Democracy and the nation state

Chris Burford cburford at gn.apc.org
Sun Nov 18 08:16:40 PST 2001


At 18/11/01 15:45 +0800, you wrote:
>Changing the face of democracy does not in itself deliver proletarian
>power, but I cannot see in a modern state how that power can be successful
>without struggling to redefine in class terms what constitutes democracy -
>one part of this is raising simple arguable reforms for a better
>democratic constitution.
>
>Greg Schofield
>Perth Australia

and


>There are reforms such as multiple representative electorates,
>preferential and compulsory voting, disenfranchising companies from
>bribing parties that could be raised as immediate demands. But we are
>silent on them.

Particularly the right of companies to bribe.

Lists such as LBO-talk have reference to campaigns about this, but my impression is that there is less attention over the months and years to such campaigns than to whether the Republicans are qualitatively worse than the Democrats.

My broad democratic preference is to support the most left wing party capable of winning an election, favouring proportional representation and channeling most political activism through single issue campaigns which blend and overlap with one another in the strategic direction Greg outlines.

Among the most signficant campaigns would be to stop the companies bribing the parties.

It is also a point of weakness in virtually every advanced capitalist country, with regular bribery scandals that discredit the representatives. It may take a decade or two but it should be a key objective for every progressive administration to change the law increasingly to restrict this.

Chris Burford

London



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