>A proletarian democracy would see democratic control of the social product of
>labour exercised by the producers themselves, legitimated and enforced by the
>workers' State. Capitalists could still own the means of production here and
>there; but the proles would control where the wealth they produced would be
>allocated because they would have control of the State and by extension the
>legal system.
In what sense would they "have control of the state"? By voting for representatives? They have that now.
As you indicated earlier, the real power of the capitalist class is independent of and largely untroubled by existing political democracy. Their power is direct and economic. Their economic power trumps the political power of the working class, because it trumps the power of the state. The only kind of political state that threatens capital is the totalitarian state, which is even more of a threat to the working class and even that is ultimately only a threat to individual capitalists, in the sense of being a loose cannon, rather than a threat to the capitalist system itself.
Whoever wields the tyrannical economic power of capital, the power to direct what workers will work, what work they will do, how much they can earn if anything, it matter not. Because as long as someone has that power over you, you are a slave. Your vote is a sop. Not because, as you claim, you cannot get media attention for a radical message, but more directly because you preach your radical message at the peril of being severely punished economically.
Haven't we just been hearing from people on this very list who have suffered this fate? Surely it hasn't escaped your notice that a great number of people even on this list live in such fear of economic reprisals by the ruling class that they don't even dare to post under their own name. What's more, its over a hundred years since the capitalist democracies were forced to bring in the secret ballot for exactly the same reason, to provide some measure of protection for the working class against reprisals from their employers for voting even for the wrong pro-capitalist politicians. How the buggery do you imagine a radical political opposition could ever be organised under such oppressive conditions? By definition it could only be organised along the lines of a secret conspiracy, which is hardly likely to inspire much electoral confidence. Would you vote for a nameless masked candidate?
That sort of absolute economic power isn't just going to "wither away". Don't make me laugh!
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas