LITMIR.BIZ

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laws, etc.

      At the level of the global capitalist system, the link between (truncated) democracy and capitalism is even more clearly without any real foundation. In the peripheries (80 percent of humanity) that are integrated into real world capitalism, democracy has never, or almost never, been on the agenda of what is possible or even desirable for the operation of capitalist accumulation. In these conditions, I will even go so far to say that democratic advances in the centers, while they were indeed the result of struggles by the working/popular classes, were no less largely facilitated by the advantages such societies procured in the world system.

      Popular movements and peoples fighting for socialism and liberation from imperialism were behind the authentic democratic breakthroughs initiating a theory and practice that combine democracy and social progress. This evolution—beyond capitalism, its ideology, and the restricted practice of representative and procedural democracy—began quite early in the French Revolution. It was expressed more maturely and radically in later revolutions, in the Paris Commune, the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, and some others (Mexico, Cuba, Vietnam).

      I am not one of those who refrain from severely criticizing the authoritarian, even bloody, excesses and abuses that accompanied the revolutionary periods of history. Explaining the reasons for such practices neither justifies them nor reduces their destructive impact on the socialist future aimed at by these revolutions. Still, we should also keep in mind the ongoing crimes of really existing capitalism and imperialism, the colonial massacres, the crimes connected with the “preventive wars” conducted today by the United States and its allies. Democracy in these conditions, when it is not simply erased from the agenda, is hardly more than a masquerade.

      Today, democracy is in decline worldwide. Within the context of generalized and globalized monopoly capitalism, democracy (even in its truncated forms) is not advancing—in reality or potentially—but, on the contrary, is in general retreat. In contemporary capitalism, electoral democracy—when it exists—is combined not with social progress but with social regression. Consequently, it is threatened with loss of legitimacy and credibility. “The market decides everything, the parliament (when it exists) nothing.” Moreover, the “war on terrorism” serves, as we well know, as a pretext to reduce democratic rights for the greater benefit of the plutocracy’s power in the era of obsolescent capitalism. People then are likely to be attracted to the illusion of retreating into “identities” of various sorts (para-ethnic and/or para-religious) that are in essence anti-democratic and a dead-end.

      In the countries of the capitalist/imperialist center, the working/popular classes (and even most of the middle classes, at least potentially) certainly aspire to a more real democracy, more equality, and more solidarity and social security—job security, retirement systems, etc. It is not certain that the ideology of cutthroat competition will be accepted indefinitely. But are the peoples of the North disposed to give up the significant advantages accruing to them through plundering the entire world, which implies maintaining the peoples of the South in underdevelopment? The ecological concern for “sustainable” development should lead to a serious reconsideration of these advantages. For this very reason, it has to be said that the manifestation of this concern seldom exceeds the expression of pious wishes. Here subservience to the democratic farce is internalized by a self-described “postmodernist” discourse that, quite simply, refuses to recognize the extent of such destructive effects. The main thing lies elsewhere it is said; what do elections matter in “civil society,” where individuals have become what the liberal virus claims they are—the subjects of history—whereas they are indeed not that at all!

      But the democratic farce does not work in the system’s peripheries. Here, in the “zone of storms,” the established order does not benefit from sufficient legitimacy to allow a stabilization of the society.

      The persistence of “backward-looking” aspirations does not result from the tenacious “backwardness” of the peoples involved (the usual rhetoric on the subject), but from an ineffective response to a real challenge. All peoples and nations of the peripheries have not only been subjected to the fierce economic exploitation of imperialist capital, they have also, consequently, been subjected just as much to cultural aggression. The dignity of their cultures, languages, customs, and history has been denied with the greatest contempt. It is not surprising that these victims of external and internal colonialism (Native Americans) naturally link their social and political liberation with the restoration of their national dignity. But these legitimate aspirations, in turn, lead them to look exclusively to the past, hoping to find there the answers to the questions of today and tomorrow. There is a real risk of seeing the peoples’ movement of awakening and liberation trap itself into tragic impasses when the “backward-looking” approach is taken as the central axis of the sought-after renewal. This confusion, among other causes, lies behind the “religious renewal.” By that I mean the resurgence of conservative and reactionary religious and para-religious interpretations that are “communitarianist” and ritualistic. Here monotheism quite easily is wedded to “moneytheism.” I obviously exclude from my judgment religious interpretations that rely on their spiritual sense to justify taking the side of those social forces fighting for freedom. But the former interpretations are dominant, and the latter are in the minority and often marginalized. Other no-less reactionary ideological approaches compensate in the same way for the emptiness created by the liberal virus: “nationalisms” and ethnic or para-ethnic communitarianism are good examples.

      In the countries of the periphery, the challenge can be taken up only if, during a long transition period (centuries long), the political systems of popular democracy successfully combine three objectives: (i) maintain and strengthen national independence in a multipolar international system based on the principle of negotiated globalization; (ii) accelerate the development of productive forces without which it is futile to speak about eradicating poverty and building a balanced multipolar world; and (iii) affirm the growing place of socialist values, particularly equality. This challenge involves three-quarters of humanity. Democracy is not a ready-made formula that simply needs to be adopted. Its realization is a continuous process, which is why I prefer the term democratization. The proposed formula—a multiparty system and elections—turns into farce and runs a serious risk that the struggle for democracy will lose legitimacy. Accepting this solution as “less bad” would trap the unsuspecting in a demoralizing impasse. Rhetorics on “good governance” and “reduction of poverty” provide no adequate response to liberalism’s destructive effects.

      The struggle for the democratization of society is inseparable from the struggle to change the established government. The fight for democratization requires mobilization, organization, choice of actions, strategic vision, tactical sense, and the politicization of struggles. Undoubtedly, these prerequisites of struggle cannot be decreed in advance on the basis of sanctified dogmas. But identifying them is imperative because it is indeed a matter of defeating the system of established powers and replacing it with another one. Undoubtedly, the idea that “the revolution” will replace the power of capital straightaway with that of the people must be given up. In contrast, revolutionary advances are possible, based on new and real powers of the people that push back the power of those who will continue to defend the principles of reproducing inequality.

      Abandoning the question of power is tantamount to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Believing that society can be transformed without destroying, even if gradually, the established system of power, displays the most extreme naïveté. So long as the established powers remain what they are, far from being dispossessed by social change, they are capable of co-opting it and integrating it into the strengthening—not weakening—of capital’s power. The sad diversion of ecologism, which has become a new field for capital’s expansion, bears witness to that. Evading the question of power is to place social movements in a situation that does not allow them to move on the offensive, and instead restricts them to maintaining a defensive posture and resisting the offensives of those who hold power. In sum, it is to cede the initiative to the enemy.

      The movement toward socialism throughout the world, in both North and South, will invent new forms of authentic democracy. Advances must, at each stage of the struggle, include their adequate political and legal institutionalization. The reader will find examples in appendix 2 in Скачать книгу