Talk:Democracy in Marxism

Latest version from Democracy

This article was moved from Democracy to stop an edit war. Talk:Democracy#Ultramarine.2C_please_stop_vandalism and Talk:Democracy#Comprimise_suggested

I cut and pasted an earlier version of the section of Democracy to make this article.

Here is a newer version, below, which can be incorporated into this new article, as needed. Travb (talk) 15:52, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

The Marxist view is fundamentally opposed to liberal democracy believing that the capitalist state cannot be democratic by its nature, as it represents the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Marxism views liberal democracy as an unrealistic utopia. This is because they believe that in a capitalist state all "independent" media and most political parties are controlled by capitalists and one either needs large financial resources or to be supported by the bourgeoisie to win an election. Marx described parliamentary democracy as "deciding once in three or six years which member of the ruling class was to misrepresent the people in Parliament" Thus Lenin (1917) believed that in a capitalist state, the system focusses on resolving disputes within the ruling bourgeosie class and ignores the interests of the proletariat or labour class which are not represented and therefore dependent on the bourgeoisie's good will: "Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich – that is the democracy of capitalist society. If we look more closely into the machinery of capitalist democracy, we see everywhere, in the “petty” – supposedly petty – details of the suffrage (residential qualifications, exclusion of women, etc.), in the technique of the representative institutions, in the actual obstacles to the right of assembly (public buildings are not for “paupers"!), in the purely capitalist organization of the daily press, etc., etc., – we see restriction after restriction upon democracy. These restrictions, exceptions, exclusions, obstacles for the poor seem slight, especially in the eyes of one who has never known want himself and has never been in close contact with the oppressed classes in their mass life (and nine out of 10, if not 99 out of 100, bourgeois publicists and politicians come under this category); but in their sum total these restrictions exclude and squeeze out the poor from politics, from active participation in democracy.” (Lenin, State and Revolution, Chapter 5) However, most of these restrictions do not longer apply; women have the vote and there is today no property requirement. Moreover, even if representatives of the proletariat class are elected in a capitalist country, Marxists claim they have limited power over the country's affairs as the economic sphere is largely controlled by private capital and therefore the representative's power to act is curtailed. Essentially, minarchists (only a small minority of those supporting liberal democracy) claim that in the ideal liberal state the functions of the elected government should be reduced to the minimum (i.e. the court system and security). Hence Marxists-Leninists see a socialist revolution necessary to bring power into hands of opperrsed classes. Lenin insisted that bougeous democracy in fact a dictatorship of bougeoisie, while dictatorship of proletariat is a highest possible form of democracy (for those considered the working class) and should use violence against opposing classes. Marx: “...When the workers replace the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie by their revolutionary dictatorship ... to break down the resistance of the bourgeoisie ... the workers invest the state with a revolutionary and transitional form ... Engels: “...And the victorious party” (in a revolution) “must maintain its rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionaries. Would the Paris Commune have lasted more than a day if it had not used the authority of the armed people against the bourgeoisie? Cannot we, on the contrary, blame it for having made too little use of that authority?... Engels: “As, therefore, the state is only a transitional institution which is used in the struggle, in the revolution, to hold down one’s adversaries by force, it is sheer nonsense to talk of a ‘free people’s state’; so long as the proletariat still needs the state, it does not need it in the interests of freedom but in order to hold down its adversaries, and as soon as it becomes possible to speak of freedom the state as such ceases to exist .... Lenn: The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is rule won and maintained by the use of violence by the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, rule that is unrestricted by any laws. Lenin: A state of the exploited must fundamentally differ from such a state; it must be a democracy for the exploited, ‘and a means of suppressing the exploiters; and the suppression of a class means inequality for that class, its exclusion from “democracy”.[3] Communist states are widely seen as being de facto dictatorships by bougeious criticists, since the elections they held tended to be heavily rigged. [4] See also Criticisms of communist regimes and Criticisms of Marxism. Supporters of liberal democracy point to the Marxists make these claims without any supporting evidence and instead point to many empirical studies: Numerous studies using many different kinds of data, definitions, and statistical analyses have found support for the democratic peace theory. The original finding was that liberal democracies have never made war with one another. More recent research has extended the theory and finds that democracies have few Militarized Interstate Disputes causing less than 1000 battle deaths with one another, that those MIDs that have occurred between democracies have caused few deaths, and that democracies have few civil wars. Poor liberal democracies have better education, longer life expectancy, lower infant mortality, access to drinking water, and better health care than poor dictatorships. This is not due to higher levels of foreign assistance or spending a larger percentage of GDP on health and education. Instead, the available resources are managed better. Several health indicators (life expectancy and infant and maternal mortality) has a stronger and more significant association with liberal democracy than they have with GDP per capita, size of the public sector, or income inequality. In the post-Communist nations, after an initial decline, those most democratic have achieved the greatest gains in life expectancy. A prominent economist, Amartya Sen, has noted that no functioning democracy has ever suffered a large scale famine. This includes democracies that have not been very prosperous historically, like India, which had its last great famine in 1943 and many other large scale famines before that in the late nineteenth century, all under British rule. However, some others ascribe the Bengal famine of 1943 to the effects of World War II . The government of India had been becoming progressively more democratic for years. Provincial government had been entirely so since the Government of India Act of 1935. Refugee crises almost always occur in nondemocracies. Looking at the volume of refugee flows for the last twenty years, the first eighty-seven cases occurred in autocracies. Research shows that the more liberal democratic nations have much less democide or murder by government. Similarly, they have less genocide and politicide. Liberal democracies are more often associated with a higher average self-reported happiness in a nation. Research by the World Bank suggests that political institutions are extremely important in determining the prevalence of corruption: democracy, parliamentary systems, political stability, and freedom of the press are all associated with lower corruption. Freedom of information legislation is important for accountability and transparency. The Indian Right to Information Act "has already engendered mass movements in the country that is bringing the lethargic, often corrupt bureaucracy to its knees and changing power equations completely." If leaving out East Asia, then during the last forty-five years poor democracies have grown their economies 50% more rapidly than nondemocracies. Poor democracies such as the Baltic countries, Botswana, Costa Rica, Ghana, and Senegal have grown more rapidly than nondemocracies such as Angola, Syria, Uzbekistan, and Zimbabwe. Of the eighty worst financial catastrophes during the last four decades, only five were in democracies. Similarly, poor democracies are half likely as nondemocracies to experience a 10 percent decline in GDP per capita over the course of a single year. Several studies have concluded that terrorism is most common in nations with intermediate political freedom. The nations with the least terrorism are the most democratic nations[5].

