It's an interview with Osita Nwanevu, whom you can read more about here. I expect this is going to solidify a lot of opinion on the American left.
UPDATE: As I continue to think about this interview, I've decided the really radical suggestion wasn't any of the things they put in the headline. What would really constitute a significant change is this application of "democracy":
The background intuition that people have in mind about democracy, even if they don’t know it consciously, is that we are entitled to an amount of say, a basic level of say, over the conditions that shape our lives. We’re not mere victims of circumstance helplessly thrown about by the universe. We’re not the peons of particular hierarchies of people who are more powerful than us or more privileged than us. That’s a basic democratic intuition.
One of the things that has gone around progressive circles over the last decade or so is you have people like Elizabeth Anderson, for instance, who make the point that we are governed in more spaces than just the political sphere. We spend about a third of our time at work. The decisions that are made at the top of corporations we work for often affect us more directly, intimately, and immediately than decisions made in Washington, D.C., or in our statehouses or in city hall. And yet we feel that we’re not democratically entitled to any kind of voice in those spaces, except for maybe hoping that we can act through government to regulate the economy. When we try to do that, we find that Washington, D.C., and political institutions are often dominated by wealthy people — our bosses.
When it comes to solving the concrete problems of inequality, worker power — the absence of worker power, the absence of worker voice — is one of the things that’s contributed to our current economic situation. That is a democratic problem, and I think it suggests democratic solutions as well.
The 'democratic' solution being, obviously, to subject corporations to worker 'democracy' over how their resources are distributed. People will vote themselves more: higher wages, better working conditions, ownership of the company and its property. It is, in other words, 'democratic' in the sense of being Democratic Socialism. It's not just structural changes about how the existing constitutionalism works; it's not even a new constitution, as the subhead suggests. It's putting everything in a pot and letting the majority do whatever it wants with it.
There are a number of problems with that approach, even if one is perfectly willing to accept that this constitutes a moral action rather than just theft on a grand scale.
6 comments:
"I hope that people find ways to make appeals not to the sanctity and the inviolability of the Constitution, but to democratic principle. With all that Trump is doing, with all that Musk did, the thing that we should be upset by is not necessarily that it stands in contrast to this piece of paper that we’re obligated to respect, but because it is unjust on the basis of ideals that are worth defending."
Who voted to create USAID? Congress? The people? He claims to address "rule by experts" and implies that he disparages it, but I strongly suspect he's more of a theorist than an observer.
Oops. Wrong browser. Anonymous is me.
His point about people inclining more toward "kitchen table issues" than theoretical ideals is sound, and everyone would do well to heed it.
I don't think his suggestion of going to a strictly per capita democracy takes into account a lot of the concerns of the people of (to use his example) Wyoming, Delaware, or the other comparatively small states in terms of representation and value to the country as a whole. The Senate is supposed to be a brake and cooling mechanism as well as preventing the people of the smaller states from being drowned out by the populations of the larger states.
LittleRed1
Osita Nwanevu seems to have listed a dispositive set of reasons why our republic cannot afford to let the Left, or its Progressive-Democratic Party, ever win.
This is graphically illustrated by the Texas branch of the Progressive-Democratic Party absconding from the State for the express purpose--loudly and proudly proclaimed--of preventing the State government from operating at all unless and until they get their way.
Their claim to be doing this in the name of democracy shows how little they understand democracy of any sort, and how dangerous Party is to our republic. They weren't seeking to block a single piece of legislation with a filibuster, they were, and are, seeking to prevent our State government from functioning, among other things holding hostage to their demand relief for the Guadalupe flooding disaster.
This is Party demanding to put their minority position above the will of the majority and above the will of us Texas citizens. That's the antithesis of democracy, popular, representative, republican, or other.
I don't think his suggestion of going to a strictly per capita democracy takes into account a lot of the concerns of the people of (to use his example) Wyoming, Delaware, or the other comparatively small states....
More than a brake, the Senate was created to guarantee that small population States got equal representation somewhere in the central government, and with that equal representation could stand as a check to the House with its big State control.
Eric Hines
I don't think his points are crazy, but I think they are wrong. I can live with that in the public debate. I think it is fine to have wrong ideas on the table.
Yet my objection is to the slyness of this. The Senate is less directly representative, he says, and this is true. I don't recall progressives objecting to that during the passage of the ACA, or indeed any of the periods when they had the majority. The Senate has more influence than the House in "shaping the judiciary." How about "shaping THIS judiciary." The left has liked other judiciaries just fine. There were no complaints about the system then. The Electoral College was a huge problem, until now, we don't hear about it. We have suddenly entered new territory where Donald Trump is demonstrating a disquieting authoritarianism and anti-democratic executive branch? You don't say.
I am no expert on governance. But I am pretty good at figuring out who is fighting fair. People who want to change the system only when it goes against them I pay little attention to. If he can't find any place he can say "You, know we were in a very dangerous spot when Joe Biden withheld approved military aid until Ukraine did a favor for his son," or "It was a banana republic move when Bill Clinton requested the FBI files of his political enemies," or "Hillary and Obama weaponising the intelligence agencies against Trump is something that must never be repeated," then I simply do not believe in his objectivity and cannot trust him.
Reasoning with a leftist is just a waste of time- They will flop like a halibut on any issue whatsoever to gain power.
E.Hines said
More than a brake, the Senate was created to guarantee that small population States got equal representation somewhere in the central government, and with that equal representation could stand as a check to the House with its big State control.
Exactly like the State Senates were designed- except that the Warren court eliminated that protection in Reynolds vs Simms and now the big cities rule over every states rural areas. If there were ever a ruling I would like to see challenged, this would be it. It clearly disenfranchised the rural counties and any electoral map would bear this out- in all the states I have looked at, county-wise they are overwhelmingly conservative.
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