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Many countries include 'Democratic' or 'People's' in their names, even though they are not democratic and do not serve their people. Examples: Democratic People's Republic of Korea Lao People's Democratic Republic People's Democratic Republic of Algeria Democratic Republic of the Congo And German Democratic Republic (East Side) in 1949–1990. None of these states are democratic, power and wealth are concentrated in the hands of a small ruling elite. Who are they fooling with these names?
Cause you expect the west hegemonic definition of democratic.
Is there a competing definition of democratic?
The Marxist view is that capitalist countries are anti-democratic because the bourgeois class has the power to both sway elections and exert influence over people's lives outside of the political sphere. True democracy means a state that actually represents the people's interests, which in turn requires suppressing the political influence wielded by the rich.
The liberal view is that the state's capacity for repression is uniquely dangerous, and so freedom just means being able to act without interference from the state (not from private entities), and what determines whether a state is free or not is whether it adheres to certain principles. In that view, a Marxist state that represses the bourgeoisie is violating the principle against political repression, and is therefore not democratic.
On the other hand, Marxists point to things like capitalist states repressing strikes to show that in those countries, the state is also willing to act on behalf of the people who control it, and that that this whole idea of a state being constrained by "principles" or "norms" and somehow being independent of class conflict is nonsense and just not how politics works. This is because Marxists view ideas as being the products of material conditions and material interests, and so any such "norms" or "principles" are only as strong as whatever class interests are invested in upholding them.
That is absolutely a fair criticism.
But is there anywhere doing or attempting democracy by your definition?
Vietnam and Cuba would probably be some of the best examples I think.
You can't seriously be calling Cuba a democracy.
Vietnam is not a democracy. It's a single-party state where the Communist Party of Vietnam is defined as the perpetual leadership in their constitution.
Hi, welcome to the conversation, you should probably read the things I already explained.
The liberal understanding of democracy (that you're operating on) is constraining the power of the state, while ignoring class conflict. The Marxist understanding is a state where the people have succeeded in class conflict to the point that they are able to wield the state against the bourgeoisie, while keeping them out of power. The fact that the communist party has secured power is not somehow a strike against Vietnam, from the Marxist view.
It's always funny to hear this scaremongering over "one party states." I live in the US, where I have a choice between one party that represents the interests of billionaires and another party that represents the interests of billionaires but also hates gay people. When I vote for a third party that's actually in line with my interests, everyone hates me for it. And you know what they say? "The primary is where you're supposed to choose who you like, but then you have to get behind them, to stop the Republicans!" Well, even single-party states still have primary processes, and in a case like Vietnam, you don't even have to worry about the threat of an entity like the Republican party coming to power, thanks to the structure of the government suppressing the political power of the right.
If a one-party state is so horrible, it implies that the Republican party (and similar parties in other countries) existing is somehow a good thing, somehow fulfilling a necessary condition for a country to be a "democracy." Even though it's controlled by a tiny fraction of society and uses every ounce of political power it has to subvert and oppose popular policies!
With that being said, you don't even have to be a member of the communist party of Vietnam to run and hold office in the country. You don't have to be a part of any party, you can run as an independent, and people do.
And yes, ditto for Cuba, I am "seriously" calling it a democracy.
Many, yeah.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_democracy#Other_types_of_democracy
"People's Democracy" is one - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_democracy_(Marxism%E2%80%93Leninism)
In the West we've been getting 50/50 splits on voting, whereas out east it's all 99/sent for re-education. Which of these seems more hegemonic to you?
Edit @+2hrs & change: At time of edit, the votes I see on my response here are 6/5, which is pretty close to 50/50. I can't tell whether that's been deliberately engineered by naysayers or the most juicy of ironies. Either way. Bravo. That's hilarious.
Elections≠Democracy. Again, you are expecting liberal west (or hegemonic) "democracy". I am not making a moral judgement of either, just trying to explain that the definition of democracy that has been shoved to the people's brain of the global north (hegemony) is not the only or the correct one.
Unfortunately nuance has no place here, nor does the anti-colonialist context or distinction between party and governance.
What does hegemony mean here? And what would a non-hegemonic democracy look like?
I mean it in Gramsci's terms. For the second question I would say the ones cited by OP are good examples but horizontal organization is my preferred one, look about EZLN ways of horizontal democracy. Again not saying they are the correct or morally good ones either.
How is North Korea a democracy?
These seem to be distributed communities that internally use direct democracy (public assemblies). And I agree that direct democracy is a form of democracy. A very inefficient form that doesn't scale past the size of Greece or EZLN, but still a democracy.
