The future of democracy in America

[sir_guinglain]

This is not a subject upon which I intend to pontificate, beyond recalling the granite faces which looked upon my visiting American students when I asked them to question terminology such as 'founding fathers' and consider who and what the Constitution of 1787 was intended to protect or advance. Instead, I refer you to Anatol Lieven and this article at Open Democracy, originally published by Thesiger's.

Comments

[alitalf]

I am not quite sure there IS a democracy, as such, except for Switzerland (probably). We have an elected oligarchy who do what they want, once they are voted in. I am not sure how good or bad other European nations are, but the EU itself is somewhat like the soviet government of years gone by - a bunch of powerful people who appoint each other.

In the USA, each party has given many arguments as to why the other is totally unfit to govern. Maybe they are both right?

[evilawyer]

Radical conservatism here is a child of the ever-increasing rift between what capitalism is supposed to provide to all of us, according to both the state and the market, and what it actually gets for the individual members of the constituency which, depending on availability of whatever the day's measure of resources is, spans from not much to nothing for everyone but the elite wealth-holders at the top. Oh, and that top position includes the banks.

This is, however, only how one lone ground squirrel who's going to get a headache from shaking it's head in disgust at everybody person spins it.

[sir_guinglain]

For democracy in most cases read 'representative democeacy'; though the party systems in many countries have become so ossified they no longer do their jobs.

[sir_guinglain]

I agree with this analysis - it's remarkable that it doesn't seem to target overmighty private institutions as much as it does government, or so it seems.

[evilawyer]

Most people here, and especially the radical conservatives like the Tea Party folk, still like to think that there is hope that they, too, with their humble beginnings and the sweat of their brows, could one day be outrageously rich and in charge of the General Motors or Chase Bank. The self-delusional capability of the masses is why the private corporations don't get the heat that the government does.

[sir_guinglain]

There's the deep-seated localism in much of the US, with the federal government as an idealised form of the British government as the Americans of the 1770s and 1780s wanted it - distant and uninvolved, with local institutions having a direct link with the executive and few intermediary agencies.

I've gathered that compared to the UK there is a tendency for people in the US to regard their country, their locality, as the best in the world; it's difficult to mount successful constructive criticism of social mobility (not particularly good) or the health syste, or the constitution with that belief.

[evilawyer]

The whole "Horatio Algers-we are rugged individualists-we can do it all our our own without politicians" mentality does indeed have a chilling effect on rational discussion or critical self-assessment.

[alitalf]

I would class representative democracy that actually was democratically responsive as democracy. What we have in the UK looks to me not to be responsive enough to quite classify.

This seems to me both good and bad, in that sometimes, perhaps, the majority of people wish to do something that is not actually workable if you look at it in enough excruciating detail. OTOH, it is probably a much worse problem that the political classes are apparently doing what is good for them, not us.