THE
PROBLEM OF DEMOCRACY TODAY
by
Cornelius Castoriadis
The author
(1922-1997) was political philosopher, social critic, psychoanalytical practitionar,
famous Soviet scolar and economist. He worked during some time at the OECD and
was co-founder of the now legendary, revolutionary journal and group of the same
name: Socialisme ou Barbarie (1948-1967). This group developed a radical
criticism on ‘communism’, based on the idea of workers’ control
and exerted a great influence on the students- and workers’ revolt
at Paris in May 1968 (in that period he conducted a political conference with
Daniël Cohn Bendit).Till his recent dead, Castoriadis remained writing about
political issues, inspired by his central theme: ‘the development of autonomy’.
Political and Social Writings (orig.: Franse teksten 1946-’79, Eng. trans.:
1988-‘93); L’institution imaginaire de la Société
(1975, Eng. trans.: 1987, paperback 1997); Les Carrefours du Labyrinthe
(1978, Eng. trans.: 1984); Philosophy, Politics, Autonomy (1991); World
in Fragments (1997) belong to his most important works. See for an in memoriam
and an extensive bibliografy: Cornelius Castoriadis Agora
International Website
Version,
fitted with headlines, of: The Problem of Democracy Today in: Democracy
& Nature, The International Journal of Politics and Ecology, Vol. 3, nr.
2 (issue 8, 1997 pp 18-35); originally given as a speech in Athens, Greece, in
February 1989 and then published in Greek in Cornelius Castoriadis, The
Talks in Greece (Athens: Ypsilon, 1990). Translated by Dimitris Isigonis
Destruction
of the biological wealth
I
will talk to you about the present-day problems of democracy. I say present-day
problems of democracy and not problems of present-day democracy because nowadays
democracy doesn't really exist anywhere. There are (maybe) same liberalist
oligarchies in certain countries, relatively privileged, privileged in many
ways. We must now be over five billion people on earth, and only 500 or 600
- at most 700 - million people live in countries where hunger is not an everyday problem,
where persecution, imprisonment, oppression is not an everyday reality. But even
in the economically developed and politically liberalist countries the situation,
although it seems almost viable, is in reality desperate. It is desperate
because unfortunately no one can see farther than one's nose; still, humanity
today is facing huge problems.
First of all it's the problem
I mentioned before. Six out of seven, if not seven out of eight, of the people
live in a state of poverty and tremendous oppression. Then there's the ecological
problem, about which everybody is indifferent or is interested only in same
of its views, while at this moment we're sitting on a powder-keg or, to use
another metaphor, we're systematically, day by day, sawing the branch on which
we're sitting. At this very moment about 100,000 hectares of tropical forest in
Brazil are being burnt systematically in order to create agricultural areas. Not
only in Brazil, but everywhere in the tropical zone, forests are being destroyed.
The destruction afforests goes along the destruction of biological species by
thousands and by tens of thousands. As a great scientist bas said, for the
future historians, the greatest madness of humanity in the twentieth century
won't be either thee wars or the nuclear bombs, or even a nuclear third world
war; the greatest madness of humanity during this period will be the destruction of
the biological wealth of the earth.
We
live in fact in an oligarchy
In these developed
and relatively liberalist countries, what's happening in reality? Journalists
and politicians are talking about democracy. The real form of government is of
course totally oligarchic. There are some liberalist sides in this oligarchic
regime: certain human's and citizen' s rights, a so-called free press, etc.
But if one examines who are really governing, who really have power in their
hands, one will realize that even in the worst periods of the so-called Roman
democracy - which was never a democracy, but an oligarchy - the percentage
of those who had power in society was bigger than it is today. For in stance, in
France the adult and voting population is about 35-37 million people. If
we gum up the so-called political class, the masters of economy, the people
who really play an important role in manipulating the public opinion, especially
by the media, we'll probably reach a total of about 3,700 people. This is
a ratio of one to 10,000. And at the same time there are people criticizing
ancient Athenian democracy because a free population of about 100,000 people
had maybe at most 100,000 slaves. I'm not saying this to justify slavery
of course. I'm saying this to give some perspective on the situation today.
I imagine that if you make a similar estimation in Greece you'll find at
most 800 or 1,000 people who are really playing a role in every kind of power.
This is how the situation is.
