[lbo-talk] Ralph loves the nice plutocrats

[Marv Gandall]

"Face it.  The US political system is  plutocracy, not democracy.
Always has been."
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It's both. We've lived in a world of capitalist states for centuries. All
have been "plutocratic" instruments of class rule, although not all have
been parliamentary democracies based on the universal franchise. The
suggestion seems to be that the fact capitalist states are all plutocracies
renders their political character as parliamentary democracies superfluous;
the only democracy worth defending, by implication, being socialist
democracy. But it's only necessary to point to fascism, the extreme
expression of the antidemocratic capitalist state, to illustrate the crucial
distinction between the two forms of capitalist rule. And to recall that the
old labour and socialist movement shed much blood to win and defend
so-called bourgeois democratic rights - particularly those pertaining to the
right to vote and organize and to form political parties and unions -
primarily for the purpose of acquiring power and changing social relations
and not solely as ends in themselves. That struggle continues, though in a
more muted way.