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From: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Politics and Ethics--Socialism,
Message-ID: <411@ubvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 27-Jan-86 13:55:22 EST
Article-I.D.: ubvax.411
Posted: Mon Jan 27 13:55:22 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Feb-86 10:35:13 EST
References: <486@whuts.UUCP> <101500008@uiucdcs> <902@cybvax0.UUCP>
Reply-To: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
Organization: Ungermann-Bass, Inc., Santa Clara, Ca.
Lines: 41

>The market is not a political system, because income and wealth are only
>components of power.  Political systems need not cater to the wealthy: they
>need to cater to the sources of their power.  That's the whole idea behind
>democracies (or democratic republics): the recognition that there is
>real power in mere numbers.  Because poor men can kill rich men: it
>may not be an even ratio, but the worse it gets, the better the chances
>of the poor.
>-- 
>Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh

Too cynical, Mike.  If the power of numbers were all that were needed for
democracy, China would have been a democracy for thousands of years.  And
there hasn't been enough historical time to tell if democracy is the
most stable or successful answer to a "recognition" that there is
"real power" (whatever that is) in mere numbers.

I thought democracy was an evolution of the ideas of the Enlightenment to
industrial society.  The Enlightenment broke the way open to make democracy
a new legitimate way of running states.  Until WWII, it was one of a number
of different ways of governing which were followed by industrialized
states.  Then WWII militarily defeated and broke up the fascist and
imperialist-colonial modes of governance, leaving democracy as perhaps
the only remaining modes of legitimate governance left to capitalist
states.

The power of the ideas behind democracy is that they set up a standard
which states claiming to be democratic have to fulfill or lose the label.
Most of that standard evolved from the US Constitution, British
parliamentary history, and the Code Napoleon of France.

Today, democracy thrives because the democratic countries control the
world pursestrings, so nations wanting international legitimacy try
hard to conform to a world system run by democratic states expecting
to see their democratic models emulated worldwide.  I don't think it's
right any more to say that states become democratic because they are
"adapting to internal developments".  No, they're adapting to internal
developments in a way that will be ratified by the Western industrialized
countries as fair and appropriate.

Tony Wuersch
{amdcad!cae780, amd}!ubvax!tonyw