Democracy is one of the most popular yet disputed ideas around. Invoked by the US to justify invasions, it is also the stated aim of the Arab revolutions.
Israel claims democratic elections give it the right to murder Palestinians, while they themselves struggle for the democratic right of self-determination. Even on the left democracy is sometimes controversial. Many in the Occupy movement consider majority decision-making and representative structures to be flawed and oppressive. They therefore fall back on consensus reached within relatively small groupings. Still others simply opt out, deeply disillusioned by the contrast between the rhetoric and actual operation of the current political system.
This article will argue that democracy is not only possible but essential if ordinary people are to collectively control their destiny. Today economic crisis exposes the web of interconnections linking humanity across the globe.
That urgently poses the issue of how key decisions are reached, and what they should be. To stand aside from this is to leave unchallenged the 1 percent who dominate the 99 percent. Yet the difficulties remain. Parliamentary democracy is rightly contrasted with the fraudulent procedures of dictatorships such as Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia. One common explanation for the failure of democracy under capitalism is subversion due to infrequent elections, lack of mechanisms for accountability, the appointment of civil servants, judges, army generals and so on.
Ralph Miliband sees one source of the problem arising from:. This has merit, but replacing the personnel or altering recruitment procedures would not solve the fundamental problem. Bourgeois democracy does not fail the majority because of some flaw in the constitution.
