Democracy is just an illusion

dxhound2005

A couple of people got very bitter and angry but that's about it.

Andrewf20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118278487#Comment_118278487

People are too docile to revolt. In an age of individualism, people tend to not rally together for a common cause. And revolution does not guarantee that what comes out the far side will be better than what has gone before.

Humans are corrupt with selfish interests often take a front row seat & I think that wont change. Tbh I think we have it very good generally. There's no better time or place to be alive that in the modern western world.

Adam Curtis's documentary "The trap" talks about some of this. Basically no one can be trusted even the people who revolt against corruption. They too have their own self interests at heart. Trailer here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=matkDgZ00sg

Ray Palmer

The USA is not a democracy as proven by the college electoral system. There system is way more messed up than here. Local towns and counties vote for very odd rules and are highly corrupt. There are Judges without law degrees who are elected. Very odd when you start looking at it. You can be driving a long at the road turns to muck and is because you just entered another town.

As for SF they were on local councils during the Celtic tiger years when devlopers paid the local council rather than social housing. The council were then meant to build housing with the money. Did they? No the squandered the money. If they are so into housing people why do they ignore the traveler housing fund money? They left an orgainsed crime structure behind when they disarmed and it is why we have the problems we have now. All those good SF politician and fighters how many have been found with illegal gains? Trusting them seems like madness to me

AckwelFoley

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118285135#Comment_118285135

The US is a democracy. You misunderstand the Electoral college system, or you do understand and disagree with it, but it is a democracy.

The purpose of the EC system is to give all walks of life, albeit geographical a proportional voice. Otherwise, the US would be ruled by the wishes of the large urban centres, leaving the less populated rural areas without representation

Ireland has similar by means of the allocation of TDs per constituency.

If it were one man one vote, rural Ireland wouldn't have a voice.

AckwelFoley

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118278487#Comment_118278487

When the revolution is complete, what next?

Where can we look to throughout the entire world, where your communist ideal works on a daily basis. I'm not too thrilled with the idea of ploughing a new furrow, I'd like to see what I'm getting into before I sign on the dotted line

StupidLikeAFox

A revolution indeed. If you want to build a political movement we have a very transparent election every 5 years. Go ahead and knock yourself out.

Harryd225

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118285726#Comment_118285726

Missing the point of the thread here, there's a reason why the two party systems reign supreme in the UK, USA and until recently Ireland.

Because it takes a Massive amount of power, wealth and influence to even get a look in and the two parties in charge will use all of that to discredit.

Hence the point, while the wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few then democracy cannot exist, the few have the power to influence the votes with all their money and friends in high place.

Sinn Féin only managed to get a look in because the IRA decided to throw all their power, wealth and influence into the world of politics.

They were even banned from the leaders debate on the last election.

StupidLikeAFox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118285899#Comment_118285899

Not exactly the spirit of a revolutionary leader

85603

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118278487#Comment_118278487

maybe whats needed is a consumers union.

olde style unions have more or less been defeated. but if workers could mass attack sales through organized boycotting then they'd have something to work with.

workers are consumers. if consumption choices could be mutually coordinated then the foundation of profits can be attacked. global supply often helps make alternatives available. (would work best with competing products)

if you can blacklist a company to hundreds of thousands of consumers that is a frightening prospect to management and shareholders. as ever though it has the weakness of needing solidarity.

if you could get enough pr and presence in society it could work though.

like if 100,000 members were signed up with the intention of punishing those companies who shaft workers, then thats real power.

dont know how you'd do it. but ultimately if a sales manager gets an email saying improve conditions or we have x thousands people promising to boycott your products as a listed campaign on our members site, you may well listen.

information tech would really facilitate that kind of thing. people could dip in, check a particular case, decide if they deserve to be boycotted, decide if its possible based on individual circumstance. see proof. see how many others are onboard. like a boycotty gofundme.

goboycottme.

AckwelFoley

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118286596#Comment_118286596

This is well intentioned but naive.

People already make those choices. They know their Nike is made by a 6 year old Vietnamese boy but they want their Nike more than they care about child labour

Consumers want to buy a pack of baby grows in Pennys for 4 euro made by people in work camps in China working for pittance.

