Direct Democracy Vs Representative Democracy
Democracy is the political system where all governmental power is dispersed among the people. What the people want, is what the people get. Everyone has as much of an equal say as the next person; whether that person is more wealthy, more influential, or more well liked. It was created in opposition to many forms of government where the main power is held solely by one, or a few individuals, such as an oligarchy or a dictatorship. There are many modified forms of democracy that exist, but the main forms are direct democracy and a representative democracy (also referred to as a democratic republic). A direct democracy is when every citizen has the same voice in the matters and same equal power. In a representative democracy, which would be the
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United States, the people still maintain a solid amount of power, but have their voice heard through elected leaders which represent their beliefs. Capitalism is the economic system where all forms of economic activities and profit are completely controlled and maintained by private companies or corporations. It is an economic system based on competition between companies trying to provide items for the lowest prices while still trying to make a profit. Capitalism poses many benefits over other systems, but also contains flaws, but what economic system doesn't contain flaws? Rush Limbaugh once stated, "Capitalism is always evaluated against dreams. Utopia is a dream. It doesn't exist." Is Limbaugh right when believing that Capitalism cannot exist? Whether you're born in rags, or if you're born in riches, capitalism provides you the same opportunity to change that, along with everyone else in the world. Capitalism may come off as a form of economy where it's a dog eat dog world and everyone is against one another, but in reality, you're paying for services that benefit you. You pay for products and services that you could not create or do on your own for a much easier way of life. Capitalism embodies the American ideology of freedom. You live a life where everything you want is based on choices. You are born with no obligations at all and can live your life in whatever way you please. Capitalism provides you all sorts of options in your education, allowing you to pursue what pleases you and apply to jobs that interests you. The jobs and education available through a capitalistic system are much more vast than any other system in the world. Capitalism and democracy go hand in hand together much more smoothly than any other options available such as communism, and socialism. Since capitalism is based on the individual having equal rights and the same opportunities as everyone else, it is blatantly obvious that the political system where everyone has an equal say so and equal power would work well with them together. The United States can be ran successfully with democracy and capitalism co-existing together.
Capitalism and Democracy It is evident that Wilson and Dilulio do not believe Capitalism should be considered as a priority in our textbooks based on the lack of information; however, they do mention "Americans support the idea of a free-enterprise economic system, calling the nation's economy 'generally fair and efficient' and denying that it 'survives by keeping the poor down"(p. 79). Wilson believes that Americans are more ignorant to the many inequalities surviving in economics rather than politics, because they "believe in maintaining 'equality of opportunity' in the economy but not 'equality of results'".) According to Wilson's statistics, at least one of the top known four political views, the pluralist view, shows that America is more of a democracy than just referring to it as a democracy. "Of the four views of how political power has been distributed in the United States, the pluralist view does the most to reassure one that America has been, and continues to be, a democracy in more than name only" (p.10). Later on though, Wilson states,
"No matter what view someone shares, many people will still come to the 'cynical conclusion' that whichever view is correct, politic is a self-seeking enterprise is which everybody is out for personal gain." (Wilson & Dilulio, p.79). "Democracy and capitalism are like a lion and a bull pulling a sled together. The bond holding the substantive in balance to the procedural is always a fragile one. In our system of laws, this balance creates justice."(Democracy and Capitalism). Democracy and capitalism have the ability to be balanced and exist together. The pluralistic perspective is one of the largest concepts in the idea of democratic capitalism.
It provides many more benefits than other views and reflect the ideas of what the Constitution stands for. With a pluralist democracy in place, the government is well stabilized and makes it so power is equally shared and there is no specific people set in charge more than others. A pluralist system of power would have sub-divisions dedicated to the needs and wants of specific categories and are well spread out to cover all types of categories equally. Pluralists do not believe that a direct democracy is wanted, let alone possible. "Pluralists feel that democracy can thrive only if the variety of associations inherent in society express themselves politically"(Hudson, p. 10). While it may seem that many pluralists are against the main ideas and concepts of popular democracy, they actually show the exemplary traits of a "good citizen" in a developmental democracy. Hudson later states, "Developmental democracy considers democratic politics the best method of developing the personal qualities associated with its idea of the 'good citizen'"(p.12). Because of that, Pluralists value the social diversity and system stability that democratic institutions
support.
