Jodi Dean has been writing some interesting stuff on the problems with left-wing valorizations of democracy at her blog[1], and in a recent article[2], "Politics Without Politics," she argues that the left-wing claim that our current political systems are not democracies "is childishly petulant. It's like the left is saying, 'if we don't get to play what we want, we're not going to play’. The failure of left politics to win, or even score, is equated with a failure of politics as such, rather than acknowledged in the specificity of left defeat."
[1] http://jdeanicite.typepad.com/ [2] In Parallax 52, here: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a912898828 and liberated from the chains of academic copyright here: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?hmdldmyymul
--
"The slightly richer ... eat in semi-darkness, preferring
candles to electricity. These candles make me laugh. All the
electricity belongs to the bourgeoisie, yet they eat by
candle-end. They have an unconscious fear of their own
electricity. They are embarrassed, like the sorcerer who has
called up spirits he is unable to control."
-- Vladimir Mayakovsky http://blog.voyou.org/ voyou at voyou.org