i'm a traditionalist when it comes to the word "democracy." i believe it stands for govt, or powers, exercised directly by the people. "republic" means govt, or powers, exercised by chosen representatives of the people, who are accountable to the people. i believe the usage has become corrupted to the extent the words are being uses almost interchangeably, leading to a great deal of confusion, neither being used correctly or understood by the people of the USA at large.
rather than a capitalist democracy, i'd suggest we are living in a bastardized combination of plutocracy and oligarchy, which now and then emits a little faux republic behavior for advertising purposes -- such as the fall election when the president will actually be chosen by the electoral college according to the constitution, while the people "vote" for senators, congresspersons, and etc. socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor, if you will. to generalize: roughly five percent of the people own the country, roughly 20 percent work for them, and the rest are catch as catch can.
i've always like jim hightower's idea that all candidates for office should wear the badges (embroidered emblems) bearing the names of corporations and those wealthy individuals donating to and sponsoring their campaigns -- like the decals you see on nascar and formula one race cars -- on their clothes when they appear in public. this would help the people decide which corporation(s) they preferred. of course, it would also mean the candidates would be wearing several capes to accommodate all the badges.
the founding fathers were quite clear in their understanding of the word "democracy" and disliked it with passion. they deliberately chose what they termed a "republic." their likes and dislikes are expressed quite clearly in the federalist papers. we are stuck with a fully corrupted version of the results, in which a right wing supreme court chooses the president, who then is ratified by the electoral college. so the difference between republic and democracy does matter -- a lot.
the thing about theory is that it often gets put into practice.
as freud might have put it, sometimes a Shickelgruber is just a Shickelgruber.
R
----- Original Message ----- From: "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Saturday, June 26, 2004 7:51 AM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] too little too late?
R wrote:
>
> i believe rome wasn't a republic unless one believes the patronage system
is
> a form of republic. the romans, like most americans of today, appeared
> willing to give up everything for security. as tacitus said to the
> patronage based senate, paraphrase, "how easily you become slaves."
I agree with most of what you have to say in this post, but in theoretical writing (and that's what your post is) beware of word magic.
Res Publica. The public life of the polis. In the Roman Republic public affairs were conducted in public (with the public being a land-owning oligarchy); in the Empire they were not. If we make words such as "republic" and "democracy" apply only to some narrowly (or ideally) defined essence of our own choosing we begin limiting our own channels of communication with each other and with a larger public.
The United States is a Democracy. Or one very important kind of democracy. We gain nothing by fighting over the word. Almost everyone of age can vote if they want to. Oppression and Repression is carried out (for the most part) through prescribed channels. Only the police (who are controlled by an elected city government) can beat you to death without the police coming after you.
Capitalist democracy is a vicious system, one which destroys people's lives with an efficiency and reach no King or Emperor ever hoped for. I want it destroyed. But let's not emulate the advice of an item in a 1943 Reader's Digest, which went something like this: "Support the war effort. Call Hitler by his right name, Shcickelgruber."
Carrol