Television-
and consumption masturbation
Along with this situation,
we are observing an equally crucial and weighty phenomenon. The peoples of
those countries played an important role in history. I am not talking about battles
and conquests; lam talking about civilization and political I creation. Following
the Dark Ages, which reigned from the Roman Empire till the beginning of
the modem era, a liberty movement was recreated in Europe, starting with the
first bourgeoisie who created cities that attempted to be self-governed. After
several struggles and as a result of these struggles, in which the bourgeoisie
played of course an important role and the lower middle class and later the
labour class a great part, there are today what we call democratic institutions
in these countries. These institutions were never a gift from the rulers,
nor a gift from the capitalists, nor were they a sequel to this economic
system. They were won by several struggles and cast piles of dead bodies
and rivers of blood.
Where do these people stand today, and
where do the Greek people stand? The most obvious characterization we could
give is that they are in a state of political impassivity, privatisation,
irresponsibility, cynicism, and indifference towards matters of public and political
interest, and that in general they possess an attitude towards their private
and public lire which is more or less a state of indolence into television
and consumer masturbation. The present situation is not just the result of the
conspiracies, manoeuvres and manipulations of the ruling strata. If the ruling
strata are able to do what they do with impunity- and I believe that here
in Greece you are, as the French say, paid to know that they do what they
do with impunity, you know that on your skin - it is just because people
remain impassive or at most they shrug their shoulders, saying, "We
know them; they're all the same scoundrels."
People
earn billions in the stock exchange daily
Recently,
with the renaissance of so-called liberalism, same theorists who praise this situation
have appeared. They say that now we have reached true liberty: individualism.
Each person deals with his own lire, and therefore there are no political
and social conflicts, there is no fuss or trouble, and thus the system works.
Besides being hypocritical, this reasoning also contains a huge self-deception.
The existing system, the way it is today, destroys its very survival. If
it continues to work in same way, it does not work based on the people and
institutions it produces. It works because, despite the prevalent mentality,
despite the quality of the managers, there still are same people in certain
parts of society and the state mechanism - let's say x percent of the judiciary, y
percent of the educators, or z percent of the working people in general -
who, instead of complying with the prevalent philosophy and the prevalent
mentality (namely, saying, "What do I care? Who is paying more? I’ll
make a decision in his favour") as they should do according to the really
prevalent philosophy and the theories of liberalism, are still working in the
traditional way. They still have same morality left. This makes at least
same of the judges more or less impartial, and as are suit the rest are afraid
of them. It makes same of the educators try to teach something to the kids
instead of messing about, and it makes some of the workers screw the screws
and keep the trains from derailing. But they should not really screw those
screws, given what they are being paid and given that they see billions of defalcations
or, even in normal enterprises, enormous fortunes being created in one day
with no reason at all I am not talking about pampers [The author is referring
to a scandal in witch money was delivered by a banker to the prime minister in
diaper boxes]; l am talking about more serious things that are happening
at the New York Stock Exchange, for instance, where with no economical basis
at all, not even a right capitalistic one, billions are being made in one
day with spin business. If this situation goes on, neither the biosphere
in which we live, nor the society-sphere, if I may say that, will stand for long.
Democracy means power of the people
The regimes in these countries are a small minority of the earth'
s population. They call themselves democracies, and this word suffers from
a tremendous prostitution. It is impossible for any African corporal with 10 machine
guns and 20 jeeps to seize power without declaring that he is going to establish
a democratic socialism, based on which he slaughters his opponents, takes
over television stations, and deceives his people. The same bas happened
with the word 'socialism'. The Greek know this well. It's the same with the
word 'revolution'. I imagine you see commercials every day about the revolution
in refrigerators or the revolution in toilet paper.
We must
return to the original meaning of the word 'democracy'. Democracy does not
mean human rights, does not mean lack of censorship, does not mean elections of
any kind. All this is very nice, but it's just second- or third-degree consequences
of democracy. Democracy means the power (kratos) of the people (demos).
Kratos in ancient Greek does not mean state in the present sense.
There was no state in ancient Greece; the Athenian city was a polis
or politia. Kratos in ancient Greek means power and probably
violence or main force. It is characteristic that when in modem Greece a
real state was created, we chose the word 'kratos' from ancient Greek.
