Re: [ox] Demokratie vs. Freie Gesellschaft
- From: cr iac-research.ch (Christoph Reuss)
- Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 00:32:24 +0200
Hi Stefan & alle,
Stefan Merten schrieb gestern:
3 weeks (23 days) ago Christoph Reuss wrote:
zu diesem Thema und dem geposteten Dialog sei gesagt, dass der angebrachte
Vergleich prinzipiell *hinkt*, weil er die *real existierende* Demokratie
mit einem *Idealbild* der Freien Gesellschaft vergleicht. Ein fairer
Vergleich wäre zwischen den Idealbildern beider Gesellschaftsformen, d.h.
zwischen GPL-Gesellschaft und echter, *direkter* (Basis-)Demokratie
-- von der unsere heutigen sogenannten "Demokratien" mindestens so weit
entfernt sind, wie der real existierende Apparatschik-Kommunismus der
UdSSR vom marxistischen Idealbild entfernt war.
Die Verbindung zwischen Kapitalismus und Demokratie ist gar nicht
zwingend, sondern Demokratie ist durchaus losgelöst vom Kapitalismus
realisierbar -- in der Tat sogar viel besser. Deine Kritik richtet
sich denn auch vielmehr gegen die kapitalistischen Aspekte der heute
real existierenden "Demokratien" als gegen die Demokratie selbst --
Du meinst den Esel aber schlägst den Sack, oder wie der Spruch geht...
(Das Subject sollte also eher heissen: "Kapitalismus vs. Freie Ges.")
Hmm... Würdest du im Umkehrschluß sagen, daß Demokratie eine mögliche
politische Form in der GPL-Gesellschaft sein könnte?
Ja, ich denke die beiden würden ganz gut zueinander passen. (Aber du
kannst das vermutlich besser beurteilen -- ich weiss noch zuwenig über
die GPL-Gesellschaft ;-) )
Schon deshalb, weil Wissens- und Geld-Hortung tendenziell Ungleichheiten
verstärken, welche die freie/informierte Meinungsbildung und somit die
Demokratie verzerren (oft "bis zur Unkenntlichkeit" -- Stichworte:
Medien-Kartelle, firmen-interne Undemokratie, Abstimmungspropaganda;
Tretmühle-Arbeiten ==> keine Zeit zum Internet-Lesen, ...).
Es gibt da ein interessantes Chomsky-Zitat über das Verhältnis zwischen
Ressourcenverteilung und Demokratie, das schon etwas in Richtung
GPL-Gesellschaft weist (oder?) -- s. unten.
Gruss,
Christoph R
___________________________________FWD___________________________________
This is from an interview with Noam Chomsky in The Sun magazine titled
"The Common Good", November 1997.
"...I started from the beginning, with Aristotle's POLITICS, which is the
foundation for most subsequent political theory. Aristotle took it for
granted that a democracy would be fully participatory - with the notable
exception of women and slaves - and would aim to promote the common good.
But he argued that, in order to achieve its goal, the democracy would have
to endure "lasting prosperity to the poor" and "moderate and sufficient
property" for everyone. If there were extremes of poor and rich, or if you
didn't have lasting prosperity for everyone, Aristotle thought, then you
couldn't talk seriously about having democracy.
Another point Aristotle made was that if you have a perfect democracy, yet
have big differences of wealth - a small number of very rich people and a
large number of very poor - then the poor will use their democratic muscle
to take away the property of the rich. He regarded this as unjust and
offered two possible solutions. One was to reduce poverty. The other was to
reduce democracy.
A couple of thousand years later, when our Founding Fathers were writing
the Constitution, James Madison noticed the same problem, but whereas
Aristotle's preferred solution had been to reduce poverty, Madison's was to
reduce democracy. He said quite explicitly in the Constitutional Convention
that, if we had a true democracy, then the poor majority would use its
power to demand what nowadays we would call agrarian reform, and that
couldn't be tolerated. The primary goal of government, in Madison's words,
is "to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority." He also
pointed out that, as time went on, this problem was going to get worse,
because a growing part of the population would suffer serious inequities
and "secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of [life's] blessings." He
therefore designed a system that would ensure democracy didn't function.
As he put it, power would be in the hands of the "more capable of men,"
those who held "the wealth of the nation," and the rest would be
factionalized and marginalized in various ways. ..."
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