> So the payoff for attaining real democracy is that people can
> comprehend its potential, if it were extended from the political, to
> the economic, basis of human affairs. But if you think what the US has
> is political democracy, then you don't even know what democracy is, so
> it would be a disaster to entrust you with democratic control of the
> means of production. Political democracy confers over hardly any power
> at all. Economic democracy would be power over the really important
> stuff.
Naturally, in the process of establishing a socialist society (I'm pipe-dreaming here, of course), it would be necessary to improve the political process of any capitalist country (not just the U.S.) radically. I take the political reform process as an integral part of the whole revolutionary process.
But I take your frequent, and rather humorous, denials that the U.S. has a democratic system to be based on a purely polemical definition of "democracy." The political system of this country could certainly be considerably improved (as I dare say could the Australian system), but the idea that the U.S. system will ever be replaced by the Australian system (leaving completely aside the question of whether this would be an improvement) or any other country's system is a complete non-starter, of course. I don't know about you, but I'm interested in practical political ideas that will get results, not total fantasies. That's why I raise again the question: why is it that the Lefts in Australia and European countries seems to have exactly the same complaints about their political impotence that we hear in this country? I would say that it's because, at this stage in the development of capitalism, there is no mass base for radical change in any advanced capitalist country, whatever its particular political system. That's the root of the problem, not differences in how a country is divided up into political units or what voting system is used.
> Americans do seem to have a romantic attraction to feudalism, I've
> noticed that. Probably because you haven't actually experienced it as
> a nation and have romantic notions of it.
As with your use of "democracy," your use of "feudalism" is absurdly tendentious. The Wikipedia article on "feudalism" states:
"Three elements existed and characterize the period: lords, vassals and fiefs. Feudalism is defined by how these three elements fit together.
"A lord was a noble who owned land. A vassal was given land by the lord. The land was known as a fief. In exchange for the fief, the vassal would provide military service to the lord. The obligations and relations between lord, vassal and fief lies at the heart of feudalism." (BTW, "lies" in the last sentence should of course be "lie.")
Of course there are no lords, vassals, or fiefs here. Presumably, you are thinking of one of the features of feudal society pointed to by Marc Bloch, as noted in the Wikipedia article on "feudal society": "the absence of a strong central authority." However, in the first place, there certainly is no lack of a strong central authority in the U.S. -- many would say that, on the contrary, it is much too strong. What may be distinctive about the U.S. political system is what is sometimes called "American localism," i.e., the fact that local and state governments have authority over many aspects of the society which are handled by the national government in other countries.
Of course the reasons for this peculiarity have nothing to do with feudalism, but rather with the origins of the colonies and the subsequent history of the country. For details, see any reasonably adequate U.S. history.
Personally, I would agree with the view that many things now under the jurisdiction of local and state governments should be handled federally, beginning with the voting system. It should certainly be uniform throughout the country, at least for presidential elections. It should also be made much easier for third parties to get onto the ballot. But such reforms will have to be achieved, if they ever are, by Americans, of course, and therefore within the framework of the U.S. historical traditions. This is not because Americans are more "pig-headed" than people in other countries, as you suggest; it's because Americans are as attached to their national traditions as are Australians, or anyone else. They may listen to advice from abroad, if it comes from folks who show that they have a clear understanding of their country and its characteristics, but they'll make up their own minds about what makes sense in their own situations as they see it.
PS: The U.S. political/electoral system has often been called one of the most complex in the world, because of its overlapping, confusing jurisdictions. Not many Americans understand it very well, to say nothing of foreigners.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________________________ It isn’t that we believe in God, or don’t believe in God, or have suspended judgment about God, or consider that the God of theism is an inadequate symbol of our ultimate concern; it is just that we wish we didn’t have to have a view about God. It isn’t that we know that “God” is a cognitively meaningless expression, or that it has its role in a language-game other than fact-stating, or whatever. We just regret the fact that the word is used so much.
— Richard Rorty