Note. Adapted from American Democracy in Peril: Eight Challenges to America's Future, p. 13, by W. E. Hudson, n.d., Kropfpolisci.com When M. Parenti said, "Although the decisions of government are made in the name of the entire society, they rarely benefit everyone. Some portion of the populace, frequently a majority, loses out."(Parenti, p. 1) He accurately highlighted how the modern day system of democracy and capitalism coincide together in the United States. The people who usually prosper are the individuals who worked their ways to the top through capitalism. They benefit the most because while they still may be an individual, they have more profit (and therefore influence) to gain because of their status, but at the same time they can also have more profit to lose. "Even if it were possible to bring together the emerging new thinking to define the outlines of a system that might in principle be able to sustain equality, liberty, and democracy—and do so in ways better than either U.S. capitalism or its traditional socialist rival—could such an exercise ever have meaning in the real world of politics?" (Alperovitz, p. 2) Alperovitz presents the valid point of no other economic systems cooperating as well as capitalism and democracy cooperate now. As history has shown, only time will tell whether a different set of systems will work better than the current. "Serious historians' understand—indeed, take for granted—that political-economic systems come and go over time, and that the current American system is probably not the be-all and end-all of world development." (Alperovitz, p. 2) While many believe the current system is working well and needs no altering, many others believe the opposite and have been devising alternate systems where the income gap is reduced, while still maintaining many of the same common principles and ideas. "...just below the surface of most media concern—there has also been an extraordinary explosion of practical real-world economic and political experimentation in the United States that ties in with (and points in the direction of) some of the main features of the new system-oriented ideas." (Alperovitz, p. 2) People across the world, as well as Americans themselves, often recognize the United States for its substantial "freedom" based on its political system of democracy. As W. H. Boyer said, "Americans lose control over the meaning of capitalism when they equate 'capitalism' with 'democracy.' American foreign policy uses this deception when the United States is said to be dedicated to furthering democracy in the world; but the truth is that the objective is mainly to further capitalism. The most favored term is freedom." (Boyer, p. 1) In Boyer's opinion, simply by using powerful words such as "freedom" and "liberty", many individuals become blind to the fact that "capitalism", "freedom", and "liberty" do not have nearly the same connotations as one would believe just based on association in sentences with one another. This is the main way the United States can spread capitalism internationally, as many foreign countries would love to enjoy the "freedom" the United States possesses. "Public misunderstanding is essential to the perpetuation of the power structures of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The word "freedom" has a positive halo effect in most parts of the world. It is often used to paralyze thought, so that capitalism and corporate power are "free" to carry on." (Boyer, p. 1) Democracy is simply put, "power to the people". The thing that makes it great and well liked is because of its simplistic nature and the straight forwardness of it. "The essence of democracy is self-government. Anything less is a fraud. Being connected to the Internet is not democracy, having a choice between Gore and Bush is not democracy, receiving five hundred channels of digital television is not democracy, being awarded a slice of corporate-allocated prosperity is not democracy. Democracy is control." (Hightower, p. 2-3) You maintain control of a democracy in a capitalistic system by having wealth (power). The more wealth (power) you have, the easier it is to sway decisions of other people in your favor. Capitalism is all based around an individual rising to the top on their "own", usually through obtaining mass amounts of wealth and companies. Many others want a share of this wealth (power) so they generally agree with whatever the main individual says in hopes that they one day will achieve the same wealth and status as him. Money makes friends (control), and capitalism makes for an easy way to manipulate a democracy. One may argue that there are many new laws and regulations set to limit the easiness to manipulate and usually eliminate it all together. Many anti-trust acts are enforced onto many companies trying to gain more power through wealth and friendships. "It is true that throughout history capitalism has been a system that has largely served the interests of capital." (Kelly, p. 2) Before the creation of large corporations, capitalism was recognized as one of the best fitting economic systems that profited the public more than any other system. Following the start of the early twentieth century, the United States "changed the basis of sovereignty on which government rested." (Kelly, p. 2) Once the government