Why democracy?

mtgr18977
Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:56:06 +0000

First of all: this system brought undeniable historical advances in the West (formal equality, freedom of speech, universal suffrage). There's no way to deny this when compared to monarchies and the civil-military authoritarian regimes in Latin America. However, even so, current democracy inherently carries the objective of preserving the economic order. The political structure is designed so that economic elites (whether bourgeois or corporate) maintain control through campaign financing, legislative influence, and media dominance.

With this in mind, I decided to bring up for debate why democracy is considered the ultimate and best system we currently have, leaving no room for criticism of the system itself (representative democracy). This system derives from a stratified one (Greek) that has been refined over centuries to take power away from monarchs and transfer it to the bourgeoisie. Today, we live in a bourgeois-liberal democratic state that restricts any minority group’s access to the center of power. Everyone notices this, but since proposing or thinking of something distinct from representative democracy is dangerous, most people aim to patch a system that was designed to be this way: exclusionary and elitist. In the end, this term (democracy) has been elevated to an absolute moral ideal, leaving no room to question its central premise (the maintenance of centralized power in financial capitalism, which now finances the most radical right-wing movements).

By the way, it’s worth considering how the right gained power in the world (money). And how it maintains its hegemony over cultural thought worldwide (money). Who funds this? Who benefits from this? Why couldn’t a decentralized yet ~autocratic~ proposal (I understand the difference between autocracy and the lack of checks and balances, but I fail to see why the current system is inherently better) be superior to a centralized government defending the interests of a dominant class? (Hint: the right maintains its hegemony because it controls financial resources and the means of cultural production; it’s not just about governments but a machine operating at multiple levels where the dominant ideology reflects the ideology of the ruling class.)

Continuing, there are no decentralized and autocratic proposals (in the sense of concentrating power efficiently for certain decisions while decentralizing access to power overall) because these challenge the traditional logic of checks and balances, which ironically has been more effective at blocking structural changes than preventing abuses of power. For instance, the concept of distributive autocracy (a model in which power is temporarily centralized to carry out rapid structural reforms, followed by mechanisms of redistribution and decentralization of power) is rarely discussed because the tripartite and bicameral system locks this debate in place to maintain control through financial power (amendments) of the country.

We remain hostages to a system that has become humanity’s manifest destiny, where no questioning can be raised without the individual being labeled as morally inferior. It’s not that representative democracy is inherently superior, but that it was historically designed to be acceptable within the context of bourgeois power. The question, therefore, is not simply "autocracy vs. democracy," but how we can create inclusive, participatory, and redistributive systems where power structures are transparent, accessible, and fair for everyone.

Comments URL: https://tildes.net/~society/1l06/why_democracy

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