"Democracy" has to be one of the most over-used and badly termed words ever invented.
democracy /dĭ-mŏk′rə-sē/
Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives. A political or social unit that has such a government. The common people, considered as the primary source of political power.origin: From ancient Greek: dēmokratía, dēmos 'people' and kratos 'rule'). Democracy means people rule, or rule by the people. Deliberative democracy | Direct democracy |
I fact I once read a book on this; by a Marxist (oops - my mistake). It seems plausible to me, until I read a reviews to the book I'd just read which told me that was a load of BS - as Ancient Greek democracy was nowt like that and had been a total failure.
A peculiar thing about "democracy" is so many non-democratic forms of government call themselves democratic! As it everyone wants to be thought of as democratic, but barely anyone wants to be democratic. For example: North Korea, the country of is officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Is it really democratic (LOL)? This should be a massive concern Marxists because real democracy is a Marxist invention. Wikipedia - the notoriously undemocratic wiki site has a "Democracy Ranking" page. The Democracy Ranking is an index compiled by the Association for Development and Advancement of the Democracy Award, an Austria-based non-partisan organization. Each country is given an index and Norway (87.1) is top, with Switzerland (86.7) second. South Korea has an index = 70. North Korea isn't even in the rankings. The United States (self-styled home of democracy) limps in at 16th, below, even the United Kingdowm (my home), at 14th.
What do the common people have to say about democracy, where will they answer my questions?
I did some basic searches but could find very few common people disucussing democracy. For example: most websites with democracy in the url don't seem to have a public forum democracy forums does. But it's US dominated, and its logo is American too. It's going to be all about the USA, which, as previously noted, limps in at 16th in the democracy rankings. "The World Forum for Democracy" will take place at the Council of Europe, Strasbourg (France)". I think there's one each year. It seems to be an EU thing. open democracy, doesn't even seem to have a forum The International Democracy Forum aims to promote direct democray and it is an off-shoot of democracy-international.
It seems to me, a search to find the meaning of democracy should be interested in: what we know about it - books the ideal form in which it might take. AKA better democracy. There seem to be a few contenders here:
