"Bourgeois democracy is one manifestation of the idea that a formal system is all that is required to achieve optimal distribution of resources. Another manifestation is the concept of free market. Philosophically, this idea has been bankrupt for a long time. Kenneth Arrow demonstrated that democracy is impossible to achieve due to its logical contradictions. Aristotle's condemnation of democracy is even more instructive, because it links the virtues of political systems not to formal properties - number of rulers or their selection process - but to the ultimate goals they serve. If that goal is to serve the common good of the ruled, the system is good, if it is to serve the interests of elites - it is deviant, regardless of how many rulers there are or how they are selected.
For people who lived under dictatorships serving only the interests of political elites, bourgeois formal democracy looked like an ideal solution simply because grass tends to appear greener on the other side of the fence. But bourgeois democracy is no different than a dictatorship in that both serve mainly elite interests - the main difference is that dictatorship is painfully honest about it, while bourgeois democracy conceals that with an illusion of being a 'vox populi\" created by elections - which are basically professional wrestling spectacles, at least in the US.
The solution, however, is not another formal system as some protesters seem to suggest (e.g. non-hierarchical organization, deliberative democracy or what not) but the system that serves a substantive objective - public interest- as Aristotle aptly noted. There are some philosophical precedents to start with, Hobbesian Leviathan or Leninist vanguard party. True, they can be corrupted by elites but so is democracy, but they have an advantage over democracy of serving a substantive goal instead of purporting to provide a mere opportunity for some nondescript substantive goal to be pursued."
Wojtek
On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 8:06 AM, Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/world/as-scorn-for-vote-grows-protests-surge-around-globe.html?_r=1&ref=world
>
> [WS:] There is some hope, after all. Finally, people start seeing
> the utter idiocy of electioneering. Will they see the wisdom of
> central planning?
>
> Wojtek
>