectively put democracy as a term [i]sous rature[/i] (under erasure) in his OP. Obviously, he has been reading Derrida's [i]Of Grammatology[/i] (and no, that's not just a made up word. I mean it [i]is[/i], but it's so much [i]more[/i] than that, y'know?).
Anyway, the problem here is obviously that the question of democracy is not an epistemological one (i.e. what goes into the cookie) but an ontological one (what [i]kind[/i] of cookie am I making? How many? And who will eat them?). What kind of historiographic meta-baking can we enact that will mobilize a new democratic cognitive recipe, complicitly critiquing the problem from within?
Tue, 2008-03-04 04:56
#19
Maysie
quote:
Originally posted by saga:
[b]What are you guys smokin' in here? [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img] [/b]
Well, I think Jingles has already shared. As for me, nobody comes [i]near[/i] my baking with a smoke! Of any kind! Shoo!
Did I mention I'm making "special" brownies? [img]cool.gif" border="0[/img]
Catchfire: Isn't this the kind of thread you've been waiting for? [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]
So you like made-up words, eh? Well, I'll see your "Grammatology" and raise you a consequentology, didacticology and some numerology for the hell of it. Oh, does it only count when it's words made up by people with exasperatingly dense theories? Damn!
Tue, 2008-03-04 07:30
#20
Catchfire
bcg, our theories [i]have[/i] to be dense, preferably exasperatingly so. We can't have the great unwashed going around understanding them, can we? Talking about them at pubs? For the love of Barthes! I can't even fathom the consequences. It's better still if you can pop in the old foreign word. I don't even mean French ([i]diffйrance[/i]) and German ([i]Verfremdungseffekt[/i]) but in foreign alphabets! The more ancient Greek the better! Woo!
P.S. My favourite made up word is "oedipally." As in: "Oedipally, democracy has murdered the paternal principles it never had, bedded its all-consuming capitalist mother while masquerading as a lawgiver searching for the corruption--the ur-crime--it itself had fostered." Oedipally! An adverb! Christ!
Tue, 2008-03-04 07:51
#21
Bof, why not? Short for "On the Oedipian plane..." That's the way the democracy crumbles.
As Barthes' dad would put it, "D/OH!"
[ 04 March 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]
Tue, 2008-03-04 08:04
#22
Catchfire
quote:
As Barthes' dad would put it, "D/OH!"
Now [i]that's[/i] funny.
Tue, 2008-03-04 09:54
#23
N.Beltov
Using language to show its contradictions, in a play of words, erodes the confidence "that words reveal the world behind them." It also erodes other kinds of confidences like, in particular, the confidence that we can change the world for the better.
Tue, 2008-03-04 10:02
#24
I find that language sometimes get impacted, secreting away chunks of reality behind ideological facades. Humour can fissure these verbal logjams, surface hidden pain, restore circulation. The women's movement, for instance, has done wonders with it.
Tue, 2008-03-04 10:14
#25
N.Beltov
Point taken. However, alienation has been successfully turned into a motor for fashion. The idea is to go shopping and feel better [i]and do ... nothing.[/i]
quote:
I don't care about pollution
I'm an air-conditioned gypsy
That's my solution
Watch the police and the tax man miss me![i]Goin' Mobile[/i], Peter Townshend (The Who).
ETA: I made an interesting mistake and typed "Goin' Mobil" initially. Perhaps my first choice was better. [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]
[ 04 March 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]
Tue, 2008-03-04 10:24
#26
quote:
Originally posted by Jingles:
[b]Democracy is the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on the people. There has never been, and never will be such a thing for the following reasons:1. The ruling elites aren't that stupid.[/b]
They are afraid of advanced democracy here in the last most-western bastion of far right political conservatism.
quote:
[b]2. The ruled are.[/b]
I think there are large percentages of stupid voters in Canada, but their numbers are greying and in the large minority. They vote in elections religiously. I think the stoogeocracy isn't as popular as they were at the height of cold war, a time when economic growth was their political capital.
Canadians are beginning to realize that there is a democratic deficit.
