32
[...] He conveyed Marx's view of the process of holding elections in a sentence that would not have been out of place in New York or Madrid: 'The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in Parliament.'
[...] He conveyed Marx's view of the process of holding elections in a sentence that would not have been out of place in New York or Madrid: 'The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in Parliament.'
34
Occupy demonstrates the malaise more than it suggests any remedy. Its diagnosis of representative democracy was correct, but the alternative was weak. [...]
this aligns with Inventing the Future's thoughts on Occupy and other folk-political struggles
Occupy demonstrates the malaise more than it suggests any remedy. Its diagnosis of representative democracy was correct, but the alternative was weak. [...]
this aligns with Inventing the Future's thoughts on Occupy and other folk-political struggles
39
[...] Electoral fundamentalists refuse to regard elections as a means of taking part in democracy, seeing them instead as an end in themselves, as a holy doctrine with an intrinsic, inalienable value.
drift I tell you!
[...] Electoral fundamentalists refuse to regard elections as a means of taking part in democracy, seeing them instead as an end in themselves, as a holy doctrine with an intrinsic, inalienable value.
drift I tell you!
41
When the supporters of the American and French revolutions proposed elections as a way of getting to know 'the will of the people', there were as yet no political parties, no laws regarding universal franchise, no commercial mass media, let alone social media. In fact the inventors of electoral-representative democracy had no idea that any of these things would come into existence. [...]
this is so drifty i'm crying
When the supporters of the American and French revolutions proposed elections as a way of getting to know 'the will of the people', there were as yet no political parties, no laws regarding universal franchise, no commercial mass media, let alone social media. In fact the inventors of electoral-representative democracy had no idea that any of these things would come into existence. [...]
this is so drifty i'm crying
55
[...] Imagine having to develop a system today that would express the will of the people. Would it really be a good idea to have them all queue up at polling stations every four or five years with a bit of card in their hands and go into a dark booth to put a mark, not next to ideas but next to names on a list, names of people about whom restless reporting had been going on for months in a commercial environment that profits from restlessness? Would we still have the nerve to call what is in fact a bizarre, archaic ritual 'a festival of democracy'?
drift drift drift
(basically it needs refactoring)
[...] Imagine having to develop a system today that would express the will of the people. Would it really be a good idea to have them all queue up at polling stations every four or five years with a bit of card in their hands and go into a dark booth to put a mark, not next to ideas but next to names on a list, names of people about whom restless reporting had been going on for months in a commercial environment that profits from restlessness? Would we still have the nerve to call what is in fact a bizarre, archaic ritual 'a festival of democracy'?
drift drift drift
(basically it needs refactoring)
66
[...] 'The basis of a democratic state is liberty . . . One principle of liberty is for all to rule and be ruled in turn'. [...]
quoting Aristotle
[...] 'The basis of a democratic state is liberty . . . One principle of liberty is for all to rule and be ruled in turn'. [...]
quoting Aristotle
91
The French Revolution, like the American, did not dislodge the aristocracy to replace it with a democracy but rather dislodged a hereditary aristocracy to replace it with an elected aristocracy [...] a new upper bourgeoisie took power. It derived its legitimacy no longer from God, soil or birth but from another relic of the aristocratic era, elections. This explains the exhausting arguments about suffrage and the severe limitations placed on it, as only those who paid sufficient tax could qualify. Only one out of every six citizens in France was allowed to vote in the first parliamentary elections, according to the constitution of 1791. [...]
he says later on that elections were "never actually intended as a democractic instrument in the first place" which is an interesting point that I'll need to incorporate into my theory of drift
The French Revolution, like the American, did not dislodge the aristocracy to replace it with a democracy but rather dislodged a hereditary aristocracy to replace it with an elected aristocracy [...] a new upper bourgeoisie took power. It derived its legitimacy no longer from God, soil or birth but from another relic of the aristocratic era, elections. This explains the exhausting arguments about suffrage and the severe limitations placed on it, as only those who paid sufficient tax could qualify. Only one out of every six citizens in France was allowed to vote in the first parliamentary elections, according to the constitution of 1791. [...]
he says later on that elections were "never actually intended as a democractic instrument in the first place" which is an interesting point that I'll need to incorporate into my theory of drift
104
Behold the pathogenesis of our electoral fundamentalism. The drawing of lots, the most democratic of all political instruments, lost out in the eighteenth century to elections, a procedure that was not invented as a democratic instrument but as a means of bringing a new, non-hereditary aristocracy to power. The extension of suffrage made that aristocratic procedure thoroughly democratic without relinquishing the fundamental, oligarchic distinction between governors and governed, between politicians and voters. [...] There was something unavoidably vertical about it, always above and below, always a government and its subjects. Voting became the service lift that brought a few to the top, retaining therefore something of an elective feudalism, a form of internal colonialism that everyone endorsed.
1948: Universal Declaration of Human Rights mentions elections; later, Francis Fukuyama defines a democratic country as one that holds elections
Behold the pathogenesis of our electoral fundamentalism. The drawing of lots, the most democratic of all political instruments, lost out in the eighteenth century to elections, a procedure that was not invented as a democratic instrument but as a means of bringing a new, non-hereditary aristocracy to power. The extension of suffrage made that aristocratic procedure thoroughly democratic without relinquishing the fundamental, oligarchic distinction between governors and governed, between politicians and voters. [...] There was something unavoidably vertical about it, always above and below, always a government and its subjects. Voting became the service lift that brought a few to the top, retaining therefore something of an elective feudalism, a form of internal colonialism that everyone endorsed.
1948: Universal Declaration of Human Rights mentions elections; later, Francis Fukuyama defines a democratic country as one that holds elections
124
[...] Referendums and deliberative democracy are similar in the sense that they turn directly to the ordinary citizen to ask his or her opinion, but other than that they are completely at odds with each other. In a referendum you ask everyone to vote on a subject that usually only a few know anything about, whereas in a deliberative project you ask a representative sample of people to consider a subject about which they are given all possible information. A referendum very often reveals people’s gut reactions; deliberations reveal enlightened public opinion.
[...] Referendums and deliberative democracy are similar in the sense that they turn directly to the ordinary citizen to ask his or her opinion, but other than that they are completely at odds with each other. In a referendum you ask everyone to vote on a subject that usually only a few know anything about, whereas in a deliberative project you ask a representative sample of people to consider a subject about which they are given all possible information. A referendum very often reveals people’s gut reactions; deliberations reveal enlightened public opinion.
150
Democracy is like clay, it’s shaped by its time and the concrete forms it takes are always moulded by historical circumstances. As a type of government to which consultation is central, it is extremely sensitive to the means of communication available. The democracy of ancient Athens was formed in part by the culture of the spoken word, and the electoral-representative democracy of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries thrived in the era of the printed word (the newspaper and other one-direction media such as radio, television and internet 1.0). Today, however, we are in an era of articulacy, of hyper-fast, decentralised communication, which has created new forms of political involvement. What kind of democracy is appropriate to it?
Democracy is like clay, it’s shaped by its time and the concrete forms it takes are always moulded by historical circumstances. As a type of government to which consultation is central, it is extremely sensitive to the means of communication available. The democracy of ancient Athens was formed in part by the culture of the spoken word, and the electoral-representative democracy of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries thrived in the era of the printed word (the newspaper and other one-direction media such as radio, television and internet 1.0). Today, however, we are in an era of articulacy, of hyper-fast, decentralised communication, which has created new forms of political involvement. What kind of democracy is appropriate to it?