Democracy (Was Re: [lbo-talk] DeLong on Hayek)

andie nachgeborenen andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com
Tue Jul 8 16:51:58 PDT 2003


It's an obsolete way of talking. The framers would have seen it that way. Democracy (aka mob rule) was anethema to them. This was not an American Thing. It was pretty much educated opinion from the Renaissance on, at least in Europe, up through, say the 1880s. The positive associations with the term Democracy are products of the battles of the 19th century, and really only enter popular usage at the end of the century. When Marx says in the Manifesto that the first task of the proletariat is to win the battle of democracy, he is saying something that in context was much more radical than it sounds now. Now, it just sounds like, We all think democracy is great, but contrary to popular belief, it cannot be fully realized under capitalism. Marx, however, took the most extrement, radical, loony-left position of his day -- democracy! a term that rank in liberal ears like communism dis a generation ago -- and said, It's Only a First Step! Wild eyed fella, that Chuckie Marx. jks

--- Grant Lee <grantlee at iinet.net.au> wrote:
> > > they were by and large precisely the sort of
> pedant who insists on
> > > reminding you at least once a week that the US
> is *not* a democracy,
> > > but a democratic republic.
>
> It seems to me that US right wingers are the only
> people to have placed
> "democracy" and "republic" on the same conceptual
> continuum. Nowhere else in
> the world would a "democratic republic" be seen as a
> compromise or a
> paradox.
>
> ___________________________________
>
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