The Democracy of the founding fathers was Greek Democracy, predicated upon a slave society, and restricted to only the elite. This is the society we live in today, even with our reforms towards direct representation. The system is inherently biased towards the election of elites and against the representation of the masses. Hamilton called it “faction” when the working class got together and demanded better conditions, and mechanisms were built in (which still exist to this day) that serve to ensure the continued dominance of the elite over the masses. The suffering of the many is intentional. The opulence of the wealthy is also. This is the intended outcome.
The only part of this statement that is flawed is the part that states that the only course of action is to dismantle the system. It is also possible to reform the system so that it doesn't produce It's previous flaws.
Really? Where has this happened? Which countries have been able to reform away the exploitation and coercion inherent in the capitalist economic structure whilst maintaining it?
Where has dismantling worked without giving way to exploitation and coercion?
Exploitation and coercion exist now. So, that would be a maintanence of the status quo, not “giving way” to it. But we can look at the by every single measure that we have objectively better lives of the vast majority of people in countries where they have dismantled capitalist systems. The average life expectancy in pre-revolution Russia was less than 30 years. Before the Communists started their labor struggles, the average work weeks was over 100 hours. The average literacy rate was among the lowest in the world, as was the education attainment rate.
They by any and all measures reduced exploitation by entire orders of magnitude. They reduced coercion, especially on women, by granting equal rights(5 decades before the us even attempted to do so, btw), and by making housing, food, and education legal rights that ALL citizens are entitled to. When your basic needs are met, then and only then are you even capable of laboring without coercion. Meaning, coercion is already a driving force behind our entire economic system, and exploitation is literally, not figuratively, LITERALLY the entire basis upon which capitalism rests. The extraction of profits is known as the process of exploitation.
Good points
Thanks, it means a lot coming from you, Mr. Pants. Seriously though, your username is great.
I'd say dismantling the German Reich was a great improvement albeit the successor states weren't without exploitation.
Same for dismantling the US confederation, all the independence wars against colonizers, many revolutions and so on.
You cannot demand dismantling to only lead to a perfect solution, while any form of reform is okay with even the most miniscule improvement.
Both have their place and time. But you will always need to dismantle, when the problems are intrinsic to the system.
Those were both dismantling from the outside. Outside powers prevented power vacuums from forming which could be exploited by the least scrupulous people. I can't think of many times where government has collapsed that didn't lead to enormous turmoil.