-----Mensagem original----- De: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]Em nome de Brad DeLong Enviada em: segunda-feira, 9 de outubro de 2000 21:19 Para: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Assunto: Re: RES: RES: RES: Yugoslavia: what the media is hiding (The Guardian)
>_Democracy_ is mostly a term of propaganda.
>
On the contrary, if the twentieth century teaches one lesson, it is that _Democracy_ is the necessary and inescapable prerequisite for avoiding complete and total moral, human, and political disaster.
And if the twentieth century teaches a second lesson, it is that those who claim that _Democracy_ is a term of propaganda are only a tiny fraction away from being the tools and dupes of genocidal maniacs.
Brad DeLong
Necessary, but not sufficient. Althought not is the point De Long is raising, I would agree that the failure of socialism was related to lack of democracy. What happened is that the ruling class simply decided to restore capitalism to enjoy even more privileges. That´s why there was no reaction against "velvet revolution". I would even say that needs democracy more than capitalism given this phenomena. As Rosa Luxembourg said, the socialism can´t built by a minority, since it´s own nature excludes this possibility" (bad translantion from Portuguese, I think). On the other hand, I say it´s not suficcient to avoid these disasters mentioned by Brad because liberal democracies were also responsible by horrible crimes (but they tend to confine thoses atrocities to peripheral countries, not need to mention examples, right?). Nowadays, I would said that capitalism is responsible by disasters in many countries, democratic or not (just look at the evolution of mortality/natality curves of Russia in the Stratfor, and don´t foret to mention Russia has done better than many ex-Soviet Republics). In our continent, the liberal reforms are also starting to show their ugly face. So I would mention a third lesson: capitalism causes unavoidable social polarization that in turn leads to impoverishment, disease and death of massive numbers of people, even considering it also benefits broad layers of world population.
Alexandre Fenelon