The voter turnout in the recent US midterm elections was the lowest it had been in 72 years.
With less than 29 percent of eligible voters casting votes, Indiana,
Texas, Utah and New York were the states with the lowest totals. But
with a turnout of 36.3 percent, the national average was not much
higher. One has to go back to 1942 to find a lower percentage.
The trend toward lower voter turnout is a
general one, present in many contemporary democracies. There are many
explanations for this phenomenon, but an important factor is people’s
disaffection toward the current political system. People’s trust in
democratic institutions and in the electoral procedures for appointing
those in charge of these institutions is constantly decreasing.
Even those who keep participating in the electoral game do not have much confidence in the system. According to the exit polls,
only 10 percent of those who voted in the midterm elections on November
4 trust the government in Washington to do what is right all or most of
the time.
People’s lack of trust is not difficult to
explain. Contemporary democracies are not real democracies. To a large
extent, they are just pseudo-democracies. Real democracy requires strong
and equally shared popular control over decisions that affect people’s
well-being and freedom. But in contemporary democracies, the decisions
that affect people’s well-being and freedom are not taken (directly or
indirectly) by ordinary people. Ordinary people have, at most, a
superficial influence on such decisions.
Many of these decisions are taken by elected
politicians, or by unelected officials selected and appointed by elected
politicians. Most of the time, these politically powerful individuals
are entirely unresponsive to the interests, needs and requests of
ordinary people. These individuals are unresponsive to the interests of
the 99% because they can advance their own interests by protecting and
furthering the interests of the ultrarich. And furthering the interests
of the ultrarich often requires ignoring or thwarting the interests of
ordinary people.
Moreover, many decisions that significantly
affect the well-being and freedom of ordinary people are not even under
the control of elected politicians or their appointees. Instead, they
are in the hands of multinational corporations and financial firms, or
more precisely in the hands of those who control such organizations.
Multinational corporations and financial
firms have enormous power. They exploit every profit-making opportunity
they can find, and they give very little back to the national or local
communities that are often responsible for the existence of such
profit-making opportunities.
These organizations bypass and avoid
restrictive national legislation by moving their operations from one
country to another, or by aggressively lobbying elected politicians and
regulators. They try to eliminate any barrier to the maximization of
their profits – whatever its nature and irrespective of the fact that
this elimination often imposes huge hidden costs on ordinary people.
These costs manifest themselves, for example, in the form of pollution
(and thereby poorer health), a worsening of working conditions, wage
depression, cuts in public spending or a higher public debt.
Despite the myths disseminated by these
organizations, the wealth that they extract from our communities, and
from the natural and social resources that rightfully belong to our
communities, does not trickle down. With the help of elected
politicians, such wealth is never fairly redistributed.
People’s trust in democratic institutions is
disappearing because there is hardly any democracy left in democratic
regimes. People’s trust in democratic regimes is evaporating because democracy itself is evaporating.
Political power is becoming ever more
concentrated in the hands of a small group of individuals: the ultrarich
and those – including politicians and bureaucrats – who work for them.
Many people crave real democracy, but they
realize that participating in the electoral game is not a way for them
to satisfy this craving. They realize that the electoral game is simply
of way of selecting between competing elites, and that the competition
is not a real competition. The competing elites are often extremely
similar to each other in their backgrounds and in their plans, and they
often end up doing similar things once in power.
This explains why some of those who crave
real democracy often do not vote, or vote only when they have a feeling –
often a short-lived and fleeting feeling – that their vote might, just
for once, make some kind of difference, for example, in some
presidential elections. And it also explains why some of those who crave
real democracy do vote – but out of habit and not because they think
voting is a way for them to exercise control over political decision
making.
The craving for real democracy is an
important component of human nature, both in its biological and in its
social and cultural elements. Unfortunately, this does not mean that
everyone has it, and it does not mean that it will always be there. But
it means that many people crave real democracy because only with real
democracy do they have a real chance to protect and advance all of their
fundamental human interests.
These include the interest in finding a
decent job with decent working conditions, the interest in being healthy
and in living in social and natural environments that preserve and
promote physical and mental health, the interest in not being exploited
by rapacious oligarchies, and so on. But these fundamental interests
also include the interest in living a life not determined by the will of
others and the fundamental interest in being able to contribute to
determining one’s own future, the future of one’s community and the
future of humanity.
People who crave real democracy are
increasingly rejecting the way current democratic regimes work and the
standard way the electoral game is played. These people – and the
movements that support and try to convey their ideas – are often labeled
as being “anti-politics.”
But, in truth, these people and these movements are not against
politics as such. Rather they are against the (often perverse) form of
political decision making that finds expression in contemporary
democracies.
These people and these movements are in favor
of another way of doing politics, one that embraces genuine popular
control. They are against fake democracy and in favor of real democracy.
Their “anti-political” attitude is itself a noble political stance.
The current prospects for real democracy are
bleak. But the future of democracy will also depend on the way this
attitude, and the democratic craving for real democracy that underpins
it, will develop and find expression in our fast-evolving world.
There's very little to argue with here - 'decent job and decent working conditions' in a socialist society would translate as each contributing according to ability and self-determined choice whilst recognising the importance of health and safety for all in their 'work.' 'Real Democracy' is the goal of socialists everywhere, meaningful democracy for all. Our business is spreading the truth about what socialism stands for and dispelling myths and misunderstandings.
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