Aug
18
Democracy by Paul Ginsborg
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Ginsborg’s book on democracy is one of the more thoughtful contributions I’ve read to a debate I’ve been following for the last 10 years.It begins and ends with a mythical debate on democracy between Marx and Mill, contrasting the Marxist and libertarian traditions in democracy.
He sets out 3 paradoxes:
- Direct democacy and communist dictatorship
- The simultaneous triumph and crisis of liberal democracy
- The democratic deficit of the EU
There was an interesting analysis of:
- The absence of any real discussion about families in Marxism
- The lack of civil society connections as a means of bringing about communism
- The flaws of a participative democracy which requires too active a citizen
There’s the most useful overview of the participative democracy in Porto Alegre. One of the key features is that its really an annual process which goes through a series of filters, examination etc.
There’s also a really nice quote from Marx which matches some of Godin’s points about sheepwalking:
“When alienated labour tears from man the object of his production it also tears from him his species-life . . . and turns the advantage he has over animals into a disadvantage in that his inorganic body, nature, is torn from him.”
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