Are we a "Democracy"? What does that even mean?

[Lodestar]

Last edited Fri Sep 11, 2015, 05:21 PM - Edit history (3)

We continually hear that America's mission is to spread 'democracy' throughout the world.
Greece, the seat of western democracy is currently in crisis and the symbolism of it's demise
has many meanings and lessons that should not be lost on us. Nor is the 'crisis' a new one
for either Greece or the world at large because at it's core "Democracy" is a work in progress, a malleable thing dependent for its definition. functionality and purpose on the most fundamental makeup of the people themselves. It is a mirror of the human condition. Who we are and how we choose to live together is at the core of any working system of government. So who ARE we now? What are our values and what is changing within that core that needs to be reflected in our governing bodies? In the early Greek definitions of democracy, the majority of people were not even included in the process....women, slaves, foreigners...to name a few. So rather than throw around words like "Democracy" lets understand or at least try to agree what that really means NOW.

My questions about "democracy" are not rhetorical. I don't assume to have the answers. I ask sincerely in order to shift and elevate the conversation to one that is more substantive, informed, honest, timely and constructive about governance in general and our government in particular. It requires more of us, of course, to question ourselves, to see honestly, if we hope to actually participate in creating a new model based on our current needs, values and changing culture.

Here's an interesting Wikipedia read on the historic progression of Greek Democracy:


Here's an excerpt:

Since the middle of the 20th century, every country has claimed to be a democracy, regardless of the actual makeup of its government. Yet, after the demise of Athenian democracy, few looked upon it as a good form of government. This was because no legitimation of that rule was formulated to counter the negative accounts of Plato and Aristotle. They saw it as the rule of the poor that plundered the rich, and so democracy was viewed as a sort of "collective tyranny". "Well into the 18th century democracy was consistently condemned." Sometimes, mixed constitutions evolved with a democratic element, but "it definitely did not mean self-rule by citizens."[67]

In the age of Cicero and Caesar Rome was a republic, but not a democracy. Furthermore,
it would be misleading to say that the tradition of Athenian democracy was an important part of the 18th-century revolutionaries' intellectual background. The classical example that inspired the American and French revolutionaries as well as the English radicals was Rome rather than Greece. Thus, the Founding Fathers who met in Philadelphia in 1787, did not set up a Council of the Areopagos, but a Senate, that, eventually, met on the Capitol.[68]

Following Rousseau (1712–1778), "democracy came to be associated with popular sovereignty instead of popular participation in the exercise of power."

Several German philosophers and poets took delight in the fullness of life in Athens, and not long afterwards "the English liberals put forward a new argument in favor of the Athenians". In opposition, thinkers such as Samuel Johnson were worried about the ignorance of a democratic decision-making body. However, "Macaulay and John Stuart Mill and George Grote saw the great strength of the Athenian democracy in the high level of cultivation that citizens enjoyed and called for improvements in the educational system of Britain that would make possible a shared civic consciousness parallel to that achieved by the ancient Athenians."[69]

Therefore, it was George Grote, in his History of Greece (1846–1856), who would claim that "Athenian democracy was neither the tyranny of the poor, nor the rule of the mob." He argued that only by giving every citizen the vote would people ensure that the state would be run in the general interest.

Later, to the end of World War Il, democracy became dissociated from its ancient frame of reference It was not anymore only one of the many possible ways in which political rule could be organised in a polity: it became the only possible political system in an egalitarian society.

[Maedhros]

1. We're an Inverted Totalitarian Oligarchy, which pretends that elections make us a democracy.[n/t]

[Lodestar]

3. Does this assume that at one time we had a democracy?

Or have we always had some form of an oligarchy at our core of government?

[Maedhros]

4. IMO, the United States began as a Democratic-Oligarchic Republic.

Yes, it was set up with elected offices and a balance of power between branches, but the power has always resided with a relatively small cadre of rich and powerful land/business owners.

In recent years, as workers and dissidents became organized and effective, steps have been taken to nullify those elements. Campaign financing coupled with mass media manipulation of a low-information electorate has pretty much rendered the "democratic" element meaningless. The population generally votes for the candidates they have been told to vote for by television advertisements.

[NorthCarolina]

7. Our elections are manipulated and compromised though,

so it's not logical to even pretend that they make us a Democracy.

[canoeist52]

2. Did any Native American group influence the men who drafted the United States governing documents?

"The Iroquois Confederation is the oldest association of its kind in North America. Although some scholars believe that the Five Nations (Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Mohawk, and Seneca) formed their Iroquois League in the 12th century, the most popular theory holds that the confederation was created around 1450, before Columbus’ “discovery” of America. These five nations bore common linguistic and cultural characteristics, and they formed the alliance to protect themselves from invasion and to deliberate on common causes. In the 18th century, the Tuscarora joined the league to increase the membership to six nations.

Those who support the theory that the First Peoples influenced the drafting of the founding documents point to the words of founders such as Benjamin Franklin, who in 1751 wrote to his printer colleague James Parker that “It would be a strange thing if Six Nations of ignorant savages should be capable of forming a scheme for such an union, and be able to execute it in such a manner as that it has subsisted ages and appears indissoluble; and yet that a like union should be impracticable for ten or a dozen English colonies.” Native American Studies Professor Bruce Johansen and American Studies Professor Donald Grinde, among others, argue that American colonists, in Johansen’s words, “drew freely on the image of the American Indian as an exemplar of the spirit of liberty they so cherished.” These scholars argue that the framers of American governments understood and admired Native American government structures, and they borrowed certain indigenous concepts for their own governments."

http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/24099

[SpearthrowerOwl]

5. Democracy is a spectrum, not a binary "yes" or "no."

"Democracy" is definitely a constantly abused term; the United States is a “democracy.” This, in fact, is impossible. A society can only be more or less democratic: it’s not a finite “is” or “isn’t,” rather, it’s a continuum from no democratic form whatsoever to a system of voting, independent media--so that the public is properly informed--and a litany of other democratic necessities often ignored in the many mass media narratives about "fledgling democracies."


Personally, I judge something to be a democracy more by its "ends" rather than its "means." This is similar to how it was judged by early colonialists. This is essentially what Terry Bouton argues in his book, Taming Democracy: "The People," The Founders, and the Troubled Ending of the American Revolution. Early colonists saw not just political equality as essential to the functioning of democracy, but economic equality as well; I have to agree.

I go further by suggesting that economic equality is even the "act" of democracy--the visible sign that it has worked. After all, we like democracy for a purpose. Some, like Noam Chomsky, argue--and I think correctly--that democracy is a value in of itself, regardless of the outcome. I agree, but I think that there's the additional virtue of democracy in that it tends to lead to the best outcome for all.

What is the "best outcome for all"? In his important book, A Theory of Justice, John Rawls--the late Harvard moral and political philosopher called by some the John Stuart Mill of the twentieth century--develops what he calls the "difference principle." He doesn't call for total economic equality: he says that inequalities of wealth are only just so long as they improve the lot of the least-off groups in society. Thus, utilitarian schemes that promise greater wealth for the aggregate at the expense of the disadvantaged are considered untenable. Until we see this type of structure, something distinctly undemocratic is happening.

[NorthCarolina]

6. Are we? Not even close. To believe to the contrary

is a