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 --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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