We could have chosen the word 'politia' (city). Democracy means power
of the people. If we think deeply about these words, same substantial questions
emerge. First of all, what is the demos, who is the demos, who belongs to the
demos? Then, what does power mean? And the fact that the very characterization,
the very term, that defines this regime produces these questions, shows the special
nature of this regime, which is born at the same moment with the philosophical
inquiry, as opposed to other farms of government in which such questions
cannot be born. If the regime is a monarchy, one knows that power belongs
to the monarch, who is appointed by the right of succession or any other
way. Likewise, the aristoi (nobles) in an aristocracy are the ones
that from birth belong to a certain social class. Democracy, by its name
already, produces questions and problems. From this point of view, it is not accidental
that its birth coincides absolutely with the birth of this limitless question
that is philosophy.
Democracy is or wants to be a regime aspiring
to social and personal autonomy (to set your own rules). Why are we talking
here about autonomy? Because the majority of human societies have always
been established on the basis of heteronomy (to have rules set by same other). The
existing institutions in general, but the political institutions especially, were
always considered given and not questionable. And they were made in such
a way that it was impossible to question them. In primitive tribes, for example,
institutions have been delivered by the founder heroes or the ancestors and
are considered self-evident. What is correct and not correct, allowed and
not allowed, bas been determined once and for all, in all fields. It is not
even forbidden to question these institutions. There is no need to forbid
it because it is, in fact, inconceivable to question them. People have embodied
them. They have initialised them with their very upbringing, their very making
as social persons.
The
Athenians continually reformed their institutions
What
happened in ancient Greece for the first time and was repeated in Europe
from the twelfth to the thirteenth century and on? There was a rupture of
this heteronomous status quo and a motion towards autonomy. This motion was
expressed politically with the democratic movement and all the democratic
institutions that were created. This rupture with heteronomy meant the questioning
of the existing institutions, and this took place in ancient Greece. What
we see in Athens, for instance, from 700 to 400 B.C. and on is the almost continual
modification of institutions. Ideal institutions were never created, but
Athenians never stopped reforming their laws so as to increase the democratic
reality, namely, the possibility of real participation of the people in power.
Autonomy means that the political community gives to itself its laws and
that it does so knowing that it does so, excluding every idea of extra-social
source of the laws and institutions, either natural or traditional or metaphysical.
The divine source of the laws is the case of the Jews in the Old Testament:
Jehovah gives the laws to Moses.
Autonomy means that we're
giving ourselves our laws and our institutions, knowing that we are the ones
who create them, knowing that we are the ones who make them. This is the
highest kratos, the highest power that exists in a society: to be able to
give ourselves our laws, namely, to also give ourselves the institutions
under which we live and the government with which we determine our direction.
Autonomous
people participate directly in the lawmaking process
Society is never just a simple synthesis, a simple summation of persons,
because the very persons are being created by society. Therefore when we speak
about an autonomous society and we want an autonomous society, this means
ipso facto that we also want autonomous persons. We want persons capable of giving
themselves their law, and, since in society it's impossible for everyone
to give him/herself law, capable of participating fully in the institution-making
process in society. This means, basically, that a person's education, not
only in the sense of school and instruction, but education as a constant
action of society on persons, beginning the moment of their birth and ending
the moment of their death and channelled not only through schools but also through
family, mother, company, neighbourhood, army, associations, newspapers, radio,
television-education in the broadest sense and in all farms-must contribute
to making persons truly autonomous. Autonomous persons are those who not
only try to regulate their personal life in an autonomous way, but also try
to participate in making laws that are necessarily social and limit or determine
their lives. As a consequence, if we speak about autonomous persons we simultaneously
speak about an autonomous society, about a society not ruled by divine revelation,
a society with no idea of natural laws organizing social life, with no tradition,
and of course not ruled by the power of one political party expressing the
alleged historical determinism and historical necessities or the power of
a secretary general or a president. An autonomous society gives itself its
institutions and self-governs. When persons can say that society's laws are
also their laws, these
persons are autonomous and their society is autonomous
as well.
What does it mean for people to be able to say that
society's laws are also their laws, namely, that they embrace them fully?