Voting is incredibly minimal at best but has marginally expanded since 2023 with some primaries.
North Korea is basically if a trauma victim was a country, shellshocked after a genocidal bombing campaign. Blowback Season 4 goes into crazy detail about the war. That's what caused them to pioneer the tunnel technology we saw in Vietnam and also Gaza today.
Neither of those supports the stance that it should be considered a democracy though...
You're missing the point..
That's their version of Democratic Republic represention within the party, shaped by the material conditions of both the before-mentioned genocidal bombing campaign and the continued attempts of outside forces to collapse the state via CIA Activities and Sanctions designed to starve and isolate the entire country.
You should check out the Blowback podcast if you're interested in The Korea War and how those events shaped Present-day North and South Korea
OP's post is a simple observation about the names of countries and their political alignment. There are probably numerous reasons and causes for both the name and the political alignment. But the observation still holds.
It's a massive simplification that removes all context of each of those countries anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist histories, all of which is incredibly important to understanding their current political organization and the scope that democracy holds in each.
Sure, but the root comment was implying that the countries mentioned in OP, like North Korea, are democracies. Which is clearly wrong. That's all I was saying.
Or alternatively, the names of these countries is just marketing, and socialist movements usually tend to be authoritarianism in disguise.
You can either investigate yourself or lean into your preconceived biases, if you're choosing the latter that's your choice.
You clearly don't want to have an actual discussion that includes those nuances that take into account the geopolitics of global capitalism and material conditions, so let's just agree to disagree or something
I'm just calling out what I consider bad justification under the guise of "nuance". Earlier in the thread, a user was claiming that North Korea was a sort of democracy. Now the goal posts have shifted to "yes it's authoritarian but here's why". If this were the argument from the start, this would be less of an issue. But what's problematic is this silent goal post shifting that I constantly see in these sorts of discussions.
authoritarian and democracy are not mutually exclusive concepts. I think ignoring the details of both aspects in favor of thought terminating clichés is counterproductive, assuming the goal is to actually understand the intricacies of these societies instead of a black and white understanding.
Nobody is trying to imply a black and white view of the world, but that doesn't mean words don't have meaning. Just because North Korea has a semblance of elections doesn't make it democratic, just like the US isn't socialist even though it has welfare programs. And if you jumped into every discussion about US late stage capitalism with a "actually capitalism and socialism are not mutually exclusive", I would consider that just as counterproductive.
You're just proving my point here
Hmm, so your point was that you were in fact being counterproductive? If so I totally agree
You clearly don't even understand my point, because you're not bothering to learn anything. You can't even grasp the differences in economies, let alone the differences in how one is operated from a liberal party compared to a workers party.
Do you even know the main difference between the Chinese economy and the US economy? Both are mixed, as in they both have elements of socialist and capitalist organization, yet are organized and controlled in vastly different ways. The US, and other western economies, are beholden to Capital interests, because the liberal parties subservient to Capital. The socialist aspect has been withered away since the gains of socialist forces for decades, because workers have no power. The Chinese economy is under the control of the CCP, a workers party. While the party itself is organized as a Democratic Republic, the State is under the dictatorship of that workers party, meaning that Capitalist forces are subservient to the state. And that's before the discussion of how a party can be communist, yet be able to wield the forces of capitalism within a controlled scope to rapidly industrialize key industries before taking state control to socialize those industries in the form of state capitalism. Let alone how worker cooperatives, where there is an actual socialist means of production, fit into the picture.
No investigation, no right to speak
So the goal posts have shifted again. Let me remind you again, the root of this thread was about whether North Korea was authoritarian. Now you're talking about China vs US! I never mentioned China this whole time and was waiting to see when you would bring it up. Amazing.
You seem to be very proud of your knowledge about China and want to show it off, even when it has no relevancy. I hope that works out for you.
Of course you're too high on smugness to bother getting the connection. My point hasn't changed since the first comment I made on this thread, you're just too much of a debate pervert to understand that
Close elections are a fairly meaningless metric, especially when all candidates agree on certain key issues.
"Out east?" Where? There's tons of different countries with all kinds of different governments in what's classically considered the East. There isn't even a Comintern to generalize about, but it doesn't seem to slow you down at all.
Have you actually studied the government structure of, say, Laos? I doubt it. So, where did you get this information you're confidently repeating about it? Mind-boggling how liberals will just say shit. Lazy stereotyping at best.