This is my last post on this thread -- and my last of the day. Work calls. (I have also cut the message down to one part, the one in which Justin makes a false accusation. I am sorry that it's so abstract.)
I wrote:
>I don't identify democracy with "majority rule." You forgot "minority
>rights." Unlike classical liberalism (Locke, _et al_) I don't see rights as
>being "natural." Rather, I know that people value them and will choose to
>allow them, if given a democratic chance.
Justin accuses:>You normally do forget minority rights, such as when I mention the tyranny of the majority, you start accusing me of being antidemocratic. If people will value and choose rights, they don't need to be legally protected. I am not so optimistic as you. That's why I support constitutional democracy, which insulates rights from majoritarian prejudices.<
1. It should be mentioned that minority property rights claiming the means of production gives the minority (the capitalists) power over the majority. I think that this tyranny of the minority is much worse than any tyranny of the majority.
2. Unlike most advocates of "socialism from above" (Stalinists, social democrats, etc.) I think that people can learn from their mistakes and educate themselves in other ways, so that democracy is a _process_. Most of the examples of the "tyranny of the majority" that elitist theorists point to are examples where democracy was temporary and new, where people didn't get a chance to figure out how to run things (expecially since they were being attacked from the outside, by those defending privilege); these folks also forget all of the abuses associated with minority rule.[*] Most elitist theorists, however, don't need examples, since they're simply defending their own minority rights and privileges.
Frankly, I think that the left would get much further if we explicitly embraced democratic sovereignty rather than saying that a new stratum of experts would do a better job.
I also would like to know what Justin's alternative to the principle of democratic sovereignty. Is it the Platonic principle that the enlightened Guardians should rule?
3. I don't know where Justin gets the false impression that I'm against constitutional democracy (a phrase that is new to this thread and was never discussed, even by implication) from. It seems to me that people who are organizing things collectively _want_ a constitution (rules of the game). For example, when I've been on juries, the _first_ thing the jurors did was to decide on (informal) rules.
To repeat myself, there's no _a priori_ conflict between "majority rule" and "minority rights," since almost all people want some insulation from the domination of the majority. This formulation (with not only rule but rights) implies the need for rules of the game, i.e., a constitution. So democracy _implies_ a constitution of some sort.
Perhaps Justin is confusing "constitutional democracy" with the actually-existing constitutional republic in the US, but I can't read his mind.
4. I must admit that democracy is often not a pretty process (though it's hard to find examples in the actually-existing US except on the micro-level). But democracy is the only legitimate way to deal with political issues (i.e., with collective decision-making). Dictatorship, rule by minorities, etc. will not do, while the idea that automatic market-like processes will replace democracy is silly. (People might decide that markets would be appropriate to making some decisions, but the basic principle of democratic sovereignty should apply.)
[*] One example: the theorists of the "tyranny of the majority" often point to the Great Terror during the 1789 French Revolution. But they forget that the minority (capitalist) ruled government imposed many more deaths in the suppression of the Paris Commune.
JD
