Date: Thu, 28 Mar 96 2:31:58 EST
From: boddhisatva <kbevans-AT-panix.com>
To: marxism-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
Subject: Re: Adolfo: novice in economics?






		Rakesh,



	You asked:


" Couldn't it be argued that imperialism
has required further attacks on even bourgeois democracy?"



	I think that this is exactly the issue.  Bourgeois democracy and
its ideals WERE the salve for the wounds of capitalism.  The bourgeoisie
presented an argument consisting of high ideals balanced by "necessity". 
In the American constitution, democracy was the ideal, having only white,
property-owning men to vote was the necessity.  Cold war foreign policy
balanced the ideal of world democracy (as opposed to communist tyranny)
and the necessity of installing anti-communist dictators.  Now, foreign
policy is indifferent to the form of government, so long as there is a
market.  Now, the class meritocracy of the American constitution has been
replaced by market "meritocracy" against which there is no 
bourgeois-democratic argument.  The bourgeoisie has made the case that the
market *equals* democracy. 



	Now, it goes without saying that this "market" is not the market of
the importer/exporter or the commodity trader, but the market for *capital*
speculation.  If fact, it is not a market, but a means of domination by
capital, that the bourgeoisie requires from his "new world order."



	To a Marxist, it seems uninteresting, even axiomatic that
bourgeois-democracy should be a shill for capitalists.  I argue that it is
significant.  The blithe substitution of "market" for "democracy" by the
bourgeoisie is an abandonment of the social contract at the highest level. 
Between the power of the gun and power in the market, there lies the social
contract - that was the lesson of the capitalists to the feudal class.  Now
the capitalist is throwing over the social contract and sitting on his market
laurels for the "end of history."   


	He is ripe for reminding that between between the power of capital and
power in the market, there lies another social contract.





	peace


		boddhisatva






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