Bourgeois democracy
Bourgeois democracy[a] is a variant of the state under capitalism under which the dictatorship of the ruling bourgeoisie is obscured nominally democratic institutions such as regular elections, multiple political parties for elements of the ruling class with diverging stances, and nominal civil liberties. Bourgeois democracy is the most common form of government in modern capitalist countries.
In contrast to their outward appearance, "democracy" under capitalism is in truth only democratic for the ruling class, with the workers possessing little power over the actual affairs of the government. Bourgeois democratic freedoms such as freedom of speech and assembly are largely enjoyed exclusively by the capitalists and not the proletarians, the former controlling the vast majority of the media and other spaces for political discourse, with anti-capitalist sentiments being suppressed by indirect or forceful methods.[1]
Bourgeois democracy and its nominal freedoms are dismantled in times of prolonged capitalist crisis in favor of fascism — the open dictatorship of the reactionary elements of the bourgeoisie. Only through socialist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat is democracy for the majority of the population possible.
See also
References
- ↑ Vladimir Lenin (1918). "Democracy" and Dictatorship.
"Take, for example, freedom of assembly and freedom of the press. The Scheidemanns and Kautskys, the Austerlitzes and Renners assure the workers that the present elections to the Constituent Assembly in Germany and Austria are "democratic". That is a lie. In practice the capitalists, the exploiters, the landowners and the profiteers own 9/10 of the best meeting halls, and 9/10 of the stocks of newsprint, printing presses, etc.. The urban workers and the farm hands and day laborers are, in practice, debarred from democracy by the "sacred right of property" (guarded by the Kautskys and Renners, and now, to our regret, by Friedrich Adler as well) and by the bourgeois state apparatus, that is, bourgeois officials, bourgeois judges, and so on. The present "freedom of assembly and the press" in the "democratic" (bourgeois democratic) German republic is false and hypocritical, because in fact it is freedom for the rich to buy and bribe the press, freedom for the rich to befuddle the people with venomous lies of the bourgeois press, freedom for the rich to keep as their "property" the landowners' mansions, the best buildings, etc.. The dictatorship of the proletariat will take from the capitalists and hand over to the working people the landowners' mansions, the best buildings, printing presses and the stocks of newsprint."
Notes
- ↑ Also known as capitalist democracy, liberal democracy, etc.