changed, many people started taking advantage of others and increasing their profits. This manipulation of power and control allowed for large monopolies and corporations to be formed with no legal action. Following multiple people getting rich through these loopholes, the government started wising up and forming laws and acts against these actions. The only real negative was that once one of these loopholes was patched up, others were found and exploited. This seemingly endless operation of trial and error continued on and on until they became harder to find and use to individuals personal advantages. Once the amount of loopholes died down, the system of capitalism became less corrupt and in turn, started ironing itself out and correcting the flaws in it. While there will always be flaws in whatever economic system is in place, it will only get better and less flawed over time with the creation of solutions to the problems when they present themselves. Bernard Moran, a 21 year old grad-student formed the website Educoup.com in March of 2013. Educoup.com is a relatively small website displaying the many flaws throughout the United States common systems, including, but not limited to: educational systems, economic systems, and political systems. In a recent blog post, Moran stated that, "Economic democracy entails that workers democratically control their workplaces. They vote on investment decisions, they can elect and recall their managers, or they may just allocate team leaders more informally, on a project by project basis. Hiring and firing are collective decisions." "The best (though not the only one, not by a long shot) example of this method of doing business, is Mondragon Corporation in the Basque Region of Spain. Employing over 90’000 employees, decades old, and having managed the recession with aplomb, Mondragon is a massive family of democratically run businesses across the knowledge, retail, finance and manufacturing industries. If you lose your job in one of Mondragon’s businesses they will compensate you in the hugely unlikely event you are not employed elsewhere in the network of companies. Managers are elected and the highest wages can be no more than five times the lowest. To put this in perspective, in the US, the average CEO earns 273 times the amount of the average worker." (Moran, 2014) Moran presents a form of an economic system that is not very well-known. If all companies and corporations followed this business model, a huge amount of profit would still exist, along with a excessively reduced income gap between an average worker and the CEO. Implementing this system in the top corporations would not only change the United States economic situation, but also the entire world in what looks to be a very equal and positive way. If capitalism and democracy were implemented in the same form as this, they could easily work together in perfect harmony, all while entirely fulfilling the economic needs of the entire United States.
Conclusion
In conclusion, based on the thoughts of authors such as Alperovitz and Moran, democracy and capitalism can co-exist together in a workable and positive relationship for the people of the United States.
United States, the people still maintain a solid amount of power, but have their voice heard through elected leaders which represent their beliefs. Capitalism is the economic system where all forms of economic activities and profit are completely controlled and maintained by private companies or corporations. It is an economic system based on competition between companies trying to provide items for the lowest prices while still trying to make a profit. Capitalism poses many benefits over other systems, but also contains flaws, but what economic system doesn't contain flaws? Rush Limbaugh once stated, "Capitalism is always evaluated against dreams. Utopia is a dream. It doesn't exist." Is Limbaugh right when believing that Capitalism cannot exist? Whether you're born in rags, or if you're born in riches, capitalism provides you the same opportunity to change that, along with everyone else in the world. Capitalism may come off as a form of economy where it's a dog eat dog world and everyone is against one another, but in reality, you're paying for services that benefit you. You pay for products and services that you could not create or do on your own for a much easier way of life. Capitalism embodies the American ideology of freedom. You live a life where everything you want is based on choices. You are born with no obligations at all and can live your life in whatever way you please. Capitalism provides you all sorts of options in your education, allowing you to pursue what pleases you and apply to jobs that interests you. The jobs and education available through a capitalistic system are much more vast than any other system in the world. Capitalism and democracy go hand in hand together much more smoothly than any other options available such as communism, and socialism. Since capitalism is based on the individual having equal rights and the same opportunities as everyone else, it is blatantly obvious that the political system where everyone has an equal say so and equal power would work well with them together. The United States can be ran successfully with democracy and capitalism co-existing together.
