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Democracy Is Radical (1937) THERE IS COMPARATIVELY LITTLE DIFFERENCE among the groups at the left as to the social ends to be reached. There is a great deal of difference as to the means by which these ends should be reached and by which they can be reached. This difference as to means is the tragedy of democracy in the world today. The rulers of Soviet Russia announce that with the adoption of the new constitution they have for the first time in history created a democracy. At almost the same time, Goebbels announces that German Nazi-socialism is the only possible form of democracy for the future. Possibly there is some faint cheer for those who believe in democracy in these expressions. It is something that after a period in which democracy was scorned and laughed at, it is now acclaimed. No one outside of Germany will take seriously the claim that Germany is a democracy, to say nothing of its being the perfected form of democracy. But there is something to be said for the assertion that the so-called democratic states of the world have achieved only “bourgeois” democracy. By “bourgeois” democracy is meant one in which power rests finally in the hands of finance capitalism, no matter what claims are made for government of, by and for all the people. In the perspective of history it is clear that the rise of democratic governments has been an accompaniment of the transfer of power from agrarian interests to industrial and commercial interests. This transfer did not take place without a struggle. In this struggle, the representatives of the new forces of production asserted that their cause was that of liberty and of the free choice and initiative of individuals. Upon the continent and to a less degree in Great Britain, the political manifestation of free economic enterprise took the name of liberalism. So-called liberal parties were those which strove for a maximum of individualistic economic action with a minimum of 220 First published in Common Sense 6 (January 1937): 10–11. Democracy Is Radical 221 social control, and did so in the interest of those engaged in manufacturing and commerce. If this manifestation expresses the full meaning of liberalism, then liberalism has served its time and it is social folly to try to resurrect it. For the movement has definitely failed to realize the ends of liberty and individuality which were the goals it set up and in the name of which it proclaimed its rightful political supremacy. The movement for which it stood gave power to a few over the lives and thoughts of the many. Ability to command the conditions under which the mass of people have access to the means of production and to the products that result from their activity has been the fundamental feature of repression of freedom and the bar to development of individuality through all the ages. It is silly to deny that there has been gain to the masses accompanying the change of masters. But to glorify these gains and to give no attention to the brutalities and inequities, the regimentation and suppression, the war, open and covert, that attend the present system is intellectual and moral hypocrisy. Distortion and stultification of human personality by the existing pecuniary and competitive regime give the lie to the claim that the present social system is one of freedom and individualism in any sense in which liberty and individuality exist for all. The United States is the outstanding exception to the statement that democracy arose historically in the interest of an industrial and commercial class, although it is true that in the formation of the federal constitution this class reaped much more than its fair share of the fruits of the revolution. And it is also true that as this group rose to economic power it appropriated also more and more political power. But it is simply false that this country, even politically, is merely a capitalistic democracy. The present struggle in this country is something more than a protest of a new class, whether called the proletariat or given any other name, against an established industrial autocracy. It is a manifestation of the native and enduring spirit of the nation against the destructive encroachments of forces that are alien to democracy. This country has never had a political party of the European “liberal” type, although in recent campaigns the Republican party has taken over most of the slogans of the...

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