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IN ARMENIA THE RICH RULE: LIBERAL DEMOCRACY IS PLUTOCRACY
13:37, March 5, 2015
By Markar Melkonian
A politician in Yerevan recently noted that, "if the oligarchs are
omitted from the National Assembly, only one or two MP's will remain,
and the cabinet will be empty."
What is obviously true of the legislature is just as obviously true
of the Presidency and the Ministries, the judiciary, and local and
regional state agencies. In Armenia today, as in other capitalist
democracies, the wealthiest few hold a near-total monopoly of
political power.
But this all-too-evident truth flies in the face of the "mainstream
political science" taught in places like the American University
of Armenia.
One of the most influential American political philosophers of the
last century, John Rawls, claimed that in a liberal democracy like
the United States, "political power is the coercive power of free and
equal citizens as a corporate body." Perhaps it should count as an
achievement that a liberal thinker has at least managed to acknowledge
the essentially coercive character of political power. But in what
sense are citizens of a state that is dominated by the super-wealthy
few "equal" as a corporate body--let alone "free"?
The modern liberal state, we hear, is a level playing field upon which
a wide range of multiple interest groups compete to influence the
electorate. Mainstream political thinkers call this view of democratic
politics Majoritarian Pluralism. According to their story, this is
what the American political system is all about, and other liberal
democracies, too. Bringing this kind of democracy to Armenia is the
advertised aim of more than one of the one-man shops that go by the
name of political parties in Yerevan these days.
But let us take a closer look at Majoritarian Pluralism. If it were
right, then this would make a difference when it comes to how policy
is made. It would have implications, for example, when it comes to
what sets of actors have influence over public policy and how much
influence they have. If Majoritarian Pluralism were genuine, then
in liberal democracies, mass-based interest groups, such as large
consumer advocacy organizations, grass-roots environmental movements,
and popularly supported anti-corruption campaigns should have a direct
impact on public policy.
As it turns out, though, these implications are not borne out by real
events on the ground--and this is true especially in countries like
the United States.
In a paper entitled "Testing Theories of American Politics,"
researchers Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of
Northwestern University present the results of a multivariate analysis,
conducted by a large team of researchers, to compare the predictions
of Majoritarian Pluralism and other leading theories in the study of
American politics. Their research, which included measures of key
variables for 1779 policy issues, is the most exhaustive study of
its kind that has yet been undertaken.
"The central point that emerges from our research," Gilens and Page
write, "is that economic elites and organized groups representing
business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S.
government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average
citizens have little or no independent influence." The study refutes
Majoritarian Pluralism, as well as the familiar Majoritarian Electoral
Democracy view (according to which political power lies with the
electorate), and it confirms the implications of two alternative
views of American politics, which academics call Biased Pluralism and
Economic Elite Domination. The later views are represented, notably,
by Marxist political theory.
So let us be clear: the most exhaustive comparative empirical study yet
conducted on theories of American democracy by "mainstream political
scientists" shows conclusively that: (i) the view of liberal democracy
that the American University and Armenia's one-man-shop political
parties have prescribed are inaccurate; and (ii) the Economic Elite
Domination view and the Biased Pluralism view, represented most
notably in Marxist political theory, far more accurately describe
American democracy.
In America, just as in Armenia, the big capitalists as a group hold
a near-monopoly on political power. In the USA, no less than in the
Republic of Armenia, the rich rule. But then of course "we all know
this": it is lived experience of tens of millions of people daily.
In highly stratified countries, wealth just is economic power;
economic power is power over others; economic inequality is political
inequality.
Yerevan's pro-Western opposition might deny this truth, but it
is not a recent revelation. In the book of Proverbs 22:7 we read:
"The rich ruleth over the poor and the borrower is servant to the
lender."This insight is part of a "wisdom tradition" that goes back
more than two and one-half millennia.
It would seem, then, that Armenia's pro-Western opposition has
swallowed political assumptions that fly in the face of everyday
experience, ignore ancient wisdom, and defy the best contemporary
empirical research by the best of America's "mainstream political
scientists" themselves.
In a previous discussion ("Armenians Need to Lose Their Faith in the
Free Market," Hetq.am, Feb. 7, 2015), we learned that recent empirical
research, as exhaustive and careful as it gets, confirms that, in
the West no less than in Armenia: (a) there are huge gaps between the
rich and vast majority of the "citizens," and (b) capitalism left to
its own "free market" devices tends to increase the gap between the
richest few and the rest.
