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Elaboration 28.1
There is plenty of confusion about what the term 'democracy'
is,
should be, might be, we translate, they call, etc. Some people
think that when you don't get shot immediately you have critic on
the government, others that it is the right to strike (unions,
contract-violation) might be democracy, others that it is the
abandonment of self-say and choosing some 'representatives' as
dictators, still others think it is democratic when information is
made available to the public, etc., etc. The confusio in terminis is
such that most readers and students soon give up altogether and just
don't apply any definition any more at all. They just garble on. Let
us, for a change, just define it as its very name already defines
it. 'The rule or governing of the people, by the people'. This is a
sort of continuous plebiscite, an unending referendum, which
necessitates a majority rule. Russell in his 'History of Western
Philosophy' comes up with the following, strange, statement:
"Athenian democracy, though it had the grave limitation of not
including slaves or women, was in some respects more democratic than
any modern system". This, clearly, is nonsense. Even when the rules
and rulings of these Athenians applied SOLELY to the 'chosen group',
and NOT to slaves and women, it certainly was not a democracy.
Slaves and women just 'had' to live there as well. When an 80% of a
people has not a deciding role, it cannot have been much of a
democracy. A mathematician like Russell should be more careful with
percentages. On the other hand, our proposed humane governmental
system here, namely 'Lottocracy', was thought to be democratic by
him. His next sentence reads: "Judges and most executive officers
were chosen by lot, and served for short periods". I would not call
our lottocracy a democracy, but a dictatorship by conscripts,
appointed by lot (non-discriminatory). Was Russell's mistake a slip
of the printer, it being read as 'aristocracy' instead? No ... ! He
repeats it some sentences further on: "Athens was rich and powerful,
not much troubled by wars, and possessed of a democratic
constitution administered by aristocrats". There is no mistake here.
But, ... the Athenians themselves might have called it so? Yes, but
Russell wrote in 1947, and should have been fully aware of the fact
that those slaves and women were just as human as we are, just as
human as that 'chosen group'. Moreover, other classics clearly
regarded this democracy as a fit punishment for their enemies. The
best thing here, in order to make discussion at all possible, is to
stick to democracy as being: the power to rule the people, to the
people, i.e. quite inhumane enough.
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Ven
2007-09-11