Capitalism and Democracy It is evident that Wilson and Dilulio do not believe Capitalism should be considered as a priority in our textbooks based on the lack of information; however, they do mention "Americans support the idea of a free-enterprise economic system, calling the nation's economy 'generally fair and efficient' and denying that it 'survives by keeping the poor down"(p. 79). Wilson believes that Americans are more ignorant to the many inequalities surviving in economics rather than politics, because they "believe in maintaining 'equality of opportunity' in the economy but not 'equality of results'".) According to Wilson's statistics, at least one of the top known four political views, the pluralist view, shows that America is more of a democracy than just referring to it as a democracy. "Of the four views of how political power has been distributed in the United States, the pluralist view does the most to reassure one that America has been, and continues to be, a democracy in more than name only" (p.10). Later on though, Wilson states,
"No matter what view someone shares, many people will still come to the 'cynical conclusion' that whichever view is correct, politic is a self-seeking enterprise is which everybody is out for personal gain." (Wilson & Dilulio, p.79). "Democracy and capitalism are like a lion and a bull pulling a sled together. The bond holding the substantive in balance to the procedural is always a fragile one. In our system of laws, this balance creates justice."(Democracy and Capitalism). Democracy and capitalism have the ability to be balanced and exist together. The pluralistic perspective is one of the largest concepts in the idea of democratic capitalism.
It provides many more benefits than other views and reflect the ideas of what the Constitution stands for. With a pluralist democracy in place, the government is well stabilized and makes it so power is equally shared and there is no specific people set in charge more than others. A pluralist system of power would have sub-divisions dedicated to the needs and wants of specific categories and are well spread out to cover all types of categories equally. Pluralists do not believe that a direct democracy is wanted, let alone possible. "Pluralists feel that democracy can thrive only if the variety of associations inherent in society express themselves politically"(Hudson, p. 10). While it may seem that many pluralists are against the main ideas and concepts of popular democracy, they actually show the exemplary traits of a "good citizen" in a developmental democracy. Hudson later states, "Developmental democracy considers democratic politics the best method of developing the personal qualities associated with its idea of the 'good citizen'"(p.12). Because of that, Pluralists value the social diversity and system stability that democratic institutions
support.
Note. Adapted from American Democracy in Peril: Eight Challenges to America's Future, p. 13, by W. E. Hudson, n.d., Kropfpolisci.com When M. Parenti said, "Although the decisions of government are made in the name of the entire society, they rarely benefit everyone. Some portion of the populace, frequently a majority, loses out."(Parenti, p. 1) He accurately highlighted how the modern day system of democracy and capitalism coincide together in the United States. The people who usually prosper are the individuals who worked their ways to the top through capitalism. They benefit the most because while they still may be an individual, they have more profit (and therefore influence) to gain because of their status, but at the same time they can also have more profit to lose. "Even if it were possible to bring together the emerging new thinking to define the outlines of a system that might in principle be able to sustain equality, liberty, and democracy—and do so in ways better than either U.S. capitalism or its traditional socialist rival—could such an exercise ever have meaning in the real world of politics?" (Alperovitz, p. 2) Alperovitz presents the valid point of no other economic systems cooperating as well as capitalism and democracy cooperate now. As history has shown, only time will tell whether a different set of systems will work better than the current. "Serious historians' understand—indeed, take for granted—that political-economic systems come and go over time, and that the current American system is probably not the be-all and end-all of world development." (Alperovitz, p. 2) While many believe the current system is working well and needs no altering, many others believe the opposite and have been devising alternate systems where the income gap is reduced, while still maintaining many of the same common principles and ideas. "...just below the surface of most media concern—there has also been an extraordinary explosion of practical real-world economic and political experimentation in the United States that ties in with (and points in the direction of) some of the main features of the new system-oriented ideas." (Alperovitz, p. 2) People across the world, as well as Americans themselves, often recognize the United States for its substantial "freedom" based on its political system of democracy. As W. H. Boyer said, "Americans lose control over the meaning of capitalism when they equate 'capitalism' with 'democracy.' American foreign policy uses this deception when the United States is said to be dedicated to furthering democracy in the world; but the truth is that the objective is mainly to further capitalism. The most favored term is freedom." (Boyer, p. 1) In Boyer's opinion, simply by using powerful words such as "freedom" and "liberty", many individuals become blind to the