References

Moving article and references

This article should be moved to "Democracy in Marxism" the "Marxist theory" header is not needed, it would be the same as putting "Marxist philosophy". Also much of what this article is based on can be found in several books. Including "The Civil War in France" by Karl Marx, which serves as the foundation, Lenin's "The State and Revolution" and most of Trotsky's books would also provide useful information since he dedicated his life to fighting Stalinism and totalitarianism until he was esentially martyred. Of noteworthy mention is "The Revolution Betrayed" and "Results and Prospects". These are the books I will be researching to improve this article, if you want to add reliable information I suggest you take a look at them. They can all be found online at http://marxists.org/. (Demigod Ron 06:05, 11 November 2007 (UTC))

Misleading title

The title of the article is misleading. When I stumbled upon it, I thought it would describe the proposed democratic processes of decision-making within marxist "transitional states", or in a communist stateless society. Instead, it's a critique of liberal democracy, from a socialist point of view. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.92.230.93 (talk) 19:26, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

That would make sense, since much of Marx's writings, and many other socialists' writings, were criticisms of the capitalist system. Sometimes by stating what something is not, indicates partially what it may be. that being said, this article could use substantial filling in.AnieHall (talk) 07:39, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Pluriformity in Maxist thought

I'd like to make some comments here: First there is not one mode of thought concerning democracy in 'marxism', although it's suggested (ex. pluriform marxism vs. anarcho-marxism vs troskism). Secondly id like to point out that Lenin(ism) isn't (nessesary) the same as marx(ism) (ex. Kautsky vs. Lenin)

Maybe this page should first take into account marx' thought on democracy (as popular rule), which isn't the same as putting some quotes in the text.

Regards Sam 62.194.175.60 (talk) 16:31, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Good points, Sam. Perhaps the article should begin with Marx and Engels, and then have a later section for post-marxist theory?AnieHall (talk) 07:45, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Article needs much improvement

Title: Either a new article should be made about Democracy in Communism and the Leninist section of this article is removed, or this article should be renamed to Democracy in Communism, and all forms of Communism should be discussed.

Organization: This article needs to be expanded, organized, and needs more sources. Czarcalvinsk (talk) 12:25, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I think the title could remain, if the latter socialist thinkers were moved to a post-marx subsection? Changing the title to communism and democracy could be problematic, as there are a number of opinions out there on what communism is, and then this would raise the question of "communism in theory" and "communism and practice" and "states that have labeled themselve communist" and the question of whether or not those states actually are/were communist, and not to mention the socialism/communism distinction, etcetera. This could go on forever.

Agree, article needs much work, and sources!!!AnieHall (talk) 07:56, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

dictatorship of the proletariat

I think that the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is in need of a distinct section, as this is a key concept.AnieHall (talk) 08:01, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

WP:TNT?

This page is awful and seems like a WP:NOTESSAY violation. Anyone think this page could be a good candidate for AfD?? NickCT (talk) 10:29, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Recent revert

I reverted an addition of mostly quotes and primary sourced content. Wikipedia is not a collection of quotes WP:NOTQUOTE. Marxist theory originates from the works of Marx and Engels, so his views on democracy are relevant to the article and need to be explained with reliable, published secondary sources. Rupert Loup (talk) 03:52, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

• So you are arguing that direct quotes from Marx and Engels are unreliable sources regarding their views on democracy? Here is the last version of the article that included these quotes. https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Democracy_in_Marxism&oldid=807652001 Which version do the other editors think is better? Ghostofnemo (talk) 07:11, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

  the version that got reverted is much better. that version surveyed views of Marxist writers on democracy. this one advances a POV, largely without citations. very odd. Mr H3vnu83987 (talk) 12:21, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Reference for democracy missing

User:Vif12vf Do you have any reference that "Democracy in Marxism" is a democracy beside that it's in the name? If not, then it can not be Category Democracy. Why did you remove the category "Dictatorship of the proletariat" when it's discussed in the text with references? HudecEmil (talk) 16:16, 4 February 2024 (UTC)