[lbo-talk] Europe's soft coup

[Wojtek S]

There is a qualitative difference between  bourgeois democracy falling
to a fascist power grab, and one variant of bourgeois democracy being
replaced by another.  I do not see political parties being more
democratic than an executive committee.  In fact, the former can be
fairly reactionary, as the case of the United States demonstrates.  A
similar case has been made for the UK as well (cf. Theda Skocpol,
"Social policy in the United States") .

I have to admit that I have a bias against political parties. I
believe that they tend to be a parasitic element that thrives on
mediating citizen's access to government services, and thus tend to
make this access as cumbersome as possible to extract higher premium
for this access.  So if political parties get a booty I do not lose
much sleep over it as long as the system remains democratic i.e.
guaranteeing a certain minimum of civil rights.  In other words, I do
not equate party politics with democracy.

Wojtek

On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 5:28 AM, James Heartfield
<Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> James: " Italian and Greek people needed to deal with the problems they faced, they were robbed of the chance."
> [WS:] C'mon James, as if bourgeois democracy gave them that chance.
>
> Hmm. That sounds like one of those Third Period Stalinist arguments about not defending democracy because it is all a sham, Wojtek
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-- 
Wojtek
http://wsokol.blogspot.com/