News from within the empire - From a leftist perspective
any functioning democracy
Neither functioning, nor a democracy. The usa has ALWAYS been an oligarchy, rule by rich white males is written in the Constitution. But I guess if you realize it's real function is to transfer wealth from the working class to the oligarchs, then yeah, it is functioning as designed.
An oligarchy is just democracy for the ruling class
Bold of you to assume that the burguerstates are functioning or a democracy
That's where class analysis becomes important. Every state is a democracy for the class that holds power in society, and capitalist states are democracies for the capital owning class. As Lenin famously put it:
In capitalist society, providing it develops under the most favorable conditions, we have a more or less complete democracy in the democratic republic. But this democracy is always hemmed in by the narrow limits set by capitalist exploitation and consequently always remains, in effect, a democracy for the minority, only for the propertied classes, only for the rich. Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in the ancient Greek republics: freedom for the slave owners.
This is aka dictatorship of the burguergeois. Tbh nowdays i dont think its a democracy even between them. Things are rapidly degenerating into pure barbarism
I don’t think Hartmann is ever going to get there: he’ll never stop believing in liberal democracy. It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it — Upton Sinclair
indeed
"functioning" (I need some comically large quotes.)
I mean, as far as bourgeois "democracy" goes, it functions perfectly fine - as evidenced by this very article. The funneling of wealth and power to the capitalist class is a well-oiled machine
I need some comically large quotes for our "democracy", too.
I chuckled at that bit as well
"The Richest Democracy in the World"
No, it's China.
If anyone's interested, the 2nd most unequal society in the developed world is Israel.
Not surprised.
And we all know who's at the bottom of society there as well...
It was a shock to me how I actually had a better quality of life and standard of living in Saudi Arabia, which is why after 10 years in the US I decided to leave. The US does have more freedoms, specially the individualist kind, but in the day-to-day life I found myself more concerned catching up to bills than exercising any freedoms. In Saudi Arabia it was the opposite, I could think about what freedoms I was lacking because materially I had no worries.
Liberalism in action ladies, gentlemen, and folks of all genders, liberalism in action.