Democracy - a tenet of the doctrine. Its meaning?

I create this post within General Discussions, as it may become political in nature and therefore feel this would be the most appropriate location for such a discussion.

A key tenet of the Jedi doctrine, as I have become aware, is the following:

In the importance of democracy within religious, political and other structures.

I find the wording here interesting, as it extends beyond "political." Therefore, my question to you all is this: To what degree do you interpret this doctrine? More specifically, does this doctrine apply to the most prevailing force in our lives - economics?

While one may decry that to adopt economics is to staunchly adopt a specific political view, socialism, there are many philosophies of democratic economic models, such as the following:

-Democratic Socialism (Not to be confused with what France and Sweden have, social democracy)
-Variants of Marxism (DeLeonism, council communism, classical Marxism, autonomous Marxism)
-Variants of anarchism (anarcho-syndicalism, anarcho-communism)

These span different approaches to the idea of "the market," the role of a state (and therefore, the political realm in general), and cannot be tagged as one simple classification under "socialism."

So, then, in your own interpretation of this tenet, do you believe that this adherence to democracy includes the most prevailing force in our lives, the economy?

i will keep this brief, as i am known to ramble, but in answer strictly to your final question, yes, it must. we practice economic democracy every day, when we choose one good or service over another. we 'vote with our dollars'.

welcome to the temple. we may have much to talk about, as these are topics relevant to my interests/education.

Desolous wrote: i will keep this brief, as i am known to ramble, but in answer strictly to your final question, yes, it must. we practice economic democracy every day, when we choose one good or service over another. we 'vote with our dollars'.

welcome to the temple. we may have much to talk about, as these are topics relevant to my interests/education.

Ah, yet one could contend that we do not practice economic democracy. I am not speaking of the market being democratic, I'm referring to the workplace.

If you evaluate the production of value from the individual worker's perspective, there are two types of value intake - necessary value and surplus value. Necessary value is the wage paid in order to sustain the worker's basic needs and their ability to return to work, their wages. Surplus value is the excess value, the excess capital, produced by the worker which they have no control over and do not keep, despite having produced it - the person who controls the means of productions keeps, and invests this capital.

This person (or group of people) in our system are not democratically elected by those who produce the surplus value, nor do those who produce said value have any democratic control over the surplus they produce. This, I would personally argue, is an undemocratic system, and would go so far as to call it a system of exploitation.

i trust you are referring to capitalism. i will say this about it: it is the best system we have so far economically. even there, we see that it has lost its way, put profits before people and generally ran amok over the last few decades.

that as a little background. in your workplace setting, it is necessarily undemocratic. a person is hired simply at the wage that they can command in the open market based on any number of objective and subjective criteria, with the explicit understanding that any excess value they create goes to the company. if they work for a 'good company', some of this will be rewarded to them at a later date in the form of bonuses, commission, etc. but the process as a whole in our prevailing economic model is necessarily undemocratic. having to vote on every issue of capital allocation, investment, strategy and so forth would be extremely cumbersome.

to address your choice of term of exploitation: again, its the model we have. a person chooses to be 'exploited' or not based on their overall need of a paycheck. i personally wouldnt work at all if i didnt need the money. i have better things to do, ya know?

Desolous wrote: i trust you are referring to capitalism. i will say this about it: it is the best system we have so far economically. even there, we see that it has lost its way, put profits before people and generally ran amok over the last few decades.

that as a little background. in your workplace setting, it is necessarily undemocratic. a person is hired simply at the wage that they can command in the open market based on any number of objective and subjective criteria, with the explicit understanding that any excess value they create goes to the company. if they work for a 'good company', some of this will be rewarded to them at a later date in the form of bonuses, commission, etc. but the process as a whole in our prevailing economic model is necessarily undemocratic. having to vote on every issue of capital allocation, investment, strategy and so forth would be extremely cumbersome.

to address your choice of term of exploitation: again, its the model we have. a person chooses to be 'exploited' or not based on their overall need of a paycheck. i personally wouldnt work at all if i didnt need the money. i have better things to do, ya know?

Yes, I am referring to capitalism. Though I would contend it is not the best system used thus far - I cite the Paris Commune and Catalona, Spain during the Spanish Civil War as far superior and well functioning examples otherwise - both which fell not due to their own inadequacies but the overwhelming outside military forces that destroyed them.

Capitalism does put profits before people, this is its nature - it's fuel is greed, which is why I find it to be an inadequate system. Not only does it promote greed, it functions under that condition.

I agree that to vote on every issue would be cumbersome - but if you look at any politically democratic nation, there are none in which the people vote on every issue. That is why in a workplace of any moderate to large size, a council would have to be elected on behalf of the workers. To keep as much liberty as possible, I would argue, these representatives would have to be able to be recalled at any moment by democratic vote, and there should be term limits. Such a system, then, would not be cumbersome - it would simply be different in that those economic powers with reign would not merely exist without worker say, they would be elected.

