how different is today's democracy

[MrFun]

Re: how different is today's democracy

Originally posted by paiktis22
pericles as narated by thucidides said that he is useless the man who is not interested in koina, politics, the common things of all society.
yet today in the time of a lockesque and smithesque democracy one is interested only in property.
and what difference is the roussaue's approach in which the central in democracy is the freedom, not the property.
and as capitalism and democracy are drifting further apart you got to stop and see.
after the socialdemocrat solution failled to deliver we have entered a neoliberal hell where political representation is waning in the face of globalized economics and without a kensyan model we will soon be hit with another 1930. only it will be bigger if steps are not taken. too bad the commission has become the trojan horse of neoliberalism. too bad.

One of the underlying, fundamental elements of democracy, is that all citizens participate in one form or another, in their government.

Sadly, political apathy is high in United States -- particularly with voting. But anyway, the United States is more of a republic than a democracy.


As for the neo-liberal drooling over communism -- I'm just thankful I have not fallen under its hypnotic spell.

[Bereta_Eder]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

ithout a kensyan model we will soon be hit with another 1930.

What proof is there for this statement?

one could say it is a logical derivation. politics no longer have the power to influence economics. so we have a deficient representation. the main objective of globalized economics is to reduce costs to a minimum by takeing out the social state. that would lead to an optimum neoliberal environemnt. based on previous experience the combination of he abolision of social cohesion (through the disolution of the social state) and the abolition of state interference will produce such social tensions that without measures taken will produce two equally powerful results: the collapse of the economy due to over consentration of capital and its inability to autoregulate itself and the dissolution of the social fibre an immidiate result of the reducement to minimum of the social state.
then one could say a new circle of kensyan econopolitics will emerge in order to salvage and regulate the dead end of globalizzation. maybe it will be more socialisticdemocratic than the previous one

[Imran Siddiqui]

the abolition of state interference will produce such social tensions that without measures taken will produce two equally powerful results: the collapse of the economy due to over consentration of capital and its inability to autoregulate itself and the dissolution of the social fibre an immidiate result of the reducement to minimum of the social state.

How does that explain the state being much larger and powerful than it has been? Secondly, how will the economy collapse 1930s style, which was a Depression which hit its lows because of governmental policies (tight money policy and raising of tariffs?). In 1930, if they left the borders open and expanded money supply, it wouldn't nearly have been so bad.

[Bereta_Eder]

Re: Re: how different is today's democracy

Originally posted by MrFun



One of the underlying, fundamental elements of democracy, is that all citizens participate in one form or another, in their government.

i dont think that's true anymore. since the very governments themselves can't controll the flows of capital in the international arena we basically have limited representation compared to the past.

[MrFun]

Exactly, paiktis -- it just doesn't hold true today anymore.

[Bereta_Eder]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

the abolition of state interference will produce such social tensions that without measures taken will produce two equally powerful results: the collapse of the economy due to over consentration of capital and its inability to autoregulate itself and the dissolution of the social fibre an immidiate result of the reducement to minimum of the social state.

How does that explain the state being much larger and powerful than it has been? Secondly, how will the economy collapse 1930s style, which was a Depression which hit its lows because of governmental policies (tight money policy and raising of tariffs?). In 1930, if they left the borders open and expanded money supply, it wouldn't nearly have been so bad.

the size of the state has nothing to do with the social state. social state means welfare and/or social support to balance the inequalitites that the liberal economy's lack of autoregulation produces.
if the state gets larger maybe that's a way to try and still execute social policy?

what happened in octomber of 1929 was the result of the full adoptation of a liberal approach to economy, wouldnt you agree? that disaster led to the creation of social state and gov. intervention something that held societies together untill the '90s

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by paiktis22
what happened in octomber of 1929 was the result of the full adoptation of a liberal approach to economy, wouldnt you agree? that disaster led to the creation of social state and gov. intervention something that held societies together untill the '90s

No, not at all. The stock market crashed on 1929 and there would have been a recession, but a tight monetary policy and raising of tariffs (BOTH governmental policies) turned it into a Depression. If the government hadn't been so boneheaded, it probably wouldn't have been nearly as bad.

[Bereta_Eder]

what led to the crash was the inability of the liberal economic model to regulate itself thought, would you agree with that?
(i retain my reservations as to if the gov. intervations made it worse or better however what followeed and proved sucessful was the implementation of a kenysan model, gov. regulation was deemed necessairy to manage economy)

[Kuciwalker]

What caused the crash, however, didn't cause the Depression.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
What caused the crash, however, didn't cause the Depression.

[Dracon II]

I'm not afraid of a stock market crash like in 1929 or 1987... these were man-made disasters, and can be ameliorated and recovered from with sound economic policy and cooperation. What worries me are environmental disasters and resource shocks. These will have far more disastrous effects on the global economy than a mere devaluation of shares. If global warming, desertification etc become real problems, or if global oil production peaks... then we're in real trouble.

But I think Paiktis is right about the democratic deficit inherent in the combination of a global economy with politically separate nation-states. I think the economist Dani Rodrick put it best:

"We can have at most two out of the following three: a) high degrees of international economic integration, b) nation-states and c) mass politics."

The only solution, without rolling back globalization (potentially disastrous and anachronistic, if not impossible) is to evolve political power upwards. This is happening in the EU. Ultimately the only solution is a global state or a hegemonic economic and military power with the will and ability to reshape the global economy to the benefit of all. Both scenarios are currently pipe dreams.

In the meantime we can only find our respective comparative advantages, run with them... and promote regionalization... but not zero sum regionalization.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
What caused the crash, however, didn't cause the Depression.

No crash, no Depression.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Dracon II
If global warming, desertification etc become real problems

They are already real problems. Tropical diseases have been spreading into areas that never had them before. More violent and extreme weather, cyclones, sandstorms, etc.

Desertification is a real problem in Africa and in China.

[Dracon II]

They're still only localised threats with no major damage made to the global economy... but if they aren't dealt with now... we could be in trouble.