It seems logical to talk about in which state we could be most free. It is now believed that democracy is the ideal of a free state, where citizens have the right to choose their own future. However, democracy was not always considered an ideal (well, or at least good) political system. The democratic system, especially the modern one, has flaws that in a certain sense make it a source of unfreedom.
Parthenon, Athens / Forwardcom, Bigstockphoto.com
ancient democracy
As I have already noted, in Greek cities, as in all such small state formations, the social structure was often either democratic or strongly dependent on popular opinion. Nevertheless, the notion was widely held that democracy was perhaps the worst type of government.
This is due to several reasons. First of all, this was thought primarily by representatives of the intellectual elite of society, which, of course, was formed thanks to the availability of money and time for education, that is, it was also the political, military and economic elite at the same time. Second, the age-old problem with majority-voted democracy is that the majority can ignore and suppress the opinions of the minority. Accordingly, the uneducated masses of the population could suppress the educated minority. Finally, the uneducated population often succumbed to the influence of demagogues who promised well-being for everyone, but did not necessarily fulfill their promises.
In addition, it is also worth noting that democracies can be slow to make decisions due to the fact that they require discussion in which a large number of people participate in order to function. And this discussion distracts people from other activities. That is why democracies were usually slave-owning communities in which non-political activities were shifted to slaves.
In this regard, philosophers in their theories preferred aristocratic or monarchical structures, because then the rulers would be well educated, noble and educated and would know how best to manage society. However, the consequences of corrupting the rulers in this case will be more dangerous. Therefore, it was believed that democracy is the worst type of government, since, for the reasons listed above, democratic societies are not capable of great good, but at the same time, their advantage is their inability to do great evil.
And this prejudice towards democracy persisted for a very long time, until, firstly, the intellectual, political, economic and military elites were finally divided, secondly, the idea of the equality of all people arose, and, secondly, thirdly, the people did not begin to be perceived as a source of power. Together, these three changes led to a radical transformation in the perception of democracy, making it a desirable form of government. After all, if power comes from the people, then it is logical that the people should rule the state.
Matt Briney / Unsplash.com
modern democracy
However, modern democracy is very different from ancient democracy. Its main difference is that in Greek policies democracy was direct: everyone who had the right to vote gathered in the square and participated in the discussion and voting. Modern democracy is representative, mediated. The Greeks would rather call such a device an aristocracy, even though the people seem to have influence on power, and any citizen can technically become one of the rulers.
However, the fact that we can do it according to the law does not mean at all that we can really do it, because our possibilities are determined not only by the law, but also by the means available to us. Election to parliament requires a lot of effort, time and money, which most people cannot afford. In addition, it usually also requires certain legal, sociological and political science knowledge, which many people also cannot afford to acquire. Finally, a political career also requires connections.
Therefore, the phenomenon has now become widespread, when the political elite of the country is made up of graduates of one university or even one faculty, because it is there that rich and influential people are concentrated, who, while receiving education, also acquire useful connections. And usually these graduates are children from wealthy families whose parents studied in the same place and also participated in political life. This is due to the fact that only members of these families can afford a good enough education to enter these faculties, and have enough money to pay for education there.
This is exacerbated by the fact that the economic elite also remains relatively unchanged. For example, a recent study in Florence showed that the richest families in the city in the 21st century are the same families that were the richest five hundred years ago.
That is, thanks to the merging of political and economic elites, as well as due to the political system itself, a closed aristocratic circle is formed, whose members participate in government. People from this circle are divided into parties, depending on political preferences, but at the same time remain friends. Ideology cannot separate them, since their own position does not depend on the policy pursued by them. The voters are given a choice that is actually illusory, since we do not choose our political elite, but only choose which part of the existing elite will have more power in the near future.
Therefore, in essence, these parties are not much different from each other. Their real task is not to carry out social transformations, but to maintain the status quo. Any overly radical proposals can cause either popular anger or the anger of lobbyists. Parties strive to form programs that would satisfy the largest part of the population.
Here again one of the original problems of democracy arises - the dictatorship of the majority. Drawing up their programs with an eye on the desires of the majority, parties are created almost identical and emasculated, with very minor changes that appeal to one or another part of the population. So, in fact, the majority, or rather, majority-oriented democracy, itself hinders social transformations in modern democratic communities. Since any unusual, innovative ideas are perceived with caution by the people, politicians usually do not even dare to express them, as this can lead to defeat in the elections.