And far too many Americans are living anywhere below poverty guidelines defined in 1960. North American plutocracy face growing pro democracy movements in the last bastion of far right conservatism. And I think our's are managed democracies, or an illusion of democracy with just enough distortion of the very concept to delay arrival of advanced democracy. The elite were always one giant step ahead of the people, and now it's reduced to perhaps one large step. Benito Mussolini once said something about fascism being a three ring circus - and that fascism is entertaining. Or something to that effect. I think our autocrats may be running out out of sideshows and diversions. We could see a false flag black operation here in Canada or perhaps a large or even medium size American city in the months ahead.
[ 04 March 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]
Tue, 2008-03-04 11:51
#27
Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.
Why - because politicians are like diapers, they should be changed regularly and for the same reason.
Tommy D's white cat/ black cat speech sums up the problem with our democracy but the party supposed to represent the mice - NDP - can't get the mice to vote for them. Why - it's complicated but the mainly urban mose party - doesn't really understand or even like who and what the mice are that they want to represent.
Tue, 2008-03-04 12:19
#28
N.Beltov
Perhaps, as well, the NDP isn't quite so partisan for the mice as they should be, and the mice end up voting for cats anyway.
Tue, 2008-03-04 12:48
#29
Neither cat party won 24 percent of the eligible mice vote in the last election.
And Mouseland had some of the lowest voter turnouts in the Cat world in the decade of the 90's - somewhere down around Fiji and Benin's rates. Cat Central to the south of us was even lower.
Tue, 2008-03-04 17:13
#30
Maysie
Eileen McGann's "Oh I think we're just too stupid for democracy."
quote:
Oh I think we're just too stupid for democracy.
Whoever thought majorities should rule?
I think we're just too stupid for democracy.
Show me a mirror, I'll show you a fool.Think of the majority of people that you meet:
Do you think that their opinions should be law?
Well, if you're like the majority, you think the rest are nuts
Thus democracy reveals a fatal flaw.Think about the average uncultivated field:
There's twenty-thousand weeds for every flower.
And over in the corner where manure's piled high
You'll find the weeds who want to be in power.And every four or five years they will play a little game
Saying: "You can pick your leader - take your choice."
And they throw us out a line which we swallow every time
And that's the end of having any voice.Oh, I think we're just too stupid for democracy.
The democratic world is under curse.
I think we're just too stupid for democarcy
Though all of the alternatives are worse:Dictatorship is full of nasty people who will shoot you
Plutocracy is likewise full of sharpers who will loot you
Oligarchy's full of snobs who snag all the important jobs
Monarchy is kind of fun but still I think its day is done
Communistic theory's fine but put in practice every time
It turns from nice to nasty and I don't think it would suit you.
Which leaves us meritocracy
Which always sounded good to me...Folksingers in the government and all the laws must rhyme
Folksingers in the government, oh we'll have such a time!
Jamming about policy and singing party line...but...
Maybe your ideas of merit aren't the same as mine...Oh I think we're just too stupid for democracy
The democratic world is under curse
I think we're just too stupid for democracy
Though all of the alternatives, all of the alternatives
All of the alternatives are worse!
Audio link [url=http://www.hpol.org/transcript.php?id=91]here[/url]. Warning, she's a folkie.
Tue, 2008-03-04 18:36
#31
You bet she's a folkie. She's great.
She's a friend of mine and I met her at the wrong end of a sword.
Tue, 2008-03-04 18:55
#32
Ha! Good one, BCG. And we will keep pushing in the handful of countries still feigning democracy with obsolete electoral systems and patronage appointments.
[b]Majority Rule[/b] [url=http://www.chat.carleton.ca/~tcstewar/grooks/grooks.html]Piet Hein[/url]
His party was the Brotherhood of Brothers,
and there were more of them than of the others.
That is, they constituted that minority
which formed the greater part of the majority.
Within the party, he was of the faction
that was supported by the greater fraction.
And in each group, within each group, he sought
the group that could command the most support.
