Repost: Liberal Democracy is Bourgeois Dictatorship

So for a long while I have been contemplating the nature of our democracy.  This question goes back to the very beginnings of my becoming aware of politics. While I have undergone a major shift in my political thinking over the years, my pursuit for understanding of liberal democracy has continued. As of late I have been rereading many of the works by Marx and Lenin (most notably the Critique of the Gotha Programme by Marx and Engels and The State and Revolution by Lenin) and have been philosophically confronted with the opposing forces constantly at work within democracy and how those forces effect our democracy.

In many different works, and in may different ways, Marxists of all tendencies have stated that liberal, or bourgeois, democracy is in fact a dictatorship of the bourgeois over the rest of society. While there are some reformist socialists who disagree with this sentiment, the majority of Marxists would agree with the aforementioned assessment. I am inclined to agree with my fellow Marxists and here are my reasons:

1. Liberal democracy is a shade pulled over the eyes of the masses in order to hide or obscure the true nature of the "democracy."
2. The capitalist system, by its very nature, prevents the emergence of true democracy.
3. If true democracy were to exist, the capitalist system would collapse.
4. Because of the previous statement, capitalists will never allow society, no matter how liberal, to become fully democratic because that would entail them losing all of their influence over politics and state power.

I will now address and explain my reasons one by one.

Liberal democracy is a shade pulled over the eyes of the masses in order to hide or obscure the true nature of the "democracy." This is most likely to be the most difficult to understand and most resisted reason anyone would believe Marxist assertions on the nature of democracy. Why, the doubters and deniers say, if democracy is a hollow shell are we allowed to vote? Isn't the very fact that there are free and open elections enough evidence that liberal democracy is true democracy? I will answer these questions with another question: what defines "democracy?" Democracy is Greek for "rule of the masses." This means that if you are going to say you are a democracy then the masses must rule. But in a liberal, bourgeois democracy the masses do not rule. Rule is carried out by economic and political elites who make decisions that effect everyone with little or no input from the average person. Every so many years a few, mostly rich, individuals stand in front of large crowds of people saying "elect me and I will do X, Y, and Z in your name" and for some reason we believe them.

The vast majority of the actions undertaken by our elected officials serve only their own interests or the interests of their wealthy financiers. I would ask any person to come up with a single piece of substantial legislation recently that has helped only regular people. If just one rich person or company or corporation is aided then the legislation is automatically disqualified from consideration. I say this because even in the most seemingly populist legislation there are articles and provisions that directly or indirectly aid those in power at the expense of the average person. Want a tax break for Walmart so they can "create jobs", you are supporting the bourgeois by allowing them to pay lower taxes. Want to make a sales tax to pay for new road construction, you are indirectly hurting millions of people who live paycheck to paycheck who are hurt by sales taxes on a hugely unproportional level compared to the rich.

Democracy serves only as a means to legitimize the rule of the wealthy. Look at any legislature in a liberal democracy and you will see a mass of individuals who are wealthy. Not a single member of the US Congress lives under the poverty line. Compare this to the fact that 16% of the US population live in families that earn less than $27,000 a year. A US Congressperson earns $174,000 per year. No matter how you try to justify that, you are left with the fact that this automatically places our political leaders into the echelons of the wealthy elite while the vast majority of Americans are left in the dust. I don't know about you but I don't trust some rich person, no matter how well intended they are in their actions, to devise welfare policy that in no way effects them or their family. They will go at the task with at best an earnest interest, and more commonly a distanced concern. But that does not negate the fact they since they are not living day to day they have no idea what a person living in poverty is faced with. I was baffled by  a story recently where a Congress person attempted to live on minimum wage (he failed within a couple weeks by the way) and how that level of political theater was applauded by the liberal left. Unless that congressman was literally forced to live on minimum wage with no out then he has no idea what stresses are involved in that kind of life and his actions only further prove that the elite of our society put on these charades to distract us from the fact that it us, not them, who are left to live in poverty.