Alexandru Nika / Bigstockphoto.com
All of the above does not mean that democracy in itself is bad. Rather, it is far from perfect. However, it can be improved. And for this it is necessary to overcome the problems I have noted: the representativeness of democracy, which leads to the removal of the people from government and the concentration of power in the hands of a narrow stratum of society, and the dictatorship of the majority, which, on the one hand, prevents significant social changes, and on the other hand, suppresses the will of minorities. To do this, a democratic system needs such mechanisms for involving people in political activity that would allow them to participate in it regardless of origin, education, social status and past merit or sins and reach any level in the power hierarchy.
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A political system that gives citizens the right to participate in the political decision-making process and elect their representatives to government bodies.
Great Definition
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DEMOCRACY
DEMOCRACY) In ancient Greek society, democracy meant rule by citizens, as opposed to rule by a tyrant or an aristocracy. In modern democratic systems, the citizens do not rule directly; they usually elect their representatives to parliament through a competitive party system. Democracy in this sense is often associated with the protection of individual freedoms from state interference. There are several stages in the history of sociological studies of democracy. Many concepts of democracy developed in the 19th century, such as those of A. de Tocqueville, focused on the social consequences of giving traditionally subordinate groups the opportunity for greater political participation - a theme subsequently developed by mass society theorists. More recent work has explored the relationship between social development and parliamentary democracy. Researchers have tried to link democracy with the degree of industrialization, the level of educational achievement, and the amount of national wealth. At the same time, it was noted that democracy is naturally supported by a higher level of industrial development, which ensures a wider participation of the population in politics. Other approaches have focused on the question of how democracy in trade unions can lead to bureaucracy, and on the relationship between democracy and citizenship. There is a current debate about whether modern democracies truly represent the interests of their citizens or protect individual freedoms. Some state theorists argue that Democrats only serve the interests of an elite or capitalist class. See also: Associative Democracy; Vote; Citizenship; Voluntary organizations; industrial democracy; Capitalism; Michels; Political parties; political participation; Elite. Lit.: Dahl (1989); Pierson (1996)
Great Definition
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- Democracy (ancient Greek δημοκρατία - “power of the people”, from δῆμος - “people” and κράτος - “power”) is a political regime based on the method of collective decision-making with equal influence of participants on the outcome of the process or on its essential stages. Although this method is applicable to any social structures, today its most important application is the state, since it has great power. In this case, the definition of democracy is usually narrowed down to one of the following:
The appointment of leaders by the people they govern takes place through fair and competitive elections.
The people are the only legitimate source of power
The society exercises self-government for the common good and satisfaction of common interests
Popular government requires the provision of a number of rights for each member of society. A number of values are associated with democracy: legality, political and social equality, freedom, the right to self-determination, human rights, etc.
Since the ideal of democracy is difficult to achieve and subject to various interpretations, many practical models have been proposed. Until the 18th century, the best-known model was direct democracy, where citizens exercise their right to make political decisions directly, through consensus or through procedures for subordinating a minority to a majority. In a representative democracy, citizens exercise the same right through their elected deputies and other officials by delegating some of their own rights to them, while the elected leaders make decisions taking into account the preferences of those who are led and are accountable to them for their actions.
One of the main goals of democracy is to limit arbitrariness and abuse of power. This goal was often not achieved where human rights and other democratic values were not universally recognized or were not effectively protected by the legal system. Today, in many countries, democracy by the people is identified with liberal democracy, which, along with fair, periodic and universal elections of supreme powers in which candidates freely compete for the votes of the electorate, includes the rule of law, the separation of powers, and constitutional restrictions on the power of the majority through guarantees certain personal or group freedoms. On the other hand, left-wing movements, prominent economists, as well as such representatives of the Western political elite as former US President Barack Obama, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde argue that the realization of the right to make political decisions, the influence of ordinary citizens on the country's policy is impossible without ensuring social rights, equality of opportunity and a low level of socio-economic inequality.
A number of authoritarian regimes had outward signs of democratic rule, but in them only one party had power, and the policies pursued did not depend on the preferences of the voters. Over the past quarter century, the world has been characterized by a trend towards the spread of democracy. Among the relatively new problems facing it are separatism, terrorism, population migration, and the growth of social inequality. International organizations such as the UN, OSCE and EU believe that control over the internal affairs of the state, including issues of democracy and respect for human rights, should be partly in the sphere of influence of the international community.
