On 2012-02-23, at 11:25 AM, Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> wrote:
> James: "democracy, which means ‘the rule by the people’"
>
> My point was that party politics can be very
> reactionary, especially in English-style majoritarian democracies, and
> alternatives to it can be less, at least temporarily. I think it is
> clearly the case of Italy, where technocrats are probably less
> reactionary than Berlusconi and his crypto-fascist backers.
Monti may be less coarse and more ideologically "flexible" than Berlusconi, but the fact remains that he was installed to preside over the dismantling of trade union rights, pension benefits, and other austerity measures on the theory that an unelected government of technocrats would be less subject to political, ie. democratic, pressure from below. Italy refutes your point; it doesn't support it.