Politics and Democracy

            What is politics?

            Didn’t expect that one to be so hard did you?

            Merriam-Webster offers a variety of definitions for the word. The ones that matter to us are “the art or science of winning and holding control over a government,” “political affairs or business, especially: competition between competing interest groups or individuals for power and leadership” and “the total complex of relations between people living in society.” But if we really tighten our definition up a little we can discard the first. Then we can combine the two that remain and strive for a bit of universality.

            Let’s call politics “the total complex of power relations between people living in society.” Then we make it very clear. Politics is about who has power, how they use it and who benefits from it.

            We talk a lot about democracy when we talk about politics these days. We assume we have democracy and we assume it’s under threat. The media tells us that it’s under threat by Donald Trump and his supporters. The Democrats tell us it’s under threat by Republicans in general. Everyone takes it for granted that we know what democracy is too.

            So what is democracy?

            Back to our good friend Merriam-Webster we go. Once again we’re given a few choices but one of them really appears to apply to us: “a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people (emphasis mine) and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.” It’s even clear and doesn’t require a lot of alteration or mashing together to be clear and universal.

            A democracy is a government in which “the people” have the power. Politicians run for office, everyone votes and the winners of elections take power. It sounds pretty fair and above board. Majority rule may have its drawbacks and folks may have to compromise a lot, but the people will get to decide what happens in their society. The trouble is how to decide who “the people” are. We hear this in our elections as people talk about “the real America” and “real Americans” with a clear view that these are the people.

            The US government was formed by a gentleman’s agreement between political and economic elites. It didn’t represent the whole of the people so much as it represented the interests and views of those who considered themselves the natural leaders of the people. They put their stamp on the constitution that created our system of politics and government. Their system was democratic but it very carefully defined who “the people” allowed to participate were. Our Constitution was written for people who saw themselves as major stakeholders in the country. It was written for people like them.

            What are some features of this stakeholder democracy? Capitalism is the most obvious. The crushing stress of capitalism is used to force us to do what the capitalists want because we need money. Actual violence isn’t usually necessary. When political violence does happen it’s very easy to see who benefits. Our stakeholder democracy uses the rule of law to support capitalism. This leads to the second feature of stakeholder democracy: the state’s power to decide whether violence is justified and whom it is justified to use violence against.

            The immediate alternative to stakeholder democracy is social democracy. This requires a reorientation of the state from the interests of those with significant property to the political equality and economic welfare of the society as a whole. This doesn’t necessarily mean state ownership of industry. It could mean strong labor protections and a robust welfare state. It does mean shifting power away from capitalists and toward the working class. This will rebuild the middle class that decades of corporate piracy have hollowed out.

            The problem is that “resistance” is more than just getting rid of President Trump. The Republican Party will still be there. Even if the Democrats take the presidency in 2020, they don’t exactly have a track record of rejecting capitalist stakeholders do they? Resistance is something that doesn’t stop until we have taken back our power. The political elite are scared of that. That’s why you see and feel so much pressure to fall behind the best candidate, no matter what.

            Falling in behind the leader someone tells you to follow is not resistance. Real resistance means fighting to change our political system for the better.