It does not necessarily mean that they agree with all of them. But it does
necessarily mean that they have truly and actively participated in making
these laws and institutions and in putting them into effect. Since society
consists of a theoretically limitless and indefinite number of persons, this
entails that there is full equality of participation of all people in all
institution- making powers that could exist today in a society and in making
these institutions work. Consequently, as regards anything that can be explicitly
legislated in society, whether it's about institution-making power (that
is, the power that determines the basic institutions within which society
operates) or exercising these legislated powers (for example, legislature
and executive), everyone should have the greatest possible possibility, not
just typically but substantially, to participate in exercising these powers. The
greatest possible possibility, not just typically but substantially: this
means that we do not limit ourselves to saying that citizens are called once
every five years to choose the representative who will decide for them, but
that citizens decide on their own about the laws under which they wish to
live. It also means that they do not elect directly or indirectly people
who will govern them, but they themselves govern. AU such decisions considering
the future of society-because this is what government is: to govern means to make decisions
considering what must be done-whatever concerns basic governmental decisions
must be long to society as a whole. People should have not just the typical
right to participate; they should also be educated in every aspect mentioned
before in order to be able to participate.
Here I would
like to observe one or two things. First a mention of the ancients, or rather
of the great Thucydides. When Thucydides wants to characterize a city as
free, he characterizes it as "autonomous, self-judging and independent."
The city for Thucydides means always the citizens. He never speaks of states
or dominions. For example, the words 'Athens' and 'Sparta' in Thucydides
have only a geographical sense. When he speaks about the tighting cities
in the Peloponnesian War, he always says 'Athenians, Lacedaemonians, Corfians,
Corinthians'. One of the orators in Thucydides says, " The city are the men." The
notion that a state, a dominion, a city is a territory, which is dominant in modem
philosophy of the law and constitutional theory, is plainly a feudal conception
and bas no relation at all with the democratic tradition. So Thucydides gays
'autonomous'. He also gays 'self-judging,' namely, the very city tries every violation
in the lire sphere of the people. As you know, the members of the ancient
Athenian jury courts were elected by lot and not professional judges. He
also gays 'independent': the power belongs to the people. A city is a number of
citizens who govern themselves. As a consequence, if we are not autonomous, self-judging,
and independent, we cannot live in democracy or say that we live in a democracy.
No political
equality without economical equality
Another
point I' d like to insist on is the relation between equality and freedom.
For a long time now, already from the nineteenth century, there bas been
a widespread rhetoric and sophistry which reappeared with renewed force since
Russia became an alleged 'communist' society [In this section, the author is referring
to the time before the break up of the USSR]: if you wish to be free, you
cannot be equal- because in Russia people are equal but not free-and if you
wish to be equal-as in Russia-you cannot be free. This reasoning contains
many fallacies and lies. In reality, people in Russia were neither free nor
equal. A prisoner in a concentration camp is in no war equal with the guard
of the camp or the colonel in command of the camp or the secretary of the
party committee that is in charge of the area or the people in the politburo. And
it was the very lack of political freedom that made political and economic
inequality possible in Russia. Inversely, in capitalistic countries, it's being
said that there is freedom but not economic equality. Certainly there is
not economic equality, but there is not political equality either. There
is only a typical political equality. The average Greek citizen, the peasant,
the doorman, the driver, the worker, the conductor, and everybody else does
not really have the same political rights as the members of the ruling political
class. I'm not talking about economic inequality; I'm talking about political
inequality. There is a political privileged class in Greece which is in a
completely unequal political position compared to the simple men and women,
and of course since there is a tremendous economic inequality, as there is
in capitalistic regimes, there can be no political equality. If I have a
lot of money, I can buy a radio station and a TV station; thus economic inequality
is transformed into political inequality because I can tell the people what
they must think and what is the news. (News is always filtered or presented
under a certain illumination.)
If we want to be free in society
we must be truly equal. There is no need to discuss the rest of the sophisms
raised against the alleged levelling that true equality would bring about.
When we talk about equality we do not mean uniformity of persons. If there
is a society that creates uniformity it's the present one. Each one believes
that he is special and different from everyone else, but at eight o'clock
in the evening he presses the same button and watches the same nonsense on the
same TV. He buys the same clothes; this is the personal freedom that he's
allowed by the social institution of fashion. When we talk about equality
we mean a politically important equality, namely, equal possibilities for
true participation in the institution-making process in a society and in
the exercise of whatever powers there are in a society. This entails direct
democracy, about which I’ll say a few words later. The notion of equality
bas of course same important economic consequences. True political equality is
impossible, especially in a society of the present farm, structure, and formation,
since there are such tremendous economic inequalities: there is no war we can
find, and we never have, a means of establishing a water-proof partition
between the economic and political domains. Since there is tremendous economic inequality,
as there is today, people who have economic power in their hands will necessarily
and regardless of their intentions, transform it into political power as
well. History as a whole - not so much ancient Greek history, in which money
did play a certain role, but Roman and modern history - proves this facto
This also leads to another consideration. It would never be possible that the
very persons we want to be free citizens could be free citizens in their
political lire and slaves in substance in their economic productive lire.