To these insights, we may now add another: (c) in capitalist
democracies, the richest rule. Conclusion: in liberal democracies of
the West no less than in Armenia, "the free-market system" increasingly
concentrates wealth, and thus political power, in the hands of a tiny
minority of the population.
Yerevan's overawed admirers of everything American, then, are looking
in the wrong place if they really want an alternative to Armenia's
plutocracy. If successful, they would--once again--only replace one
set of plutocrats with another.
One might think that this consideration, true and important as it is,
would make a difference to political discourse in the Republic of
Armenia. After twenty-five years of political manipulation, deeper
and deeper poverty, and demographic disaster, one might expect that a
generalized skepticism would prevail in Armenian today when it comes
to the constantly repeated flimflam connecting capitalism to freedom.
The good news is that some of our young compatriots are learning
lessons that the counter-revolutionaries of the 1990s denied, and
that their parents were too exhausted to acknowledge.
Striking workers at the Nayarit plant make the connection between
capitalism and plutocracy, as do protesters against privatized-bus fare
hikes and electricity-rate hikes. So do those who oppose deforestation,
strip mining, the privatization of public land, raging corruption,
and the beating of dissidents.
These young compatriots do not take their petitions to foreign
embassies, and they do not cast votes for the candidates of the
one-man shops that pass for political parties these days. Through their
actions they have shown that the best counterforce against the ongoing
abuses by Armenia's plutocrats is resistance from the bottom--from
the streets, social media, offices, factories, and public squares.
The next step for these young people is to come together, to share
lessons learned, to pool their resources, to organize not just against
today's plutocrats, but also against the ones who would replace them.
The challenge facing our young compatriots is to build a common vision
and a common organization to fight against plutocracy altogether--and
to fight for workers' power.
(Markar Melkonian is a nonfiction writer and a philosophy instructor.
His books include Richard Rorty's Politics: Liberalism at the End of
the American Century (Humanities Press, 1999), Marxism: A Post-Cold
War Primer (Westview Press, 1996), and My Brother's Road (I.B. Tauris,
2005, 2007), a memoir/biography about Monte Melkonian, co-written
with Seta Melkonian)
http://hetq.am/eng/news/58846/in-armenia-the-rich-ruleliberal-democracy-is-plutocracy.html
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
13:37, March 5, 2015
By Markar Melkonian
A politician in Yerevan recently noted that, "if the oligarchs are
omitted from the National Assembly, only one or two MP's will remain,
and the cabinet will be empty."
What is obviously true of the legislature is just as obviously true
of the Presidency and the Ministries, the judiciary, and local and
regional state agencies. In Armenia today, as in other capitalist
democracies, the wealthiest few hold a near-total monopoly of
political power.
But this all-too-evident truth flies in the face of the "mainstream
political science" taught in places like the American University
of Armenia.
One of the most influential American political philosophers of the
last century, John Rawls, claimed that in a liberal democracy like
the United States, "political power is the coercive power of free and
equal citizens as a corporate body." Perhaps it should count as an
achievement that a liberal thinker has at least managed to acknowledge
the essentially coercive character of political power. But in what
sense are citizens of a state that is dominated by the super-wealthy
few "equal" as a corporate body--let alone "free"?
The modern liberal state, we hear, is a level playing field upon which
a wide range of multiple interest groups compete to influence the
electorate. Mainstream political thinkers call this view of democratic
politics Majoritarian Pluralism. According to their story, this is
what the American political system is all about, and other liberal
democracies, too. Bringing this kind of democracy to Armenia is the
advertised aim of more than one of the one-man shops that go by the
name of political parties in Yerevan these days.
But let us take a closer look at Majoritarian Pluralism. If it were
right, then this would make a difference when it comes to how policy
is made. It would have implications, for example, when it comes to
what sets of actors have influence over public policy and how much
influence they have. If Majoritarian Pluralism were genuine, then
in liberal democracies, mass-based interest groups, such as large
consumer advocacy organizations, grass-roots environmental movements,
and popularly supported anti-corruption campaigns should have a direct
impact on public policy.
As it turns out, though, these implications are not borne out by real
events on the ground--and this is true especially in countries like
the United States.
In a paper entitled "Testing Theories of American Politics,"
researchers Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of
Northwestern University present the results of a multivariate analysis,
conducted by a large team of researchers, to compare the predictions
of Majoritarian Pluralism and other leading theories in the study of
American politics. Their research, which included measures of key
variables for 1779 policy issues, is the most exhaustive study of
its kind that has yet been undertaken.