Among all existing types of state sovereignty, democracy is the only form of government in which powers are assigned to the majority, regardless of its origin and merits.
Today it is the most widespread and progressive type of political regime in the world, characterized by continuous development and species diversity.
This form of government is devoted to many works of philosophers and scientists of all times.
Democracy is a system of government in which power is recognized by the people and exercised on the basis of legally expressed equal rights and freedoms of citizens.
Democracy is inseparable from the concept of the state, as it arose along with it.
* State- a political form of organization of society, implemented in a certain territory.
The History of Democracy
Democracy was born in 507 BC. e. in Ancient Greece as one of the forms of popular self-government by ancient city-states. Therefore, literally from ancient Greek democracy translated as "power of the people": from demos - people and kratos - power.
It's interesting that demos the Greeks did not name the whole people, but only free citizens, endowed with rights, but not related to aristocrats.
General signs of democracy
The essential features of a democratic system are:
- The people are the source of power.
- The electoral principle is the basis for the formation of state self-government bodies.
- Equality of civil rights, with the priority of the electoral.
- Leadership of the majority opinion in controversial issues.
Signs of modern democratic states
In the process of historical development, democracy has developed new features, including:
- the supremacy of the Constitution;
- separation of powers into legislative, executive and judicial;
- the priority of human rights over the rights of the state;
- recognition of the rights of minorities to freely express their opinions;
- constitutional consolidation of the priority of the rights of the majority over the minority, etc.
Principles of democracy
The system-forming provisions of democracy, of course, are reflected in its features. In addition to political freedoms and civil equality, the election of state bodies and the separation of powers, the following principles should be noted:
- The will of the majority should not infringe on the rights of the minority.
- Pluralism is the socio-political diversity that underlies freedom of choice and expression. It implies a plurality of political parties and public associations.
Types of Democracy
Existing varieties of democracy speak of the ways in which people can exercise their power:
- Straight- Citizens themselves, without intermediaries, discuss some issue and put its decision to a vote
- Plebiscite(considered a variation of the direct line) — Citizens can only vote for or against a decision they had no part in preparing.
- representative- Decisions for citizens are made by their representatives in power, who received popular votes in the elections.
Democracy in the modern world
Democracies today are representative democracies. In them, the people's will, in contrast to ancient society, is expressed through elected representatives (deputies) in parliament or local governments.
Representative democracy makes possible the popular government of a large state with a large territory and population.
However, in all forms of modern democracy there are elements of direct democracy, such as referendums, direct presidential elections, plebiscites.
Greek demos - people, kratos - power) - in the literal sense of the word, democracy, that is, such a form of state in which power belongs to the people, exercising their will either directly (direct D.), or through the deputies elected by them, who form representative bodies states (representative D.).
Under the conditions of an exploitative antagonistic class system, democracy, as one of the forms of the exploiting state, cannot be anything other than a specific form of organizing the political power of this or that dominant exploiting minority, its dictatorship. The principle of democracy formally proclaimed under these conditions is a hypocritical cover for the dictatorship of the minority, that is, the exploiters.
As a form of state distinct from a monarchy, democracy is known even to the first type of state in history—the slaveholding type. The classic example of slave-owning D. was the ancient direct D. in the Athenian state. In the Republic of Athens, state administration was carried out by popular assemblies, which elected officials and resolved the most important state issues. However, Athenian democracy extended only to the slave-owning minority of the population and consolidated the actual domination of the top of this population, free citizens, whose number by the time of the highest prosperity of Athens, “... including women and children, consisted of approximately 90,000 souls, along with 365,000 slaves of both gender and 45,000 residents with no rights - foreigners and freedmen" (Engels F., The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, 1950, p. 123). Slaves in a slave-owning society were not considered people at all; for slave-owners, they were only tools of production, things.