It's not possible that people will go to an assembly of political freedom
on Sundays and that for the remaining five or six days they will be just
screws on a mechanical system of production. It is impossible to educate
citizens-because once again education does not stop at elementary or high
school- into being free and responsible and willing to take part in the public
affairs and, at the same time, oblige them to spend the greatest part of
their waking lire in an hierarchical structure in which they can do nothing
but constantly execute what their superiors tell them on the one hand and
on the other what is written in the regulations (which five times out of
10 are comically absurd). If factories and public services manage to function,
it's because employees violate to a large extent the regulations in order
to be able to do their jobs. This is proven by the fact that one of the most
effective farms of strike is what is called in French 'zeal strike': the
employees begin to apply the regulations to the letter, and this can make
everything collapse in an hour. Why is that? Because the regulations were
not made by the employees; they were made by technicians, by engineers, by
people with diplomas from polytechnic schools, and by others who do not know
how the jobs are really done. An autonomous society would never accept an
economic situation in which on one hand there is a tremendous economic inequality
and on the other the working people, namely, the whole population, are placed
like ants into hierarchical structures where they have no say about what
they do or how they do it. The reasons for this are not charitable but political.
Self-'administration of the productive units by the producers is a necessary
precondition for a truly autonomous society and democratic schools as well.
Bureaucracy
is always an enemy of democracy
Nowadays
we ascertain not only economic farms of domination, but political farms,
as wail. If an exploitative and oppressive regime was created in Russia after
1917-most likely more exploitative and far more oppressive than any other
class regime known before then-this was not due to the capitalists but to
the fact that through the very communist party, the Bolsheviks, a bureaucracy
was created and connected to the bureaucracy of the factories, the army, and other
social branches-a bureaucracy that very soon was consolidated as the absolute
ruling class and established the regime of the bureaucratic, totalitarian capitalism.
Therefore it is not only economically privileged and ruling classes that
are opposed to democracy, but also political bureaucracy, which constantly
tends to be produced and reproduced, whether it rallies round a charismatic
person or not. Usually, at least in the beginning, it rallies round a charismatic
person who tends and finally manages to monopolize power and obliterate every
start of democratic principles. The modem farm of the political parties is
very apt at creating bureaucracy. Remember that parties in the present meaning
of the word never existed in ancient Athens. Parties were created during
the modem era. It is one of the tragic ironies of history that the first
real parties, in the present sense, were created by the labour class in its
struggle to be free. (The bourgeois parties in Europe followed, imitating
them.) The labour parties degenerated relatively soon and became bureaucratic.
The ruling stratum that a democratic movement can and must face is
not only the economic oligarchy; it is also political oligarchy and political
bureaucracy. Here I would like to underline a point that is old in political
philosophy but forgotten by many people, especially in Greece. We constantly
accuse rulers of ruling. This is as foolish as accusing thieves of stealing
or blond people of being blond. A ruler' s job is to rule. If we must accuse
someone we must accuse ruled people of letting themselves be ruled. We cannot
say that the people are all powerful and, at the same time, that any demagogue
can lead them by the nose. We must say that people have some responsibility
in what happens today. Of course this is not enough, because we are not moralizing.
We say that so as to remind the citizens that what happens happens with their
participation, their complicity. But we cannot star with this.
The myth of political
expertise
Why does complicity exist in the form
of apathy, indifference, cynicism? On the one hand, the whole historic wave
of modem society is leading people to indolence, individualism, consumerism,
and television masturbation. On the other hand, there is something that needs discussion
and probably refutation. The population bas been infiltrated by a central
capitalistic imaginary sense, the myth of knowledge, the science of the experts,
of the people who know. This imaginary sense is what supports the main structure
of society-hierarchy-which is completely incompatible with every democratic
institution. Why are some people on top and the rest below them? Because
they are educated, they know better, they are experts, etc.
