People Get Ready by Robert W McChesney

Author:Robert W McChesney
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781568585222
Publisher: Nation Books
Published: 2016-01-26T16:00:00+00:00

THERE IS NO MYSTERY TO DEMOCRACY

The United States faces a great crisis of unemployment and underemployment, which will be exacerbated by revolutionary developments in technology. It is part of a broader economic malaise, which is made worse by a political system that is mired in corruption and does the bidding of society’s very wealthiest inhabitants and largest corporations.

The people who dominate the political economy at present are determined to use their considerable resources and influence to prevent the development and expansion of democratic infrastructure. Indeed, at many turns, they consciously seek the actual deconstruction of that infrastructure. And they will work harder to do so as the social pressures created by technological change, automation, and joblessness are felt more acutely.

Furthermore, the present rulers have spent the past forty years trying to convince everyone that becoming part of an aroused and engaged and organized citizenry is unnecessary and a waste of time. Arguably their greatest victory of the past four decades has been converting the longstanding American optimism that democracy can lick any problem before it into a morose pessimism that there is no alternative, and resistance is futile.

Of course it is frustrating for citizens to be fighting old fights for rights that should have been secured long ago. But the elites know something that should give us all encouragement: the current rulers cannot win a fair fight so they must rig the game. In times of crisis, like the 1970s, their contempt for democracy comes to the surface. In their hands, the United States has become a nation that, as FDR warned it might, is coming to share far too many attributes with fascist societies. Unless there are major structural changes, even those liberties and privileges we enjoy today may be in jeopardy. This is a frightening proposition. But the world the current rulers have made is ill-equipped to address the crisis of unemployment and underemployment, and in no position to advance democratic practices and values. It has to go.

The humane and effective solution to the economic crisis requires that (1) the political system be rejuvenated into a powerful democratic infrastructure that (2) draws people into public policy debates as effective participants. That is the route to the best possible outcomes. Then a frank and effective debate over how best to restructure the economy to serve human interests can occur. In that process the weltanschauung will change, and the crisis will appear as more of an opportunity than as a threat, and human imaginations will be unchained. We can use the technologies to build an egalitarian, humane, sustainable, and democratic society as has never before been seen.

The good news is that nearly all the elements of a democratic infrastructure that we list in Chapter 1 and return to in Chapter 6 have deep roots in American political history. Indeed, what is required to have a credible democracy is well known across the planet.

The other good news is that there is no mystery about what creates democracy and democratic infrastructure. They

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