Re: Democracy or Empire?

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

Jim D. says:

> Yoshie wrote:
> > It all depends on what you mean by "_global_ democracy."
> > Naturally, I don't think you mean what Chris Burford means (_a
> > shudder_), but....
>
> I don't know what Chris means, but it seems pretty obvious that
> global democracy would have to be democratic, for example, giving
> one vote to each adult (rather than one vote per dollar, as under
> U.S. "democracy"). Obviously, that would shift the balance of world
> politics toward places like China and India...

For the same reason, "global democracy" ain't gonna come without the
abolition of capitalism & transition to socialism worldwide.  There's
a reason why real power in the U.N. resides in the Security Council,
not in the General Assembly.

> BTW, I agree with Carrol and Yoshie that there's a link between
> domestic democracy and imperialism. Jacksonian democracy and the
> spread of suffrage to free men without property coincide with the
> expulsion of the Indians from most of the area east of the
> Mississippi River (what's now called "ethnic cleansing"), which had
> the effect of making the property qualification unimportant. If the
> U.S. couldn't dump its problems on the rest of the world so easily,
> the stakes of elections would be much higher, so that they'd have to
> be even more under elite control.

Jacksonian democracy is indeed a good example to illustrate our point.

BTW, it seems significant that during the presidential campaigns this
time, foreign policy hardly became a subject of debate.  That perhaps
means that the US ruling class can now safely assume consensus among
themselves & citizens' acquiescence to it, unlike in the past.
Humanitarian imperialism has won a total victory (for the time being,
at least).  The Nader/Green campaign did not make any difference in
this regard.

To elaborate on the relation between domestic democracy and
imperialism, we might also consider how the nature of the military,
the character of wars fought, etc. make a difference in the degree of
domestic democracy necessary for securing citizens' consent to
imperialism.  The use of professional soldiers (= mercenaries) needs
less democracy at home than that of citizen-soldiers who have to be
drafted; limited air wars with low to no casualties likewise demand
less democracy than total wars with national mobilization in the
style of World War 2.  (Machiavelli already made this point during
the Renaissance.)

Yoshie