I his myth bas infiltrated deeply into people's psyche, and in order to amuse
you a little and break the probably dull sequence of these reasoning, I will
tell you a true story that happened to me. Fortunately in Greece we have
the good habit of talking to taxi drivers and thus have an idea of people’s
thoughts. In the days of the 'apostasy' and confusion, I was in Athens and took
a taxi. The driver was a nice, smart man. The situation seemed bad, I told
him. Yes, he rep lied, it's terrible but don't worry. Why not? I asked.
"There's Andreas (Andreas Papandreou, the Prime Minister),"
he' said. -- "Oh," I said, "and what is he going to do?" ': ,
He replied, "Right now he cannot do anything; he' s gone to Bulgaria for
48 hours." "Why bas Andreas gone to Bulgaria for 48 hours?" "Because,"
he replied," the Bulgarian government is in deep trouble with the financial
situation and invited Andreas for 48 hours to put things right for them."
I think there is no need to comment on this. The man who told me that
was a very normal person; he wasn't born an idiot. He drove perfectly, and
he told me nice jokes, and so on. With this mentality, people voted Andreas
twice-the first time could be forgiven, the second not-and brought him into
the swim. Andreas is an expert, isn't he? Koutsogiorgas (vice-president of
the government) is also an expert in pampers and other things. And everybody
else is an expert too, you know. What do l know in comparison?
Let them decide. The same happens in the labour movement; it's the leaders
who know, the secretary generals, people like Zachariades. And here things
are worse-due to marxism-because of the theoretical consolidation. Behind
the secretary general or the party cadres there is the marxist theory that
gays the truth about history, about society, about how socialism should be
built, about when we must strike, when we must not, when we must take up
arms and take the winter palace, and so on. All these questions have been
examined closely and the solutions are in Das Kapital or the 60 volumes of
Lenin 's Complete Works. Experts have studied those hooks; they know. You
can go and stick up proclamations because it's the only thing you can do. This
mentality began to exist a century ago, namely, since the 1880s. Contrary
to what was happening in the beg inning in trade unions and labour parties,
where direct democracy truly existed, a bureaucracy began to take over. Where
did this bureaucracy draw its power from? The explanation that the development
of bureaucracy was due to 'objective reasons' (economic, necessity to organize,
etc.) is in my view completely insufficient and regards only secondary points,
or it’s just a consequence of a deeper cause. This deeper cause, the
true explanation, is once again the labour class and the population in general
being infiltrated by this capitalistic imaginary sense: the leaders and rulers
should be people who are qualified to lead and to rule, namely, people who
are knowledgeable about the science, the technique, of governing. This notion
is, of course, totally opposed to the ancient Greek notion about democracy
and politics, a notion that Protagoras states in a very beautiful way in
his speech in the harmonious dialogue of Plato and which Plato, although an
enemy of democracy, quotes very faithfully. The subject at this point of
the dialogue is who is a politician and who is not, who is knowledge- able
about political science and who is not. And Protagoras answers the question
by a myth. When Zeus dealt with men, he gave each man a certain specialty,
but political knowledge was equally distributed to everyone. That's why,
Protagoras gays, you see that when Athenians want to decide in the Assembly
of People (ecclesia) how to build a ship or a temple, they call the
specialists and listen to them. If a non-specialist wants to speak, they shout
him down. But when they are discussing the general political matters of the
city, every citizen can speak and everybody listens to him with attention.
Behind this myth lies this profound political and philosophical notion of
the ancients that there is no science, no systematic knowledge with proof
and technical instructions for political matters, but there is people's opinion,
which must certainly be educated and improved from experience, but which is
not a science.
"The
only true form of democracy is direct democracy"
How can people's opinion be educated? How can people form an always better
opinion and judgment on political matters about which there is no science?
