06-13-2013, 11:13 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-13-2013, 11:18 PM by FireIceTalon.)
The concept of democracy vs. totalitarianism is problematic, because it is essentially a false dichotomy. Class based societies, by their very essence, are undemocratic. It doesn't matter so much if resources are controlled and allocated by the state, or by a small number of private individuals who control capital and use the state apparatus to act on their behalf in protecting and expanding said private capital. In both circumstances, classes exist and therefore by default it cannot be democratic, certainly not in the genuine sense of the word (which is very different from the concept of 'bourgeois' democracy). Now, class systems with private ownership tend to be more efficient at maintaining and running their economies and protecting the given social order, but this by no means makes the society a democracy relative to another class society that uses statism, in which that society decays faster. Not in the big picture of things anyway. The problem with the dichotomy is that it refers only to political systems, and not to the existing class relationships which the basis of society is structured around.
https://www.youtube.com/user/FireIceTalon
"Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class, made into law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economic conditions of the existence of your class." - Marx (addressing the bourgeois)
"Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class, made into law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economic conditions of the existence of your class." - Marx (addressing the bourgeois)