You could have the same baby grows made in Ireland under better conditions but the customer won't pay 25 euro for the same thing.

Chicken or egg, but consumers are already responsible for the proce race to the bottom, companies are responding to competition in prices.

So asking to get 100,000 people to boycott company x is possible, but it will be people that wouldn't shop there in the first place

boardise

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118285899#Comment_118285899

SF/IRA had some interesting income streams which has led to SF being the richest party around...e.g.bank robberies , donations from republican sympathisers in the US and bequests ( e.g.some geezer in Britain left £1.5 million a few years ago).

PHG

You talk about influence, maybe have a look at your "non influenced opinion" where parts of your opening post are copied and pasted directly from a Karl Marx article.

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2012/3/13/what-if-democracy-is-just-an-illusion

Sure wouldn't Marxism, communism or pure socialism be better 🙄. These were all tried out and capitalism (which was the least likely to succeed) came out on top. Our capitalism is by no means the free market capitalism that Marx talked about, the same goes for Keynes capitalism views. In Europe it is a mix of Capitalism, Socialism and Corporatism. But everyone gets a vote and can decide who they vote for. To say the 1% control the 99% is absurd, there are plenty of old ones who would not budge in their vote no matter what the 1% said. Prime examples are, the old farmers who are staunch FF or FG, or look up North where it is either SF or DUP, the the SDLP seem to be slowly making ground with the younger parties. Personally I think the Soc Dems could have had a good go but messed it up completely with bad leadership about 10/12 years ago, same for Lib Dems in UK.

We in the west live in a democracy, the basic definition is The word democracy most often refers to a form of government in which people choose leaders by voting. Source is https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/democracy

If you think the 1% are governing everything that the politicians decide, you are mistaken. Does the 1% have influence, of course they do but nowhere near the extent you think.

85603

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118286638#Comment_118286638

it can't be naive. i expressly wrote "as ever though it has the weakness of needing solidarity."

and there was no intention behind it. its a commentary on what could be done to the mechanism of present market forces which would constitute a modern non-violent revolution, albeit on a small scale.

Also your last paragraph is full of assumption. Why wouldn't a given target audience visit any one particular target business?

If I'm regularly buying a brand of pizza, and I'm signed up to help other workers (and by extension myself), and if I believe in our collectively boycotting businesses as a weapon, then I can just listen to the collective and buy the next brand of pizza.

A central authority gives the word 'these guys are being real a.ssholes' and now they're blacklisted to workers who have experience of being subject to a.sshole businesses.

It works for discount codes. Your favorite celebrity gives out a promo on his/her media, and the audience then visit that business, sales go up.

So it can work in reverse. An authority gives out information on who's treating their workers like dirt, and the audience then avoid that business when spending. Now a rep can contact that business with the stats on how many members are p1ssed enough to boycott them. And management can weigh which cost is higher, continued policy and lost sales (and brand value), or change of policy.

Some products would be more vulnerable, some less, naturally. High involvement purchases such as car brands may be more immune. Low involvement purchases such as snacks with many alternative products would be very vulnerable.

dxhound2005

To many if's in the proposition, and no plan how to make it work.

but if workers could mass attack sales through organized boycotting then they'd have something to work with.

workers are consumers. if consumption choices could be mutually coordinated then the foundation of profits can be attacked. global supply often helps make alternatives available. (would work best with competing products)

if you can blacklist a company to hundreds of thousands of consumers that is a frightening prospect to management and shareholders. as ever though it has the weakness of needing solidarity.

if you could get enough pr and presence in society it could work though.

like if 100,000 members were signed up with the intention of punishing those companies who shaft workers, then thats real power.

dont know how you'd do it.

One eyed Jack

Has it occurred to you OP that one of the possible reasons the 99% don’t revolt is that maybe they LIKE the misery? 🤔

85603

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118287050#Comment_118287050

Its not a plan.

OP was looking for solutions.

This is one.