The final group had finally elected
a triumvirate whom they all respected.
Now, of these three, two had final word,
because the two could overrule the third.
One of these two was relatively weak,
so one alone stood at the final peak.
He was: THE GREATER NUMBER of the pair
which formed the most part of the three that were
elected by the most of those whose boast
it was to represent the most of the most
of most of most of the entire state --
or of the most of it at any rate.
He never gave himself a moment's slumber
but sought the welfare of the greater number.
And all people, everywhere they went,
knew to their cost exactly what it meant
to be dictated to by the majority.
But that meant nothing, -- they were the minority
[ 04 March 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]
Wed, 2008-03-05 16:02
#33
Hey, Fiji's turnouts aren't that bad. (Voting is compulsory there, although unlike Aussie they don't actually prosecute anyone.)
Or they weren't. For the last year and a bit a military commander has ruled the country. Anybody thoughtless enough to think that democracy makes [i]no[/i] difference should follow Fiji news.
Wed, 2008-03-05 16:36
#34
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow's_theorem]All voting mechanisms are flawed.[/url]
Wed, 2008-03-05 16:51
#35
N.Beltov
Good grief. When I saw reference to an arrow I thought that this was a restatement of Zeno's paradox in which motion is shown to be impossible.
It looks like nothing tougher than a little Group Theory. Now where's my copy of Burton's [i]Introduction to Modern Abstract Algebra[/i]?
Wed, 2008-03-05 17:02
#36
The theorem been around for more than 50 years. Lots of people have tried to find a flaw in it, and no-one has. All they've found is different ways to prove it.
Wed, 2008-03-05 17:42
#37
I've been expecting SG to bring up Arrow's theorem for some time .... [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img]
Wed, 2008-03-05 17:47
#38
It's been more than four years since I [url=http://www.rabble.ca/babble/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=21&t=000787]f... brought it up.[/url]
And if anyone is really, really curious, [url=http://132.203.59.36/CIRPEE/cahierscirpee/2006/description/descrip0624.h...'s[/url] my way of trying to get around it.
Wed, 2008-03-05 17:51
#39
quote:
Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:
[b]It's been more than four years since I [url=http://www.rabble.ca/babble/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=21&t=000787]f... brought it up.[/url]And if anyone is really, really curious, [url=http://132.203.59.36/CIRPEE/cahierscirpee/2006/description/descrip0624.h...'s[/url] my way of trying to get around it.[/b]
Yeah, that was before my time. Thanks for the link. I once spent quite a bit of time on this theorem but it's been awhile. I'll read your paper, though!
Wed, 2008-03-05 18:13
#40
That'll make three of us. [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]
Wed, 2008-03-05 19:18
#41
All the way up to four.
Thu, 2008-03-06 10:03
#42
quote:
Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:
[b]The theorem been around for more than 50 years. Lots of people have tried to find a flaw in it, and no-one has. All they've found is different ways to prove it.[/b]
quote:
So, what Arrow's theorem really shows is that voting is a non-trivial game, and that game theory should be used to predict the outcome of most voting mechanisms. This could be seen as a discouraging result, because a game need not have efficient equilibria, e.g., a ballot could result in an alternative nobody wanted in the first place, yet everybody voted for.
And apparently sets of game solutions are based on, for example, Nash equillibrium. [url=http://adamsmithslostlegacy.com/2006/08/nash-equilibrium-is-not-theory-o...'sLostLegacy.com[/url] says, [i]"He engineered the outcome of bargaining– not the process of bargaining – into neo-classical equilibrium. It is pure [b]homo economicus[/b]"[/i]
It appears to me that model agents in game theory are individuals based on a central actor described in economic theory as [i]homo economicus[/i]. But what if, as socialists have contended since start of the last century, that the classical Liberal characterization of homo economicus is a deeply flawed model, and that human beings are not one-dimensional prisoners of our own self-interest? What if real human beings are capable of much more?