What does this have to do with legitimizing the bourgeois dictatorship? By putting up with these antics and then later going to the ballot box and voting for those fools, we tell them "you pretending to be one of us is okay. We don't mind the fact that you are rich and rule over us with little regard for what actually happens to us on a daily basis." For by voting in elections we legitimize the system as a whole. One popular tactic of resistance movements of all kinds across the globe is to boycott elections. By driving down voter turnout you can point to the system and say "that system is so rotten to the core that the people don't even believe it is worth voting." If you continue voting in elections in the bourgeois dictatorship that is our political system, you simply boost the statistics that say that the system is acceptable enough that you bothered to come and vote. Not voting, in an organized fashion, is an effective way to delegitimize a particular political process and single it out as an unjust system.

The capitalist system, by its very nature, prevents the emergence of true democracy. This in not immediately noticeable but is easily described. By its very nature capitalism forces all entities in existence to seek money in order to operate. To gain this money entities must sell products or services. In a democracy the most precious commodity is information. Information can make or break a politician's career. So, in order to control the flow of information, the wealthy elite use their wealth, in the form of both direct ownership and advertisements, to control what news makes it on to the front page. Despite what journalists tell you, when the New York Times is presented with a particularly juicy piece of info they don't necessarily publish it immediately. Should the Times have one of their biggest sponsors come up to them and say "if you publish story X then we will pull our advertisement funding"  you can bet the Times will take note and bury the story. This prevents the adequate dissemination of information. Without full access to information the voting public is unable to see the entire story and this will directly lead to them voting without all necessary information.

If true democracy were to exist, the capitalist system would collapse. I say this because it is obvious. If the masses were allowed unlimited access to all information and were then still permitted to vote, they would immediately sweep all of the elites out of power. While we are not permitted to see everything our government is doing in our name, Edward Snowden gave us a good glimpse into that world and everyone who actually took the time to look and see what was being done by our government was immediately appalled. Being granted similar access to everything would lead to the immediate collapse of our political and economic system. The masses would immediately remove all elites from their positions of authority and replace them with ordinary people. These people would immediately try to stop the heinous things that happen every day but go ignored by our rich overlords. Almost overnight we could end poverty, starvation, homelessness, and all other societal ills if we weren't being oppressed by the very elements in our government and society that receive economic and political gains by keeping people poor and oppressed.

Because of the previous statement, capitalists will never allow society, no matter how liberal, to become fully democratic because that would entail them losing all of their influence over politics and state power. This is because they have every reason to prevent us from exercising our true will through democracy. They limit the choices to a few sides that they can stand. Democrats and Republicans alike only reinforce capitalism just in different ways. While the elites would love to simply establish a dictatorship and rule over us directly they are smart enough to realize that by allowing us to vote for their specially selected minions they give an air of legitimacy to their clandestine reign over us. Should a real threat to liberal democracy emerge from the left they will not hesitate to end our faux democracy so they can ensure that they remain in their position over us and there will be many misguided souls among the masses who will side with the bourgeois both out of self interest and misplaced trust.

I recently read The Iron Heel by Jack London for the first time and was amazed at how similar the world of his book (which was based off of the world pre-World War I) and the world of today are. We see gross inequality on a daily basis, the smashing of unions, and destitution for the poor. The events that London posits in which the ruling classes use their influence to eventually end democracy following the initial success of a leftist movement is exactly what would happen should events like those in the book actually occur. First the bourgeois would refuse to accept the victory of the left. Next they would seek to turn the people against the left by making them seem like a force that would bring down society. And then when they are at their weakest and about to lose control, the bourgeois would launch their financial assault and bring the world to its knees. In the wake of this crisis they would take every last freedom from us in exchange for loosening their grasp on financing and allowing us to work in their factories and offices for wages that barely prevent workers from starving on a daily basis while working 10 to 14 hour days. We would be kept down with all the force they could muster. People would be executed on the spot simply for disobeying an order or daring to speak out against injustice. We would then be slaves to them in all but name. Only after that darkest hour for the human race would we eventually see the true end of capitalism, because out of that horrible darkness the people would rise with a fury the capitalists didn't even think possible to break the chains of capitalist oppression. Only then will we see the end of poverty, disease, racism, sexism, and all other injustices that plague humanity. Only then will we truly be free.