The market system works a certain way. The customer is the ultimate authority until the transfer of money. The customer can also simultaneously be a worker.

The worker is directed by the people trying to impress the customer.

Boycotts are not what management wants. Customers are capable of boycotts. Im sure you can figure out the mechanism. Its not proposed as flawless. It is proposed as 1 solution. Lets see your solution.

dxhound2005

You are up against this sort of cynicism from post #33. I think they probably meant to write "taking a front row seat".

In an age of individualism, people tend to not rally together for a common cause. And revolution does not guarantee that what comes out the far side will be better than what has gone before.

Humans are corrupt with selfish interests often take a front row seat & I think that wont change.

85603

Humans act in their own interest.

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118287379#Comment_118287379

In order to have their own ideology in charge.

So after the glorious revolution, what happens?

85603

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118287422#Comment_118287422

what revolution?

and how would I know?

Harryd225

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118287571#Comment_118287571

The people here seem to have liked your idea and are now looking to you as our leader.

Harryd225

My mam used to say to me years ago you have to vote, I always reply: Vote for what?! You have red and blue. That is hardly freedom. Which hand do you want? Left or right? Can’t you see that, behind the illusion, the left and right hand belong to a single person? No matter which colour we vote for everything behind the scenes stays the same, democracy is basically just reality TV, we vote for which face we want to be on our television the most, out of the two choices we are given we can either vote if we want to see red or blue on our TV every evening.

Sinn Féin have emerged in our ''democracy'' in the last ten years or so but as I said that was only made possible through the IRA and all the money, power and influence they had which allowed Sinn Féin to have a chance, the IRA were worth hundreds and hundreds of millions, had support and connections all around the world, had an endless amount of people around Ireland and the world willing to volunteer to help Sinn Féin.

Sinn Féin inherited all of that it's the only reason they've been able to stand a chance.

AckwelFoley

Run for election yourself.

Just because you don't like what's there in front of you doesn't mean democracy is an illusion. The people in the last election voted for what they wanted. If you don't like it, set up your own party. If you don't get elected that's not democracy at fault, it's your policies.

Brendan Ogle was frustrated that he couldn't get get ESB workers to go on strike. Afterwards he called them a pampered bunch. Which is true. Their very well paid. They seen no need to strike.

Perhaps we're a pampered bunch in Ireland and see no need to vote for the offered alternatives

The IRA have less to do with the perceived success of Sinn Fein, rather it's the failings of parties

The decline of the labour party has given no alternative for voters and have turned to Sinn Fein.

Sinn fein will be in power soon. Bookmark this post and watch them roll back on most of their promises. They will, and they'll be out on their ear in 4 years

Harryd225

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118290490#Comment_118290490

It takes a Massive amount of power, wealth and influence to even get a look in and the two parties in charge can usually discredit any threat before it gets off the ground because they have the massive power and wealth.

Hence the point, while the wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few then democracy cannot exist, the few have the power to influence the votes with all their money and friends in high places.

In every political system, especially democracy, the rich tend to hold the most political power by far, The danger is that this political power is usually used to promote policies and parties that further cement the economic power of the rich, they also use this political power to convince you that any party who wants to change this are a bunch of loons who don't know what they're talking about.

Like when State broadcaster RTÉ came in for severe criticism as it slashed Sinn Féin’s election coverage following a poll in the Sunday Business Post on 14 February which showed the party gaining ground.

There have been endless media campaigns against Sinn Féin but luckily they have the massive power, wealth and influence necessary to counteract all this that they inherited from the IRA which unfortunately most parties don't have.

dxhound2005

Bit of an odd argument there. That democracy is the political system above all others where the rich tend to hold the most political power by far. That is the description of a plutocracy. Democracy is actually the only system where individuals and multiple parties can stand for election. In Ireland there are about 20 different registered parties. With policies ranging from old Soviet style communism, to extreme right wingers. And your constituency will probably have a few independents next time out for you to consider.

That is as good as it is going to get, even though you despise the outcome. And you make up conspiracy theory nonsense to justify your outlook. You would be better off living in a one party socialist paradise, or with a fascist strong man to regulate your life.