Democracy Verses the Red Machine
Uploaded by petedogg16 on Apr 16, 2001
In past and even in recent history, world politics has taken many faces ranging from the absolute monarchies of PhillipII to the dictatorships of Sadam Hussein. Some political institutions have even stood out and have taken center stage in political theses. Two successful institutions that follow this criteria include democracy, backed by de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America and communism, as written in Marx’s Communist Manifesto. While both these aspects of politics have enjoyed ample success, there is no possible way both these worlds can coexist and function because democracy has exceptionally achieved far more prestige and withstood the ravage of time in terms of American democracy. Communism could have been the answer to governing a nation but due to the vice of power-hungry leaders, democracy surpasses this institution with evidence from history, revealing why these political powers machines cannot remain mutually exclusive.
Communism can be regarded as a social system in which property is owned by the community and each member works for the common benefit. Such an ideal where the community as a whole works for equal benefit may seem to paint the perfect picture at first but this theory becomes tainted. The Communist Manifesto proclaims, “Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labor of others by means of such appropriations” (Marx 12). What communism lacks, due to ignorance by its perfect picture, is the aspect of proper management to further a country’s prestige. And what happens when you have management via dictatorship? There usually lurks the abuse of power and later the overthrow of a power by civil war or international powers. What communism lacks that democracy fosters is the virtue of progress that allows a nation to rise above and endure times of hostility.
The portrait of democracy is best painted by the French writer deTocqueville who acts as a mere observer of American democracy rather than a participant. Although taking such an objective stance, he adores the democratic institution in America. Democracy in response to communism is government by the whole people of a country. The answer communism exclusively has that democracy lacks is the solution to the class struggle as identified by deTocqueville, “The division of property has lessened the distance which separated the rich from the poor; but it would seem that, the nearer they draw...