Demolition acquired its most false forms in an exploiting society during the period when the bourgeois social and state system replaced the feudal social and state system as a result of the victory of the bourgeois revolution. The development of the capitalist structure that had formed in the depths of the feudal society required the abolition of serfdom and feudal privileges, the equalization of citizens before the law. The bourgeoisie has proclaimed its state an instrument of the "nationwide" will, expressed in laws adopted by parliament, but in reality it is an instrument of the bourgeoisie's domination over the majority of the population. Compared with the absolutist-feudal state, bourgeois democracy, which finds its organizational expression in the formal domination of the constitutional-parliamentary system, the proclamation of the elementary freedoms and rights of citizens, and the equality of citizens before the law, was undoubtedly a significant step forward in the course of human development. “A bourgeois republic, a parliament, universal suffrage—all this represents tremendous progress from the point of view of the world-wide development of society” (V. I. Lenin, Soch., vol. 29, p. 449). However, democracy proclaimed by the bourgeoisie for all, declaring the rights and freedoms of citizens regardless of their class position, actually meant and means freedom only for the exploiting minority of capitalist society. Under the conditions of the capitalist system, the exploited majority of the people cannot, in fact, enjoy democratic rights and freedoms, which, by virtue of this, are only formal, pseudo-democratic rights and freedoms. Moreover, when the bourgeoisie proclaims democratic principles in its constitutions, it usually makes such reservations and restrictions that democratic "rights" and "freedoms" turn out to be completely mutilated. For example, constitutions proclaim equality of suffrage rights for all citizens and immediately contain the limitation of these rights by settled residence, educational and property qualifications. They proclaim equal rights of citizens and immediately make a reservation that they do not apply in full or in part to women or to certain nationalities. The bourgeoisie widely resorted to this method of mutilating democratic rights and freedoms, formally granted to everyone, immediately after coming to power. Bourgeois democracy is inevitably, therefore, hypocritical and fictitious. position. Lenin, in his lecture “On the State,” emphasized with all his might that “... every state in which there is private ownership of land and the means of production, where capital dominates, no matter how democratic it may be, is a capitalist state It is a machine in the hands of the capitalists to keep the working class and the poorest peasantry in subjection. And universal suffrage, the Constituent Assembly, the parliament are only a form, a kind of bill of exchange, which does not change the matter in the least” (V. I. Lenin, Soch., vol. 29, p. 448). “Capital, once it exists, dominates the whole of society, and no democratic republic, no suffrage changes the essence of the matter” (ibid., p. 449).
In the epoch of imperialism, as a result of the growth of the forces of the working class, the bourgeoisie is no longer able to govern by the former methods of bourgeois-parliamentary pseudo-democracy; it turns sharply from bourgeois democracy to reaction. By adapting the state and law to the requirements of the basic economic law of modern capitalism, the imperialist bourgeoisie abolishes or flagrantly violates those laws previously issued by the bourgeois state, which proclaimed elementary democratic rights and freedoms; establishes new, truly draconian laws that make life unbearable for all progressive-minded people; goes over to methods of terrorist reprisals against progressive organizations, to rampant lawlessness and arbitrariness, to the fascistization of the entire bourgeois state (see Fascism).
“Earlier,” JV Stalin said at the 19th Party Congress, “the bourgeoisie allowed itself to be liberal, defended bourgeois-democratic freedoms and thus created popularity among the people. Now there is no trace left of liberalism. There is no longer the so-called "freedom of the individual" - the rights of the individual are now recognized only for those who have capital, and all other citizens are considered raw human material, suitable only for exploitation. and the lack of rights of the exploited majority of citizens. The banner of bourgeois-democratic freedoms has been thrown overboard" ("Speech at the 19th Party Congress", 1952, p. 12). Using the example of the modern United States, which is at the head of the imperialist and anti-democratic from bourgeois demolition to reaction along all lines.
Genuine democracy, genuine popular power become possible only as a result of the overthrow of the rule of the exploiting classes and the establishment of a state of the socialist type. This has been shown with the utmost clarity by the experience of the USSR and the people's democracies.
The replacement of bourgeois democracy by socialist democracy (see) is “... a gigantic, world-historical expansion of democracy, its transformation from lies into truth, the liberation of mankind from the fetters of capital, which distorts and curtails any, even the most“ democratic ”and republican, bourgeois democracy” (V. I. Lenin, Soch., vol. 28, p. 348).
The victory of the USSR over Nazi Germany demonstrated the superiority of socialist democracy over the deceitful bourgeois democracy.
The Soviet socialist system, the Soviet socialist democracy, withstood the severe trials of the war with honor and emerged from it even stronger and more indestructible. The forces of genuine socialist democracy are growing and strengthening every day.
Great Definition
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