"The central point that emerges from our research," Gilens and Page
write, "is that economic elites and organized groups representing
business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S.
government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average
citizens have little or no independent influence." The study refutes
Majoritarian Pluralism, as well as the familiar Majoritarian Electoral
Democracy view (according to which political power lies with the
electorate), and it confirms the implications of two alternative
views of American politics, which academics call Biased Pluralism and
Economic Elite Domination. The later views are represented, notably,
by Marxist political theory.
So let us be clear: the most exhaustive comparative empirical study yet
conducted on theories of American democracy by "mainstream political
scientists" shows conclusively that: (i) the view of liberal democracy
that the American University and Armenia's one-man-shop political
parties have prescribed are inaccurate; and (ii) the Economic Elite
Domination view and the Biased Pluralism view, represented most
notably in Marxist political theory, far more accurately describe
American democracy.
In America, just as in Armenia, the big capitalists as a group hold
a near-monopoly on political power. In the USA, no less than in the
Republic of Armenia, the rich rule. But then of course "we all know
this": it is lived experience of tens of millions of people daily.
In highly stratified countries, wealth just is economic power;
economic power is power over others; economic inequality is political
inequality.
Yerevan's pro-Western opposition might deny this truth, but it
is not a recent revelation. In the book of Proverbs 22:7 we read:
"The rich ruleth over the poor and the borrower is servant to the
lender."This insight is part of a "wisdom tradition" that goes back
more than two and one-half millennia.
It would seem, then, that Armenia's pro-Western opposition has
swallowed political assumptions that fly in the face of everyday
experience, ignore ancient wisdom, and defy the best contemporary
empirical research by the best of America's "mainstream political
scientists" themselves.
In a previous discussion ("Armenians Need to Lose Their Faith in the
Free Market," Hetq.am, Feb. 7, 2015), we learned that recent empirical
research, as exhaustive and careful as it gets, confirms that, in
the West no less than in Armenia: (a) there are huge gaps between the
rich and vast majority of the "citizens," and (b) capitalism left to
its own "free market" devices tends to increase the gap between the
richest few and the rest.
To these insights, we may now add another: (c) in capitalist
democracies, the richest rule. Conclusion: in liberal democracies of
the West no less than in Armenia, "the free-market system" increasingly
concentrates wealth, and thus political power, in the hands of a tiny
minority of the population.
Yerevan's overawed admirers of everything American, then, are looking
in the wrong place if they really want an alternative to Armenia's
plutocracy. If successful, they would--once again--only replace one
set of plutocrats with another.
One might think that this consideration, true and important as it is,
would make a difference to political discourse in the Republic of
Armenia. After twenty-five years of political manipulation, deeper
and deeper poverty, and demographic disaster, one might expect that a
generalized skepticism would prevail in Armenian today when it comes
to the constantly repeated flimflam connecting capitalism to freedom.
The good news is that some of our young compatriots are learning
lessons that the counter-revolutionaries of the 1990s denied, and
that their parents were too exhausted to acknowledge.
Striking workers at the Nayarit plant make the connection between
capitalism and plutocracy, as do protesters against privatized-bus fare
hikes and electricity-rate hikes. So do those who oppose deforestation,
strip mining, the privatization of public land, raging corruption,
and the beating of dissidents.
These young compatriots do not take their petitions to foreign
embassies, and they do not cast votes for the candidates of the
one-man shops that pass for political parties these days. Through their
actions they have shown that the best counterforce against the ongoing
abuses by Armenia's plutocrats is resistance from the bottom--from
the streets, social media, offices, factories, and public squares.
The next step for these young people is to come together, to share
lessons learned, to pool their resources, to organize not just against
today's plutocrats, but also against the ones who would replace them.
The challenge facing our young compatriots is to build a common vision
and a common organization to fight against plutocracy altogether--and
to fight for workers' power.
(Markar Melkonian is a nonfiction writer and a philosophy instructor.
His books include Richard Rorty's Politics: Liberalism at the End of
the American Century (Humanities Press, 1999), Marxism: A Post-Cold
War Primer (Westview Press, 1996), and My Brother's Road (I.B. Tauris,
2005, 2007), a memoir/biography about Monte Melkonian, co-written
with Seta Melkonian)
http://hetq.am/eng/news/58846/in-armenia-the-rich-ruleliberal-democracy-is-plutocracy.html
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress