We vote. We debate. We argue over politicians like they’re the real decision-makers. But are they really in charge? Or are they just well-dressed puppets, reading from a script written by those with real power?
Behind every election, there are corporations, lobbyists, billionaires, and hidden networks pulling the strings. Policies aren’t always shaped by public interest but by those who fund campaigns, control the media, and influence economies.
The question is: Who truly holds the power? The government? The wealthy elite? Tech giants? Intelligence agencies?
And if politicians are just the face of a system much bigger than them, does voting even matter? Or are we just choosing between different masks of the same machine?
You make an excellent point campaign funding absolutely impacts the democratic process, raising questions about the authenticity of our votes. It’s a reminder that power structures often go far beyond what we see on the surface. History shows us how systems evolve and shift, and understanding that, along with how economics like globalization shape politics, is key. Curtis’ work on media manipulation and how it influences public perception is a great resource for seeing how we’ve been conditioned, and I agree that understanding economic history and theorists like Milton Friedman helps put today’s political climate into context. The real challenge is figuring out where the line is between genuine democracy and systems that mainly serve a select few.
Your take on genuine democracy is fair, especially if we’re referring to the US (as per my assumption). According to this Wikipedia article on The Economist Democracy Index:
The question we’re facing is, if we make it through Trump’s term(s?) with a functional federal gov’t, how can we begin to return to a full democracy, and is that even possible given the trajectory of our economic system.
The downgrade to a “flawed democracy” highlights the reality of a system that’s never truly been for the people it’s always been about serving the interests of the capitalist class. A “full democracy” is a myth in a society where the economic system is designed to prioritize a select few. The real solution isn’t about restoring a broken democracy but about dismantling the capitalist structures that prop it up. A good dictatorship, one that truly serves the people and removes the influence of the elite, could be the only way to actually return power to the masses.
A “good dictatorship” in the Dark Enlightenment sense of the people skulking around the White House right now, or a “good dictatorship” in the Marxist sense?
A “good dictatorship” in the Marxist sense
I, personally, don’t accept any kind of dictatorship can ever be good. That there is a series of humans with self interest in between the resources of a nation and the populace of a nation leads me to doubt that possibility. If it were possible, we would have seen more than a few prosperous Marxist nations.
A “good dictatorship” in the Marxist sense isn’t about a singular tyrant, but the working class collectively taking control to dismantle capitalist power.
I think this is kind of my point exactly. I misunderstood the dictatorship of Marxism, but I’m not sure I believe there can be a “good” Marxist dictatorship that is broadly cooperative on a national scale because it will require intermediaries who are themselves susceptible of corruption. Occupy Wallstreet seems to be a great example of that working locally, but I’m skeptical it can be easy to coordinate nationally as a market can. On paper, the Marxist ideology is sound, in practice, human self-interest seems to not want it to work, though there is always an opportunity to try again somewhere. That being said, markets come with their own distinct style of corruption, as we’re currently seeing playing out right now.
The primary reason, by a long shot, is that the imperialist states never stop trying to destroy socialist states, or really any state that stands between them and their plundering.
This is impossible to achieve, because whenever “democracy” becomes too “genuine” for their tastes, the bourgeoisie will unleash fascism.
I am (perhaps naively) hopeful that there can be mechanisms in place to avoid this. Ranked Choice Voting seems like one possible lever, but I think it’s probably true that any certain that has a hierarchy is vulnerable to capture by those with access to the most resources.
Genuinely: What are some political systems capable of avoiding capture by the elite (Bourgeoisie, Royal, etc. classes?
They’re not wrong about democratic backsliding in this case, but I generally ignore this index, which The Economist Group[1] publishes for the purposes of imperial core propaganda against states that it wants to regime change.
The tribune of the aristocracy of finance. — Karl Marx ↩︎
What are better indexes for this data?