Re: [OPE] Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela internal ballot.

alejandro_agafonow@yahoo.es

I think that participation can be increased and this technology might help, but representation is unavoidable. For example, C&C’s model is very interesting because they foresee political competition between parties supporting different plans. I see their model as a “representative Marxist democracy”, despite its allowance for improved forms of participation.

Alejandro Agafonow

----- Mensaje original ----
De: Dave Zachariah <davez@kth.se>
Para: Outline on Political Economy mailing list <ope@lists.csuchico.edu>
Enviado: martes, 11 de marzo, 2008 10:36:26
Asunto: Re: [OPE] Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela internal ballot.

Alejandro Agafonow wrote:
>
> Political parties are necessary because a direct democracy is 
> impossible in a large society. The problem here is that there are not 
> democratic mechanisms inside the Venezuelan socialist party (Of 
> course, you don’t have it also inside Popular Party, the conservative 
> party of Spain).
>
>  
>
> By themselves, mechanisms like “consultation with battalion members” 
> and “congress delegates propositions” that Levy referred to are 
> doubtfully democratic, but when you practice them in Iberoamerica 
> (Latin-American, Portugal and Spain), their transparency becomes even 
> doubtful.
>
>  
>
> Unfortunately we have in these countries a corporative culture that 
> subordinate merit and other criteria of justice to cronyism, 
> plutocracy and patronage. Even Spain, despite its economic and 
> democratic advancements thanks to European Union, has many social 
> institutions corrupted by these practices.
>
>  
>
> And you can not expect but an increase of this corruption in Venezuela 
> whose polyarchal institutions, that where a case of study in the 70’s 
> and 80’s due to its exceptionalism, have been erased by Chavism.
>
>  
>

What makes you think that direct democracy is impossible in a large 
society? I think you are underestimating the potential of information 
technology.

//Dave Z
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