Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho
Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho
Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho
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230<br />
DEMOCRACY TODAY<br />
observation: history is a cemetery of aristocracies. And while sharing<br />
in many senses the criticism of formal democracy by aristocratically<br />
(qualitatively) minded thinkers, resolving that contradiction is possible<br />
only in the direction of further democratization.<br />
That direction could be designated by Barber’s apt turn of phrase:<br />
‘An aristocracy of everyone’ [Barber, 1994]. In the preceding historical<br />
times the development of one person (monarchy) or that of a narrow<br />
circle of persons (aristocracy/oligarchy) was possible due to slave labor<br />
and ignorance of peasants and artisans, who were considered by ‘noble<br />
and educated’ circles first as common and low<strong>do</strong>wn people, and later as<br />
depersonalized masses, while opposing them to the intelligent human<br />
personality. However ‘the revolt of the masses’ of our days <strong>do</strong>es not<br />
have its goal in the death of personality, quite the opposite: the death of<br />
historical blind ‘mass’, its own transformation into community of developed<br />
personalities is required here, and that’s what indicates the course<br />
of future development. Using the proposed terminology set, that idea<br />
for the future development of democracy could be named ‘democracypanarchy’<br />
meaning that each human person should be entitled not just<br />
with formal status of bearer of power, but with real power-exercising<br />
ability as well. As Lenin used to explain, any human being, with no<br />
exception, regardless of personal wealth, occupation and gender, has to<br />
carry his/her share of burden on governing the state. One could think<br />
that such a vision is rather utopian, but let us remember ancient poleis<br />
where every citizen did have similar responsibilities, and members of<br />
democratic city councils – βουλαί – were chosen by lot annually. In other<br />
words, any person out of the number of ‘political people’ could govern<br />
the state, – and the major difference between that historical example<br />
and the current situation is just the already noted augmentation of<br />
‘the people’ notion.<br />
That means that the denoted direction of democratic development<br />
implies the change of the democracy’s subject and scale as well. Until<br />
today, the major actor of democratic power and the main space for<br />
democracy’s outer development and expansion was the state – more<br />
precisely, ‘nation-state’ of the Modern Age, which under globalization<br />
represents a rather archaic institute on historical arena, not coping with<br />
its tasks and trying to disguise its helplessness and even uselessness.<br />
Identification of democracy with structures related to state organization,