• emizeko [they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Consider term limits. The US Constitution was amended to enforce term limits in direct response to FDR’s popular 12-year presidency (he died in office, going on for 16). As a policy, it is self-evidently quite anti-democratic (robbing the people of a choice), but nevertheless it has been conceptually naturalized to the extent that the 2019 coup against Evo Morales was premised explicitly on the idea that repeated popular electoral victories constituted a form of dictatorship. If rotation was important to avoid corruption or complacency, corporations and supreme courts would institute term limits too. Term limits ensure that in the miraculous scenario that a scrupulous, charismatic, and intelligent individual becomes a rebellious political executive, they won’t be in power long enough to meaningfully challenge the entrenched power of corporate vehicles manned by CEOs with decades of experience. Wolfgang Schäuble, a powerful advocate of austerity policy in Europe, succinctly summarized the extent to which electoral democracy is subordinate: “Elections cannot be allowed to change economic policy.” One Party States and Democratic Centralism are not the result of lack of sophistication or cronyism, they are a proven bulwark that acknowledges that political power will often need to be exerted against the will of Capital, and so the wielders of said power must necessarily undergo a much more serious vetting process than a popularity contest.

    from https://redsails.org/why-marxism/

    • ssjmarx [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      Liberals assume that most elected officials will be good, so limiting the terms makes sense because if you get a bad one you can replace them sooner rather than later.

      Proletarian democracy assumes exactly the opposite. Most elected officials will probably be bad, so a worker's party must intervene in the democratic process to ensure that the worst ones are disqualified, and the best ones can wield power for as long as they have a democratic mandate to do so.