The fundamental problem of where to properly vest authority is one in which differs in any society or nation. If authority is vested in the wrong hands it can be utilized improperly and its effects can be felt by many people in a given social unit, whether it be the family, community, company or nation, the misutilization of vital decision making is a problem felt by an entire unit, not just the decision makers. Which begs the question as to how any unit must be organized in order to function both efficiently and represent the will of the people’s interests invested into the unit. As progressive thinkers, it is detrimental to consider Democracy’s place not only in the publicly owned workplace, but as well the entire nation. In response to the corporate attack on Democracy, Socialists now look past the old institutional framework not only in parliament but as well in everyday businesses, so that workers may exercise political power in the day to day operations of the workplace and too learn that running a business is no easy matter. From the establishment of a new Government and Business owned by the people, and not vise versa, a higher form of Democracy will be born in which now the average citizen will live day by day life in accordance with their own will now that they exercise authority over Company and Political matters. This new stage of societal development will hence bring forth a new era that does away with Parliamentary bodies, that act merely as a legal barrier between the people and true Democracy, in order to usher a sense of long overdue power to the people.
In the workplace, which one may spend most of his hours in the day, the majority of workers toil under the control of a single capitalist or a board depending on the size of a company. Regardless, the great majority of workers exercise no authority over decision making matters in everyday operations, they are at the mercy of a manager or supervisor, who is at the mercy of his boss and so on as the company generally inherits a hierarchical structure. In order to explain how this Hierarchy in the workplace does not necessarily benefit the worker, despite how well a company may do quarterly, I will use an example based on personal work experience. A chef who becomes an artist in his specialized line of work has no control over the ingredients he works with or the tools he may be able to utilize as they are supplied by the Capitalist who has little to no interests of the quality of the food or the well being of the workers in mind but rather in how the chef must function in order to maximize profits. The Chef’s skills are merely utilized as a mechanism to increase the restaurant owner’s income, the restaurant owner who is at the mercy of the profit motive, is not interested in delivering the highest wages possible to his workers in which devote their energy to the benefit of his cause, or ensuring the highest possible quality of food to the customers who chose to eat at his establishment. But rather to find the most sensible equilibrium between the worker’s wages, company investments, and other business matters. The goal is to typically invest as little as possible for the highest return. One may say in defence of this, that this given order is the most beneficial to the establishment, but it fails to meet the interests of the workers who make this entire operation possible to begin with. In reality, outside of the owner’s ideal world, the Chef may wish to focus more on quality and preparation with access to better kitchen appliances in order to maximize the quality of his work, as any artist would, which workers have essentially become as work becomes sub divided and incredibly specialized. In socialist society, we do not wish to do away with small or family owned businesses (with exception to the mega corporation owned by the Father and son duo) but rather for these businesses to inherit a new type of organization. In this society the workplace, owned by the Public, is democratically organized in order to not only meet consumer demand, but as well to represent the interests of those who invest so much time and energy into making a company possible. So to give power to the chef in his line of work and to do away with the outdated hierarchy which nests itself in the workplace.
As for the Nation, what has become of Democracy? It seems to have become a household joke, whether one is Conservative, Liberal, Socialist or Libertarian. Finding a politician with a clean record or no ties or funds from relatively large companies is of similar difficulty to finding a needle in a corrupt haystack. There are a number of ways in which companies may purchase votes in Parliament, they may threaten representatives to move production from their provinces/states or communities, Lobbyists may bribe them, in some cases there has been reports of blackmail or in some strange times oil Lobbyists and executives are simply voted into government positions as if they are unbiased in any way. This process threatens any chance of representative democracy working so long as interest groups exist (which they would in Socialist society as well). Certain societies have tackled the problem from different angles in order to not fix but rather to control and maintain this issue. One Nation may ban corruption or Lobbyists, one may ban company executives and Lobbyists from running a campaign and etc. But this does not fix the fundamental issue at hand, representative Democracy does not represent the interests of the people as a whole, nor does it vest any power in the population, the government bodies still act to maintain rule by disconnecting the people from the day by day democratic process.
The solution to this fundamental problem in Socialist society is not to do away with Bureaucracy, which has a legitimate place in societal developments to focus on efficiency. But rather to move towards a direct form of Democracy. Gaddafi’s Jamahiriya gave the socialist community a great start to discovering a more official plan for direct democracy, if you are unfamiliar with how Jamahiriya worked I suggest you do some research on it to understand the general structure of a direct voting system. However problems arose in Gaddafi’s Libya, though Gaddafi himself was very progressive, many regressive policies were voted in by the Basic People’s Committees such as not allowing Women to serve in the military though Gaddafi pushed for their rights to serve. Which demonstrates that bureaucratic institutions have a place in society in order to protect the rights of those who could be oppressed by the majority. Rather allow me to explain an idea, proposed to me by a friend, of how a new voting system could work that would both fix the problems of corruption as well as protect the rights of the minority in a Democratic Country, in order to give a basic understanding of how life would differ than under whichever current system you may live under.
In this new system, each citizen (eligible to vote) is given a pin number to a government website. When a bill is proposed by an elected representative at any level of government, the citizens may then use the website to vote on the legislation process directly. Obviously there would have to be some process involved to ensure that the pin number is not given to anyone ineligible to vote, that’s a given. As well, this new system does away with term limits, not to be confused with a dictatorship, but rather representatives can be voted in or out at any time. This process of spontaneous elections is originally derived from Soviet Democracy and is a matter of fact not an original idea. During a term, a politician becomes a temporary dictator in the sense that the citizens he supposedly represents live at the will of his decision making and have no input into state matters. While in office the only motivation one has to support the interests of those who voted him into office is the next election, perhaps the risk of a spontaneous election will provide more motivation to avoid corrupt decision making.
Thus, by establishing a direct Democracy in which spontaneous elections can be held at the will of the people, both in the workplace as well as the Nation, the dictatorial instruments of modern government and authoritative bodies are done away with and the people become the government. This new society essentially does away with allowing Bureaucratic institutions and bodies such as the Capitalist class in the workplace or the Parliamentary bodies in the Government to use laws or positions as mechanisms to control those of a lower socioeconomic status. Now the problem of authority is more evenly distributed amongst the working classes, and if deviation takes place it is then rectified by a total democratic revision without the need for strikes or any use of force. This process is not completely voluntary but rather the inevitable nature of a true democratic system.
New Democrat Society 