"Joe R. Golowka" wrote:
> Alex LoCascio wrote:
>
>> Or the unaccountable, interminable snooze-ocracy of the
>> consensus-based
>> affinity group model.
>
>
> Or direct democracy.
It is not a quibble to point out that democracy (all varieties including
direct democracy) is a form of rule by which the whole (expressed in some sort of majority) constrains the part (the individual). Hence by opting for direct democracy you undercut anarchy. And as soon as you do so, you define debate as not authority vs no authority but as a debate over the best or most possible mode of authority.
It seems to me that ancient Athens (despite all of its inconsistencies from a modern standpoint) offers a better *preliminary* pointer to socialist democracy than do modern representative democracies, but to suggest that we can go straight to direct democracy is ridiculous.
Carrol