Modern
definitions of democracy, elaborating and
defining issues like the people,
equality, membership in the polity,
mechanisms of
empowerment and accountability are needed more
than ever at this time
to block efforts by ruling elites in the United
States and countries
like Canada to impose old arrangements which are
no longer functioning
or suitable to the conditions today.
Modern
definitions of democracy also make clear that it
is not a matter of
ideals, but of structures of equality and of
constituting society in
such a way that guaranteeing the rights of all
is central in both
content and form. It is not happenstance that
U.S. President Joe Biden
began his "Summit for Democracy" by saying
democracy is a matter of
ideals, not actual reality. He said U.S.
"democracy is an ongoing
struggle to live up to our highest ideals and to
heal our divisions; to
recommit ourselves to the founding idea of our
nation," that "all women
and men are created equal, endowed by their
Creator with certain
unalienable rights, among them life, liberty,
and the pursuit of
happiness."
Biden said this in conditions where
human rights and the right to live and be are
under brutal attack as
governments at all levels refuse to guarantee
basic human rights to
health care, housing, education, a livelihood
and safe living and
working conditions, let alone affirm them on a
modern basis which is
not based on considerations which favour the
ownership of private
property and furthering the wealth of narrow
private interests.
This phrasing that "all are created equal," is
promoted
worldwide. As with "we the people," a main
problem with its use is that
the reference point is the rulers' conception of
equality. Their
equality has to do with owners of private
property, today the private
global oligarchs, having the equal right to
pursue their ownership,
their profits, their enslavement of others. To
ensure that right for
owners of private property, the U.S.
Constitution enshrines a structure
of inequality, including keeping the people out
of power and the rich
in power, evident from the days of the system of
slave labour to this
day.
In taking up the work of modern definitions,
the concepts of equality needed for today
require elaboration on the
part of the people. This involves recognizing
and providing structures
for two kinds of equality. One is equality
of membership,
whether it be equal members of the polity, or of
an organization or
collective. Equality involves membership in
a given collective.
It is not separate from that. Further, being
an equal member
involves taking responsibility for both rights
and duties.
For example, when the people speak of the
importance of speaking in
their own name, they are referring to an
important part of empowering
themselves as individuals and collectives today.
It is the right of all
human beings to speak, to join in discussion, to
decide matters of
concern to their lives, participate in
implementing their decisions and
being accountable for the results. It is also a
duty if members are
going to affirm their rights.
Rights are not an
abstraction as delineated in the U.S.
foundational documents. They are
not aspirations. Rights exist in their
affirmation.
They exist in the form of making claims on
society for what belongs to
people by right. These claims are both
individual and collective ones,
on the society on which people depend for their
living, on
organizations and collectives of which they are
a part and lead others
to do the same.
There is also equality on
the path,
that path being the forward march of history. It
is a path of
recognizing and taking up the necessity for
change. This is the
equality of transition, of the path, of
membership on the path, of
seizing the openings which the clash between
Authority and Conditions
reveal exist to bring the New into being by
settling scores with the
old conscience of society. Modern definitions
provide an opening for
the New which harmonizes the individual and
collective interests and
the individual and collective interests with the
general interest of
society as identified by the forces bringing the
New into being. That
opening exists in the here and now today and is
one that history is
calling on the peoples to utilize for problems
to be resolved in their
favour and to avert the disasters which the rich
and powerful are
overseeing.
When it comes to defining the
people, the category being dealt with is
people (individuals
and collectives) changing circumstances. In
other words, the
people are
the agents of changing circumstances. A people
are historically
constituted and exist within definite time and
space, definite
conditions with definite human relations. Human
beings are not things.
They exist in relations, social relations and,
more broadly, in human
relations. We have fidelity not to a cause per
se, but to the whole
ensemble of human relations and what they
reveal, which is the need for
the peoples to empower themselves to turn things
around in their
favour. This is the path to progress today.
In
arguing for modern definitions human beings
today are arguing out how
to sort out the interests of individual,
collective and general --
those of society and humanity. They are arguing
that interests come
from society, out of the ensemble of human
relations and these
relations should define constitutions which
create modern
nation-states. Unlike the rulers who claim that
society, citizenship,
who is legitimate and who is not are defined by
the state and
constitutions adopted by those who constituted
society in their image
in days gone by, those seeking to humanize the
social and natural
environment on a modern basis say society is the
basis for the state,
not that the state is the basis for society.
A
modern definition also recognizes that
individuals are not abstract
persons, with their single brains, with
individual consciousness in
which everyone is greedy or altruistic or
whatever characteristic is
seen to be good or evil and who fend for
themselves on this basis.