[ 06 March 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]
Fri, 2008-03-07 14:29
#43
N.Beltov
quote:
Today [b]Columbia is ruled by what has been called a “genocidal democracy” [/b](see Javier Giraldo, Columbia: The Genocidal Democracy, Common Courage, 1996).... [b]Large parts of the country are dominated by drug lords with their paramilitary armies with which the government is closely associated. [/b]Columbian President Бlvaro Uribe is himself linked to drug traffickers, including members of his own family.... the dominant reality in Colombia is state/paramilitary terrorism. As part of the stepped-up repressive campaign in the Bush/Uribe period the paramilitaries in league with [b]the Columbian military forces committed atrocities such as burning children alive and using chainsaws on others while still alive ... [/b]
And you thought [i]Scarface[/i] was fiction ...
[url=http://monthlyreview.org/080301granda-batou.php]Interview with FARC leader Rodrigo Granda[/url]
quote:
Meanwhile, Bogotб and Washington continue to use chemical fumigants on large parts of the country, ostensibly aimed at coca eradication, but also as a form of chemical warfare.
Ah, yes, another narcodemocracy. Uribe in Columbia. Karzai in Afghanistan. It's the discreet charms of the bourgeoisie alright, enforced at the business end of a bayonet.
quote:
Rodrigo Granda: The FARC–EP is indeed a politico-military movement making use of the inalienable right to rebel against a state that practices paper democracy. What we are doing is responding to a war imposed on us from the highest echelons of power in Colombia. State terrorism has been wielded against us and our people as a method of extermination for decades....The Colombian bourgeoisie is a bloodthirsty, reactionary bourgeoisie that only understands the language of arms. If we had not responded to the aggression, they would already have branded us with red hot iron, and chained us up, like in the age of slavery.
Of course, it is common knowledge, that war of this kind needs funding. This war was forced on us by Colombia’s rich, so they are the ones that have to finance the war they unleashed. That’s why the FARC–EP holds people for whom a monetary payment is collected, which is really a tax. This money is set aside to maintain the apparatus of the people’s war.
There's even some discussion of a peace tax. What a novel idea.
Did someone say Israel?
quote:
You must remember that at present Colombia is the third largest recipient of U.S. military aid, after Israel and Egypt. During the first stage of Plan Colombia, the United States provided $7.5 billion and the Colombian state imposed a war tax of 12 percent, which was increased this year by a further 8 percent. Even so, Plan Colombia and all subsequent operations have failed against the FARC–EP resistance and counteroffensive.
Hmm. These similarities with Israel must be getting REALLY ANNOYING for some people. If the shoe fits, however, WEAR IT.
The FARC leader had the following to say:
quote:
The Colombian state has no alternative other than to accept that it has been incapable of defeating the insurgency and that its fascist project, which uses state terror and the chainsaw as an offensive weapon, has failed. The only thing left for this state to do is to seek a rapprochement with the insurgency so that we can sit down and talk to find a negotiated political solution to this long social and armed conflict affecting Colombia.
The chainsaw as an offensive weapon. That's democracy in the style of neo-liberalism. Brrrrrrrrrrrr! However, the FARC leader had some rather impressive analysis of fake democracy, "gringo" style. The remarks are worth quoting at length ...
quote:
In general, if we analyze the behavior of bourgeois states over time, we observe that they have various ways of applying what they call “representative democracy” and that they combine practically all forms of struggle to exploit the people. The “gringos” call it the “carrot and stick approach,” which they practice in the following way: if they consider that the masses are meek, they can let them develop certain forms of restricted democracy for a time; if they consider that those masses are becoming radicalized, then they take troops into the streets and impose repression. But if they notice that those mass movements have already become radicalized, then they employ state terrorism, and wage genocide against their opponents and the extermination of the mass organizations. It is this terror at its most horrifying that was experienced by nearly all countries here in our America in the recent past and still persists in Colombia.
Chomsky couldn't have put it better. I feel obliged to add that, despite the horrific genocidal democracy they are fighting against, Rodrigo Granda also outlines the democracy that FARC practices. Apparently, not all democracies are fake democracies. But that's something that has to be demonstrated.
[ 07 March 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]