There is only one way: by exercising political power, discussing, and making
decisions. Naturally, the modem conception of democracy, the notion that democracy
is representation, is completely opposite from that of the ancients. This
discussion started a long time ago, and Rousseau himself, writing at the
end of the eighteenth century, said quite plainly that the only acceptable
or true form of democracy is direct democracy. There is a phrase in Rousseau that
could be found in Marx or Lenin when they were criticizing the parliamentary
system. The British, according to Rousseau, think that they are free because
they elect their deputies once every five years, but they are deluding themselves:
they are free one day every five years. I would say that Rousseau does not
follow his reasoning to the end, because naturally they are not free - as
we are not and you are not - not even one day every five years. What you are going
to vote this one day every five years bas already been prescribed. First
of all it bas been prescribed by the political parties that appear. Then
it bas been prescribed by the stuff they have been filling our heads with for
five years. It bas been prescribed by the irreversible conditions created
by the people who are in the swim. We could go on showing how it bas been prescribed
for at least an hour. Once irrevocable representatives have been elected,
their first and main concern is to secure their re-election - unless we believe
in Santa Claus. Every other matter is secondary, and you can see this both
in the level of representatives and the level of presidents. The only thing
they are interested in is how to secure their re-election (regardless of
what constitutional law professors may be teaching). Anything else is nonsense.
Representation is the political self-alienation of the body politic. The
only possible form of democracy is direct democracy, namely, a democracy where
people decide for themselves and not by means of irrevocable representatives.
For a long time now, there bas been an argument and a discussion that
would be dishonest not to mention. We know that direct democracy existed.
It existed in Athens and some other Greek cities. Not all. It never existed
in Rome. If any university professor talks to you about Roman democracy,
you can laugh. Rome bas always been an oligarchy. If any marxist tells you
that Athenian democracy was based on slavery, you can laugh again. Slavery
existed everywhere in the ancient world, but democracy did not. You can tell
him also that he doesn't know marxism because Marx himself wrote, correctly,
that the real socio-economic basis of ancient democracy was the small independent
production of free farmers and craftsmen. The basis of Athenian democracy was
not slavery; the rich owned slaves, most of the rest did not. The basis of
the Athenian democracy was that the peasant walked 25 kilometres to go to
the ecclesia to discuss and decide; the Athenian craftsman and the sailor
from Peirius did the same.
Television can be an instrument of direct democracy
This naturally presupposes a small number of citizens in a political community.
There is a famous phrase of Plato, in the Laws, if I remember correctly,
where he is discussing the ideal dimensions of a city and gays that the ideal
dimensions as regards population (not territory) is the number of people
who, gathered in one place, are able to hear an orator speaking. This is
a very important notion; you can immediately see its different extents. Equally
important is the fact that people are more or less familiar with each other. In
the dialogues of Plato, for instance, Socrates is in a gymnasium, where young
men are gathered, and asks, who is that man? And he is told, how come you don't
know, he is the son of so-and-so. Oh! says Socrates, of course, that's him,
and doesn't he have so-and-so for a cousin? Because when the free citizens
are 30,000, and 10,000-15,000 of them are living in Athens, people are familiar
with each other; each man knows more or less a few things about everyone
else or can easily learn what kind of a man he is, what he is able to do
and not able to do.
The great American sociologist Lewis
Mumford discusses Plato's phrase in a book of his in 1936 and states correctly
that by the invention of radio, the limits of direct democracy had become
the limits of the planet. I, if l'm allowed to mention myself, mentioned
the whole story 20 years later [in Content of Socialism, 1957] and
mentioned also that television can serve direct democracy. Naturally, with
the existing political status quo, television serves political corruption.
But this itself is of no interest. I mean that the technical means exist
for rational and thoughtful collective decisions, surpassing the limitations
of the classical direct democracy (the Athenian, for instance). New structures
and new farms Deed to be invented and created. This notion, though, is insufficient.
In order to put television, radio, etc., into the service of direct democracy,
it is necessary to destroy their unipolar structure: one active transmitter
and innumerable passive receivers. In order to turn television into a democratic
instrument, we must turn the one-way street into a two-way street.
Only incidentally can I mention another huge problem of our days- the
ecological problem. I mention it only to stress that if we take it under consideration,
it is immediately obvious that the matter of democracy is universal-the matter
of democracy is a matter of universal democracy. There are no 'national' solutions
to the ecological problem: a tanker of 500,000 loos passes 400 kilometres
away from your coasts, and if it sinks, as bas happened so many times before,
your coasts get covered with oil for years-not to mention the atmosphere,
the forests, etc.
Every
elected official must be removable at any moment
Direct democracy, so as to be nourished, needs to be truly direct at a certain
level. It needs to be a democracy of a quasi-Athenian type at the base level,
namely, there bas to be a network of decentralized and self-governing communities.
