The progressive movement serves its cause best when it adopts and communicates its position strictly in line with its core principles. Over two centuries ago these principles were most famously and best described in the immortal words of the American Founding Fathers:
"We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independant, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these ends, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government shall become destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying it's foundation on such principles and organising it's powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."
That many of those who subscribed to that original declaration acted entirely contrary to those principles (e.g. slave ownership) does not in any way detract from the essential truth of the words themselves. Genuine democracy remains the best means ever devised for giving life to the equality and freedom that is our natural state. But those in power who sing such beautiful songs in praise of democratic freedom rarely act in line with these principles. In fact they often work extremely hard to undermine them.
The West is often mistaken for a stronghold of global democracy (though the mistake is made less often outside its own borders). The freedom its peoples have won for themselves should not be underestimated, but that freedom is far from complete. In fact it is effectively undermined in many respects – most significantly by the fundamental conflict between the democratic and capitalist systems.
Democracies distribute social power – in the form of the vote – on the basis of human equality. Markets distribute social power – in the form of control over resources - according to ability to pay. Governments must answer to the electorate every four years or so, but they must answer to those who own the economy every day of the week. Every day those wealthy enough to own newspapers can put pressure on our government of the kind the average voter alone could never muster. Every day private employers can threaten to take their business somewhere they can employ people more cheaply and with less strings attached. Every day owners of capital can threaten to withdraw their resources from national economies unless these, and other favourable investment conditions, are created or enhanced. These pressures and threats - sometimes implicit, sometimes explicit, never democratic – govern capitalist democracies with much greater effectiveness than mere votes. And what are votes worth when we are allowed but one political ideology – extreme capitalism - to choose from?
Real and widespread popular freedom has never been a goal that social elites have striven for, but its promise certainly makes for a potent sales pitch. Just as the Bolsheviks used the promise of release from bondage to lure humanity into a dungeon, so western capitalist states use the language of freedom – laissez faire, the free market - to justify transferring economic power from the general population to narrow private ownership. But these privatisation programmes are designed to advance not the freedom of all people to pursue happiness on an equal basis but the freedom of the economically powerful to feed their self-interest. How free you are depends on how rich you are. Not quite the same as democratic equality. Contrast the dedication of our politicians and corporate media to the freedom to make profit with their views on the free movement of human beings to cross national borders in order to find work. The relative positions of money and real people in this value system are revealed in stark and depressing terms.
In the “War on Terror”, like the Cold War before it, western powers have eagerly grasped an opportunity to further debase the democratic ideal. The West has, to be sure, a record of alliances with capitalist democracies (e.g. NATO) and even of creating new ones (e.g. modern Germany and Japan). However, the West has also created, armed and otherwise backed some of the most brutal regimes in the post-war era. The rogues gallery includes such butchers as Pinochet, Suharto, Saddam Hussein, the Nicaraguan Contra death squads and many more; mass murderers who enjoyed material support from the west while they committed all their most vicious crimes. In addition the West has itself intervened to devastating effect where its creations and/or allies have failed to serve its interests. The more memorable highlights include the liberation of around 3 million souls from this mortal coil during the Vietnam War, and the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis through wars and economic sanctions. The theme common to all this behaviour is not a reverence for democracy or a yearning for human rights but the pursuit of policies designed to further Western strategic and economic interests whatever the human costs.
With this gruesome record in mind there is a real danger that people from Guatemala to Uzbekistan, from Angola to Iraq, will quite rationally come to see the democracy Western leaders speak of not as a dream to be aspired to but as a nightmare to recoil from. If westerners really believe what we say we believe in then our task is to reclaim our ideals from the spivs and used car salesmen that run our societies and to reacquaint them with their true meaning. The consequences of not doing so, at this point in history, scarcely bear contemplation.
"We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independant, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these ends, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government shall become destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying it's foundation on such principles and organising it's powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."
That many of those who subscribed to that original declaration acted entirely contrary to those principles (e.g. slave ownership) does not in any way detract from the essential truth of the words themselves. Genuine democracy remains the best means ever devised for giving life to the equality and freedom that is our natural state. But those in power who sing such beautiful songs in praise of democratic freedom rarely act in line with these principles. In fact they often work extremely hard to undermine them.
The West is often mistaken for a stronghold of global democracy (though the mistake is made less often outside its own borders). The freedom its peoples have won for themselves should not be underestimated, but that freedom is far from complete. In fact it is effectively undermined in many respects – most significantly by the fundamental conflict between the democratic and capitalist systems.
Democracies distribute social power – in the form of the vote – on the basis of human equality. Markets distribute social power – in the form of control over resources - according to ability to pay. Governments must answer to the electorate every four years or so, but they must answer to those who own the economy every day of the week. Every day those wealthy enough to own newspapers can put pressure on our government of the kind the average voter alone could never muster. Every day private employers can threaten to take their business somewhere they can employ people more cheaply and with less strings attached. Every day owners of capital can threaten to withdraw their resources from national economies unless these, and other favourable investment conditions, are created or enhanced. These pressures and threats - sometimes implicit, sometimes explicit, never democratic – govern capitalist democracies with much greater effectiveness than mere votes. And what are votes worth when we are allowed but one political ideology – extreme capitalism - to choose from?
Real and widespread popular freedom has never been a goal that social elites have striven for, but its promise certainly makes for a potent sales pitch. Just as the Bolsheviks used the promise of release from bondage to lure humanity into a dungeon, so western capitalist states use the language of freedom – laissez faire, the free market - to justify transferring economic power from the general population to narrow private ownership. But these privatisation programmes are designed to advance not the freedom of all people to pursue happiness on an equal basis but the freedom of the economically powerful to feed their self-interest. How free you are depends on how rich you are. Not quite the same as democratic equality. Contrast the dedication of our politicians and corporate media to the freedom to make profit with their views on the free movement of human beings to cross national borders in order to find work. The relative positions of money and real people in this value system are revealed in stark and depressing terms.
In the “War on Terror”, like the Cold War before it, western powers have eagerly grasped an opportunity to further debase the democratic ideal. The West has, to be sure, a record of alliances with capitalist democracies (e.g. NATO) and even of creating new ones (e.g. modern Germany and Japan). However, the West has also created, armed and otherwise backed some of the most brutal regimes in the post-war era. The rogues gallery includes such butchers as Pinochet, Suharto, Saddam Hussein, the Nicaraguan Contra death squads and many more; mass murderers who enjoyed material support from the west while they committed all their most vicious crimes. In addition the West has itself intervened to devastating effect where its creations and/or allies have failed to serve its interests. The more memorable highlights include the liberation of around 3 million souls from this mortal coil during the Vietnam War, and the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis through wars and economic sanctions. The theme common to all this behaviour is not a reverence for democracy or a yearning for human rights but the pursuit of policies designed to further Western strategic and economic interests whatever the human costs.
With this gruesome record in mind there is a real danger that people from Guatemala to Uzbekistan, from Angola to Iraq, will quite rationally come to see the democracy Western leaders speak of not as a dream to be aspired to but as a nightmare to recoil from. If westerners really believe what we say we believe in then our task is to reclaim our ideals from the spivs and used car salesmen that run our societies and to reacquaint them with their true meaning. The consequences of not doing so, at this point in history, scarcely bear contemplation.
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