Democracy versus Plutocracy

I have some really good sane conservative friends and we have good debates. One of them was saying Democracy was an ambiguous term. I responded with this:

Democratic is not really an ambiguous term. It is to me at least: one citizen one vote (not a few billionaires most of the effective votes) and a polity, institutions, the rule of law, that responds with Burkean uncorrupted representative democracy to convert the people’s will into sensible affordable (given the people’s appetite for taxes) consistent doable politics that preserve the nation and the people. It’s the worst possible political system as Churchill said apart from all the others.

I do sense you are not in fact a democrat but lean aristocrat, rule of the best. Which in our current system is laughable, as our elite and almost any imaginable elite available to us, are so corruptly incompetent as to be not true. Talent does not go into politics except the game playing mediocrities. Two of the people who worked for me in Ford were likely future pols and they were not great at their jobs but at least they had good business experience.

A Democratic system does indeed need capable leaders and is indeed prone to demagogues if the other leaders are useless. Though actually what we have is not democracy or aristocracy, but plutocracy: rule by money and the billionaires (who made their money not making stuff but via the financial casino, property deals, or hi tech rigged trusts, monopolies) are useless at ruling in the interest of the people. Government of the people by the Pluts for the Pluts is what we have. No legislation was passed by Congress the last 30 years that was counter the interests of the top 10% or more often 1% as Gilels showed.

I think the market system taking over everything destroys democracy. A democracy needs its citizens to have multiple identities: worker, union member, student/apprentice, professional, voter, church member, consumer, soldier, sports club member, political party member, social club member, community member, mentor of the young, extended family member and yes law abiding citizen. And these identities should cross party lines and bind the nation in dialogues of all sorts. Raising money together for a sports field sort of thing. Give opportunities for leadership and alliance building in many spheres to develop and move on to politics with age.

Politics should not be a post college profession sans anything else or a profession of marketing. You should not be allowed to run for office without at least ten years doing real value add hands on work in business, the military, the community, unions whatever. Getting real. Heck I don’t think you should be able to graduate college without a year of real work. Toyota make every graduate recruit work on the assembly line for six months before they start their traineeship. I thought Ford should do that too. I did a few shifts myself, not nearly enough.

We now have an Amazon Prime society. Every identity is subsumed to consumer. Students are customers demanding product and A grades, not apprentices. Hence what you hate in universities. Universities are overrun by admin, who operate as if they are consumer businesses. Mega churches operate like market places for pimping beliefs with high paid CEOs. Mercenaries are replacing citizen soldiers. Political parties treat members as on line consumers. Families are breaking under economic strain of the market place among the poor of all races. Admin game playing replaces real jobs. Voters are offered political product. Communities are atomized by economic desolation. Participation in actual sport plummets or is marketized for college athletes and sold as a media product to all. People don’t hang out in social clubs or their local pub mixing with others of differing views. They cluster on line with like-minded folks in social media market places. And so on.

A consumer society in which every citizen’s main identity is consumer: we want the world and we want it delivered by Amazon Prime tomorrow sans effort, just bill our credit card. Cargo Cult. That sort of society is no match for China or even weak Russia. And no match for the challenge of climate change either. Sacrifice is not a word in a consumer society. Loyalty to your country either.

Another conservative friend yesterday on Zoom with whom I have similar good debates. He asked me: “seriously do you think the young would fight for America, if needed, would turn up if drafted? Or volunteer to fight?”. He was not making a political point, as we both think Trump’s GOP and the Dems are equally not addressing the issue: to survive a nation cannot consist solely of consumers.