Individuals exist as individuals and
collectives. Each person carries
within them individual and collective and
general interests.
The origin of the
word interest
is inter esse which
means, among beings, social beings. The ensemble
of human relations is
the basis of interest. Individual interest is
defined by that ensemble
of relations, as is the collective interest. It
is a higher order than
the way which defines persons who, to form a
collective, are added up
in an irrational way which dismisses the
relations they enter into as a
matter of course, independent of their will.
A
democratic constitution establishes what rules
are to be followed. It
is called rule by the people but the arguments
required to judge that
constitution involve the determination of
whether it is suitable for
the people and establishing the criteria to make
that determination.
Today people like Biden, Trudeau and others on
both the official left
and right of the spectrum talk about democracy
by relating to how close
to or how far it is from authoritarianism,
autocracy, totalitarianism
or fascism and such things. They are not giving
arguments as to whether
the rules they are establishing or the
definitions or the constitutions
and liberal democratic institutions they claim
to defend are suitable
to the people.
A modern definition recognizes that
to be suitable to the people, the means to sort
out the conflicts is to
put individual and collective interests on a
par, not one over the
other. To put them on a par means there is an
equivalence. Putting them
on a par provides a means to harmonize the
interests of all individuals
and collectives and of both with the general
interests of society and
humanity. What is needed is the work to provide
the means to harmonize
interests by using the ensemble of human
relations as the reference
point, as the source of these interests. Getting
to the interests
involved, identifying them, harmonizing them is
at the heart of
providing democracy with a modern definition.
For
the representatives of the ruling class who
occupy positions usurped
through control of power and privilege, such as
Biden or Trudeau or any
other occupants of such positions, the category
that it is people
who change circumstances, that the people
are
the force for change, is dismissed as are
their
interests. This is why the various contending
forces speak of the
"death spiral" of U.S. democracy and all claim
in one way or another
that "democracy is presently under threat and,
for 15 years, has been
on the decline," as Biden put it at his
Democracy Summit.
Evidently,
the broad mass movements in the U.S. for
equality and rights and
against the racist government and police
killings are not considered
part of a rise of a people's democracy and so
too the movements in
other countries and of entire nations fighting
for their right to be
are dismissed. The broad and growing resistance
among Indigenous
peoples, among immigrants and refugees, among
other workers and
farmers, is also not considered a part of the
battle of democracy, a
battle waged by the peoples to advance the
quality and structure of
democracy so it is to their advantage.
The question
on the minds of millions worldwide when it comes
to democracy is Who
Decides? all matters of concern related to
peace, war, the economy,
politics, culture. Any attempts to ask that
question, answer that
question or discuss matters of concern are to be
blocked. This is what
the peoples are dealing with when they wage the
resistance movement to
anti-democratic measures which constitute the
fight for
democracy which today is an integral part
of the
battle of democracy itself, of heeding the
call of history to
move on and bring the authority into conformity
with what the
conditions are demanding and giving rise to.
The
U.S. Constitution and the democracy it enshrines
is not in any way a
model for democracy in these modern times. For
the Canadian ruling
class to use it as a reference point in
everything it does will not
save it from being the superfluous force it has
become any more than it
saves the U.S. ruling class from being the
superfluous force it has
become. Indeed, imposing the phrase "of, by and
for the people" on the
world is being used by the U.S. imperialist and
reactionary forces to
block the advance of democracy, of the creation
of structures,
institutions and constitutions that provide for
equality and
accountability and affirm that the people are
the decision-makers and
no force exists above them.
Biden's definition of
what constitutes democratic renewal amounts to
nothing. It is akin to
renewing a magazine subscription; it seeks to
preserve and extend that
which already exists. Biden and his courtiers
have adopted the language
of the forces fighting for people's empowerment
in an effort to dismiss
and sabotage the rise of the New against the Old
which gives rise to
modern definitions as required by the conditions
today.
Modern
definitions of democracy recognize the need to
put individual and
collective interests on a par and both in
relation to the general
interests of society and humanity in such a way
that these many
interests are harmonized -- are sorted out in a
manner that benefits
each and all. It is this constant and continuous
work for modern
definitions which includes discussing the needs
of democracy today,
that contributes to the advance of the battle of
democracy. The many
battles peoples are waging for control over the
decisions which affect
their lives, for their right to make claims on
society by putting their
rights front and center, reflect the urgent
necessity for this advance
-- for fashioning a democracy where the people,
the vast majority of
those who have brought into being the advance of
the productive powers
beyond anything previously conceived, have the
power to govern and
decide.
This article was published in
Volume 52 Number 1 - January 9, 2022
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2022/Articles/M5200111.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
