>Subject: Superceding liberal democracy?
>Justin:
>Though why should we weant to supercede them? I mean, I reall am open if
>someone has a better idea, but I haven't heard one yet.
>
>
>Well this is really ABC isn't it? Hegel's critique concerns the
>contradictions within what he called relative ethical life, which he saw as
>corresponding to bourgeois property relations. In marxism this appears as
>the contradiction between formal equlaity and substantive equality.
But I oppose bourgeois property relations and support substantive equality. I don't see what this has to do with whether we should have free competitive elections in which everyone gets to vote for for representive leaders, a limited government and a free press, andthe like. At the risk of sounding end-of-history-sh, what have you got that is better? I am really open to alternatives, but you haven't mentioned any. The anarchists on the list at least do offer an alternative, as does Charles, but I don't find either the prospect of direct democracy run by consensus or a Khrushchevite police state attractive, the former, though, more than the latter.
>Why is this not good enough, because it alienates us to the core of our
>being, i.e. from what makes us human, namely our species bond with our
>fellow human beings. This alienation creates cynicism, despair, outsiders,
>meaninglessness, etc.
Liberal democracy does this? Wow, who woulda thunk.
>The idea that we have developed the most rational system of governance,
>implied in Justin's quote above, is frightening in its "end of history"
>type of sentiment. The view from a suit?
Maybe, but I believed this long before I wore a suit on a regular basis. Look, I am very aware of the limitations of liberal democracy. I live in Illinois, where politics is a corrupt circus. It would be improved by the elimination of vast fortunes, public ownership of productive assets, public campaign financing, powerful unions, worker control of industry, and citizen's groups, and so forth. I support these things in part for that reason. Our current way of doing it is not the most rational.
But when it comes to getting rid of the core elements of liberal democracy: competitive elections, universal suffrage, representative government, and extensive civil and political liberties, it is difficult for me to imagine a change that is also an improvement. Maybe that is a failure of my imagination. Please enlighten me. I am not being sarcastic.
jks
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