File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1998/marxism-thaxis.9803, message 587


Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 14:05:36 EST
From: boddhisatva <kbevans-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Democracy and the Tyranny of the Majority






		C. Jason,



	I think you are on to something, but I think that Berlin may be on
to something as well.  The democratic state is a constituted establishment
of rights.  These rights are negative obligations.  They define what the
state and your fellow citizens cannot do to you if you join this social
order. There are positive obligations that are central to most social
orders as well (Social Security, for example).  It is a mistake to assume
parity between negative and positive obligations.  There is no such thing
as a trade-off between a right and a benefit - it's apples and orangutans
and the latter feeds off the former. 




	What seems to me to be missing from this debate is the question of
the basis for citizens' coming together in a democracy at all.  Majority
rule presupposes that the majority can inflict it's will, no matter the
issue, and remain a democracy.  It can't.  You have to have a basis for
trust and agreement, otherwise the entire idea of democracy is no more
valid than rule by divine right.  Before you have a democracy among
citizens you have to define what it is to be a citizen.  The definitive
issue in that question is what *rights* a citizen enjoys. Rights precede
and prefigure democracy. A core of rights that defines the power and
independence of the citizen is essential for the debate that is democracy
to even begin. , A "dictatorship of the proletariat" would simply be a
dictatorship without rights.  



	The reason that the "real politique" or "materialist" analysis
leftists use is often wrong is that they look at the *effects* of bourgeois
democracy out of context.  Supposing that one can right democracy by
righting the effects of democracy is misguided.  Distribution of benefit is
immaterial to democracy.  Changing democracy means changing the terms of
democracy and that means changing rights, not adding benefits.  Positive
obligations have to be performed by willing and freely associated citizens. 
If Marxism is to demand more benefits, more positive obligations, it has to
make citizens more willing and more free.  Otherwise the weight of positive
obligations will destabilize the democracy.  




	peace





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