I would also contend that nobody "chooses" to be exploited, living in a capitalist society we are subject to it. It is unrealistic to think that someone out of primary school or college has any other option than to enter into a said exploitative relationship in order to maintain adequate sustenance and survival.

For the most part, we agree. One point:

'That is why in a workplace of any moderate to large size, a council would have to be elected on behalf of the workers. To keep as much liberty as possible, I would argue, these representatives would have to be able to be recalled at any moment by democratic vote, and there should be term limits.'

This council model already exists in a couple of forms. First, there is a board of directors on publicly traded companies elected by the shareholders. you should see the conundrum right away, however. as a large portion of the shares are held by institutional investors, upper management and other rich bigwigs, the desires of the worker are often overlooked.

next, there are labor unions. these have suffered great losses since their heyday back in the early 20th century, and have been prone to all kinds of cronyism and corruption besides. and so once again, they usually dont truly serve the interests of the workers they nominally represent, but the interests of the union bosses.

Desolous wrote: For the most part, we agree. One point:

'That is why in a workplace of any moderate to large size, a council would have to be elected on behalf of the workers. To keep as much liberty as possible, I would argue, these representatives would have to be able to be recalled at any moment by democratic vote, and there should be term limits.'

This council model already exists in a couple of forms. First, there is a board of directors on publicly traded companies elected by the shareholders. you should see the conundrum right away, however. as a large portion of the shares are held by institutional investors, upper management and other rich bigwigs, the desires of the worker are often overlooked.

next, there are labor unions. these have suffered great losses since their heyday back in the early 20th century, and have been prone to all kinds of cronyism and corruption besides. and so once again, they usually dont truly serve the interests of the workers they nominally represent, but the interests of the union bosses.

I wouldn't refer to publicly traded companies as an example of that model - the model I am talking about is exclusively of the workers in said company, limited to one share/vote. Worker's cooperatives such as I am referring to do exist, though are rare, and some function quite well.

In terms of unions - it depends on the organization of the union and the union itself - saying they "usually" don't serve the interests is a subjective statement, not an objective one. Some are corrupt and some are not, which can depend on the level of willingness the workers have to engage in the union and stand for its commitment to democracy, amongst numerous other factors. Unions, however, are merely bargaining organizations - not workers' democracy.

I don't believe utopia is possible, corruption will find its way through here and there even in the best of systems. The key is reaching toward the goal of what is most democratic and just, despite the reality that corruption may, and in some cases will, arise.

okay then, are you talking about a kibbutz style system common is israel? please try to be more specific in your statements.

i don't know much about this system other than it is a communal living one based around the system you want to implement here (one vote per worker and so forth). i imagine that its lack of proliferation says enough it about to the rest of the world when faced with choice of socioeconomic model. as you may see in your future studies here, perception often dictates reality, with the kibbutz style here perceived as inferior and thus, is not widely adopted.

Economics are not political systems and I think it's dangerous to confuse the two, you can have a perfectly democratic, highly regulated, government controlled economy - if people vote that sort of system in, then it's democratic.

In fact, the 'free market' system is not, when practiced in the real world, democratic at all (or free), it becomes an oligarchy - the rule of a few, very wealthy individuals, who create monopolies, encourage the passing of legislation that impinges on personal freedoms to protect their business interests and so on. The Kotch brothers are an example of successful free market oligarchy.

I think, recently in the US, we've confused capitalism, an economic system, with democracy, a political system, and when we've had to chose who to support in the rest of the world, we've chosen to support capitalist seeming governments even when they've been far from democratic.

When we allow business interests and corporations access to the political system, I think it severely damages what little democratic system we have in place - a business is not thinking of the will of the majority, it's responsibility is to a: shareholders/owners and b: profit. Neither of which are very community minded goals and, as practiced now, are generally harmful to communities as a whole.

Wealth is not a democratic ideal, nor is profit, nor is the idea that more money = more power, which is what capitalism generally creates.

In terms of balancing the needs of the community and the needs of 'business' Socialism as practiced in N. Europe seems to be the best political system for that right now.

Greed will occur in any system that doesn't have sufficient transparency. The problem with transparency is when it reaches aspects of secrecy, for things like security and intellectual property. Regulation seems to play an important role in managing this problem, but when we loose access to information we automatically become less able to make the most informed decisions. I think it’s that reason that politics and economics must be clearly separated.

Democracy to me means equal representation amongst stakeholders, but that doesn’t have to mean one person one vote. It could come down to defining who is a stakeholder in the decision being made. In my opinion a problem with democratic decision making is having people decide who are most able to make the best decision as opposed to the most popular decision, and so I think each stakeholder should be involved in the risk and reward (responsibility) and able to achieve an equally and accurately informed position to make a decision (knowledge).

When it comes to economics I do not think people are of equal capabilities and so should not be classified as equal units of work/production/capability. A way to differentiate between individuals in this context then is to have a system where output (success) better enables those individuals to influence more complex decision making. This should allow better decisions to be made based on more complex considerations. I do not think democracy is meant to mean popularity, but I do think popularity is an important indicator of democratic mechanisms.