Watching or reading news everyday I feel that 'democracy' is the most frequently used word today. Thus Thailand's Prime Minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva claimed to be a saviour of democracy when he declared a state of emergency and sent in troops to shoot at the Red Shirts. He forgot to mention that Thaksin Shinawatra was the elected prime minister until he was deposed in a coup supported by the King. His party was declared illegal but won again under a new name. This prompted a long protest by the Yellow Shirts, financed by the elites and supported by the army. Two prime ministers were removed by the Constitutional Court and Mr. Vejjajiva was appointed. This prompted a protest by supporters of Thaksin, the Red Shirts which he has just crushed. Mao would have been proud. Hamas are killing Fatah supporters in Gaza in the name of democracy. Former Secretary General of the UN brokered a deal in Kenya which allowed Mwai Kibaki to remain President and reduced Raila Odinga to Prime Minister. After all Kibaki seemed to have more ballots even though they were stuffed by his supporters. India is in the throes of a general elections which is totally pointless because for the last five years we have had a Prime Minister who was not elected. Criminals, doddering old men, ugly sons of previous members and assorted dishonourable, self serving liars are the choice before the people. Yet the winners will claim democratic legitimacy to loot the country. 'Democracy' has become the tool of the scoundrel and the thief. How do we clean out the garbage?
3 comments:
hi... a lot of the junk in the world today, in terms of the political and institutional machinery, developed in Europe in the context of the Industrial Revolution, the prevalence of monarchies and the capitalist-led boom... the creation of industrial centres, mass migration (forced and voluntary) to these centres, forced the formation of cities... the state was a coersive being which would exact labour and taxes and military service on the pain of punishments that were designed to be painful... but there was an accompanying rise in the consciousness of the proletariat of their own identity, and the French Revolution happened... and the state could not be coersive any longer... at least not openly...
this is the situation in which most of the modern institutions of state and democracy came about in Europe, and we adopted the same... chap called Foucault does a brilliant job of analysing the development of these institutions... i would recommend reading his works...
cheers
That is really erudite. I write things I observe and from my memory of past events. True democracy would be real power to the people in their everyday lives. That can only happen if we have citizens corporations structured like multinationals. These will function as trade unions, employment exchange, arrange full medical cover, pay school fees collectively and hold companies and politicians to account. reduce power of politicians. they will not let it happen.
That is actually a very interesting observation because, you know what? Companies started out as "associations of persons" (still present in the definition of a company) come together to carry out functions that the state would like done but couldn't do so itself, usually due to the lack of resources (thus the seemingly natural requirement of companies to raise money from the public)... That corporations have proven themselves Exceedingly efficient at gathering wealth is evident from the state of affairs in the world... However, the "evil" comes in when the collection of wealth becomes the sole purpose for it's existence...
A use of the corporate organisation toward serving social ends seems to me a very good answer: and it pretty much reduces the state to a narrow, finite, possibly achievably agenda!!
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