fact that "capitalism", "freedom", and "liberty" do not have nearly the same connotations as one would believe just based on association in sentences with one another. This is the main way the United States can spread capitalism internationally, as many foreign countries would love to enjoy the "freedom" the United States possesses. "Public misunderstanding is essential to the perpetuation of the power structures of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The word "freedom" has a positive halo effect in most parts of the world. It is often used to paralyze thought, so that capitalism and corporate power are "free" to carry on." (Boyer, p. 1) Democracy is simply put, "power to the people". The thing that makes it great and well liked is because of its simplistic nature and the straight forwardness of it. "The essence of democracy is self-government. Anything less is a fraud. Being connected to the Internet is not democracy, having a choice between Gore and Bush is not democracy, receiving five hundred channels of digital television is not democracy, being awarded a slice of corporate-allocated prosperity is not democracy. Democracy is control." (Hightower, p. 2-3) You maintain control of a democracy in a capitalistic system by having wealth (power). The more wealth (power) you have, the easier it is to sway decisions of other people in your favor. Capitalism is all based around an individual rising to the top on their "own", usually through obtaining mass amounts of wealth and companies. Many others want a share of this wealth (power) so they generally agree with whatever the main individual says in hopes that they one day will achieve the same wealth and status as him. Money makes friends (control), and capitalism makes for an easy way to manipulate a democracy. One may argue that there are many new laws and regulations set to limit the easiness to manipulate and usually eliminate it all together. Many anti-trust acts are enforced onto many companies trying to gain more power through wealth and friendships. "It is true that throughout history capitalism has been a system that has largely served the interests of capital." (Kelly, p. 2) Before the creation of large corporations, capitalism was recognized as one of the best fitting economic systems that profited the public more than any other system. Following the start of the early twentieth century, the United States "changed the basis of sovereignty on which government rested." (Kelly, p. 2) Once the government changed, many people started taking advantage of others and increasing their profits. This manipulation of power and control allowed for large monopolies and corporations to be formed with no legal action. Following multiple people getting rich through these loopholes, the government started wising up and forming laws and acts against these actions. The only real negative was that once one of these loopholes was patched up, others were found and exploited. This seemingly endless operation of trial and error continued on and on until they became harder to find and use to individuals personal advantages. Once the amount of loopholes died down, the system of capitalism became less corrupt and in turn, started ironing itself out and correcting the flaws in it. While there will always be flaws in whatever economic system is in place, it will only get better and less flawed over time with the creation of solutions to the problems when they present themselves. Bernard Moran, a 21 year old grad-student formed the website Educoup.com in March of 2013. Educoup.com is a relatively small website displaying the many flaws throughout the United States common systems, including, but not limited to: educational systems, economic systems, and political systems. In a recent blog post, Moran stated that, "Economic democracy entails that workers democratically control their workplaces. They vote on investment decisions, they can elect and recall their managers, or they may just allocate team leaders more informally, on a project by project basis. Hiring and firing are collective decisions." "The best (though not the only one, not by a long shot) example of this method of doing business, is Mondragon Corporation in the Basque Region of Spain. Employing over 90’000 employees, decades old, and having managed the recession with aplomb, Mondragon is a massive family of democratically run businesses across the knowledge, retail, finance and manufacturing industries. If you lose your job in one of Mondragon’s businesses they will compensate you in the hugely unlikely event you are not employed elsewhere in the network of companies. Managers are elected and the highest wages can be no more than five times the lowest. To put this in perspective, in the US, the average CEO earns 273 times the amount of the average worker." (Moran, 2014) Moran presents a form of an economic system that is not very well-known. If all companies and corporations followed this business model, a huge amount of profit would still exist, along with a excessively reduced income gap between an average worker and the CEO. Implementing this system in the top corporations would not only change the United States economic situation, but also the entire world in what looks to be a very equal and positive way. If capitalism and democracy were implemented in the same form as this, they could easily work together in perfect harmony, all while entirely fulfilling the economic needs of the entire United States.
Conclusion
In conclusion, based on the thoughts of authors such as Alperovitz and Moran, democracy and capitalism can co-exist together in a workable and positive relationship for the people of the United States.