People should be educated in autonomy, self-judgment, and independence at
the level or dimensions of a city between 20 and 50-at most 100-thousand
inhabitants, the dimensions of a factory for productive self-management, or the
dimensions of cooperatives of five to 10 villages. In these dimensions, people
can form an ecclesia and decide on every issue that exclusively concerns them.
In an ecclesia, some people, not representatives, could be charged with constantly
revocable power to take part in higher dimensional units-districts, prefectures,
regions, nations, continents, planet. As regards the basic unities of direct
democracy, the ancients could suggest a few things, not to be initiated but
to think on. For instance, in ancient Athens, a lot of basic powers were
exercised in rotation: for one month one certain tribe held some offices
and among them, every day a different person was supervisor of rectors, that
is, president of the Republic. Next month it was some other tribe's turn.
In other cases the archons were elected by lot. Athenians elected by vote,
as you know, only for offices that really required a specialty, such as the
general's office. Commanding an army in battle is not a thing anybody can
do; one needs special training. The generals were elected by vote and remained
revocable. Modem liberation movements have created similar democratic forms: the
council and the labour council. The genera! assembly of all the interested
elected representatives who are not only responsible but constantly revocable
as well. So they have to answer for what they have done to the people who
elected them.
This is neither the time nor the place for
a detailed description of a direct democracy comprising millions of people.
We must, though, stress two basic principles: on the one hand, true direct
democracy in the base unities, where direct democracy can really function;
on the other hand, every authority that needs to be elected is not only elective, but
constantly revocable and responsible. In this war we can begin to face the
problem of direct democracy in the dimensions of present-day societies and
its expansion in continental and planetary space.
Astynomos Orgè, the
'institution-making' passion
I'm now reaching
my final point. AU this is important, of course, but it is not vital for
direct democracy to function, namely, for freedom to exist. Whether it is
20-30 thousand or 3 billion people, one thing needs to exist behind, below,
and above all institutions, one thing that no one can decide or legislate.
This thing is the constant creative activity of the public. Only the public
- not me, nor you - can find how it's possible for resonance to exist between
a central radio or TV station and the public that receives it. The public,
the people, will find a way to create forms we cannot even imagine, forms
that could solve problems that seem insuperable to us. So what is needed
is this constant creative activity from the public, and that means mainly
everybody's passion for public affairs. That is not a discovery of mine;
it exists in that magnificent choral in Antigone that begins "polla
ta deina kai ouden anqropou deinoteron pelei" [There are many amazing phenomena,
but no one is as amazing as a human being] and where Sophocles, among other
wondrous human characteristics, mentions what he calls "astynomos orgè."
Astynomos means institution-making and orgè, from which the word orgasm
is derived, is urge, passion. People in their heat of passion created real
cities, like the one Sophocles was born in and for which he wrote his tragedies.
If this passion for public affairs, this astynomos orga, does not exist, we
can make good spectacle, write good hooks, create impeccable philosophical
systems, but all this will not mean anything. To conclude, I would like to
mention the view that's completely opposite to the one we state here based
on the amazing and dazzling phrase of Sophocles about the "astynomon
orga," the modern view about such things, the view of the modern
alleged democracy and liberalism. It was expressed with great density and
profoundness by a French political philosopher of the nineteenth century,
Benjamin Constant, in a famous text of his where he compares the freedom
of the ancients with the freedom of modern people and, beginning from what
we were saying about ancient democracy, he says that indeed, in ancient democracy,
as people had nothing else to do (that's how he explains it), they had this
political pass ion, while ourselves, here I am quoting, " all we
seek from the state is to consolidate our delights." And he is not
saying this as an accusation or irony. He is saying this because he knows,
already from 1820, about modern men and women. This is, I hope by half, but
definitely is by that half, a tragic truth about the modern world. What people
want nowadays is to consolidate their delights. And they ask this from the state.
They do not see public affairs and they are not interested in them anymore.
Beyond themselves and their direct circle of friends there is for them a
father-state or mother-state-a state being at the same time a monster and
a kind of Santa Claus who produces bank notes, licenses, jobs, and so on,
but a state that must consolidate our delights. As long as this notion, this
tendency, this profound imaginary point of view of the modem person towards
public affairs and politics still exists, , whatever we say could be or may
be a seed for a furore generation but "does not benefit us at all. What's
pre-eminently needed today and seems to be missing for the time being, is
pass ion for public affairs, responsibility, participation, the "astynomos
orga."