Welcome to the world of Democratic Socio Capitalism or DSC. To understand what is DSC and how it can empower democracy to build shared wealth in our society, we encourage you to peruse all the articles at our website home page viz., democraticsociocapitalism.org. The most important are: What is DSC? and Transformation to DSC.
Human civilizations started with the human species emulating the animal world at first i.e., a dominant male or female in a pack. This led to someone in the human herd to be picked as a leader. Being a leader had its share of responsibilities, such as, protecting the herd from extinction, and perks like, easy availability of food or mates. There would sometimes be bloody fights to be recognized a leader with the loser always eyeing a chance of becoming the leader. Those who did not want to get into the fight would become happy subordinates giving the leader the power to rule the territory. When the leader exceeded the socially agreeable limits and boundaries of their power, some who resented the transgression would join forces with the loser and weaken the power of the leader leading to their downfall. Even as evolution progressed and humans became more sophisticated (civilized) little has changed in the basic instincts of human beings. As populations grew, the losers would take their supporters and set off to find separate abodes, far away from the parent herd giving birth to tribes.
Tribes evolved and thrived as long as their population was small requiring little resources and was self-sufficient. Unique tribal practices and beliefs gave birth to distinct tribal cultures. All seemed to be fine until, diseases and natural disasters threatened their very existence. In the desperate need for self-preservation, travel, information exchange and collaboration between the tribes started. This led to dilution of the culture distinctions and amalgamation of diverse tribal practices into commonly acceptable norms and beliefs paving the way for modern civilizations. The basic concept of having a leader continued with the primary responsibility to govern and manage resources to protect the people from both natural disasters, and man-made calamities (due to population growth) eventually leading to establishment of kings and monarchies.
The progress of art, philosophy and religion enriched the kingdoms and monarchies and several successful civilizations emerged and collapsed over thousands of years. Humans became aware of their self-worth and wanted to participate in their own governance. Athens in Italy was the first to experiment with self-governance the basic tenet of democracy. This developed around the fifth century B.C.E. wherein all adult citizens were required to take an active part in the government. This original idea of participative democracy was different from modern representative democracies in which people elect representatives to run the day-to-day affairs of the government. The assumption is that all citizens are incapable of directly making decisions or judgements on issues affecting the population and need to elect candidates to make those decisions for them. The power of the state/candidates is curtailed through a social contract (the constitution) by giving citizens the right to vote and provide checks and balances against authoritarianism.
The framers of the Constitution of the United States (COTUS) had all the right reasons to make USA a representative democracy with its checks and balances at a time when the need of the hour was to unite the unwieldy colonies under one centralized authority. There was a need to curtail individual freedoms and in return offer a bill-of-rights and other concessions to satisfy the vagaries of powerful men who were required to unite under one tent to fight the Brits. When Thomas Jefferson drafted the declaration of independence that quotes “…all men are created equal…”, he did not mean individual equality (https://news.stanford.edu/press-releases/2020/07/01/meaning-declaratnce-changed-time/). Slave ownership and monopolies by powerful men continued with total disregard to individual freedoms. An attempt to make amends led to the Civil War of 1860s. After the war ended, there was a need for a second reconstruction of the constitution with a new set of amendments (1865-70). Although slavery was abolished by the 13th amendment in 1865, other amendments never happened due to their dependency on other conditions. The abolition of slavery was sort of a trigger for revenge in enacting segregation laws spearheaded by Jim Crow. It took almost another 100 years from the Civil War to fully recognize the equality of all people, only in the 1960s.
America’s “democratic experiment” has stood the test of time mainly due to “a few good men in power” who continue to believe in the equality of all people. If the checks and balances had not endured, America today would have been an oligarchy or a dictatorship. Unfortunately, even in a representative democracy such as ours, the freedom of all the citizens is mortgaged to their representatives who are elected for a term. The citizens have almost no direct say in day-to-day decision making on critical issues. It is assumed that the representative will be making the right decisions and representing the will of their constituency from the time of their election to office. In today’s reality, the representative is already sold to the highest bidding lobbyist even before they start their first day in office and throughout the term is focused on advancing their lobbyist’s agenda like a puppet. Instead of focusing and passing bills that benefit all people, they pick and choose bills to support, or kill, if that would make them look good politically and advance their longevity in office. They would also spend their tax payer paid time fund raising for their next election campaign. There is no penalty for not passing a bill or killing a bill, if it suits their political ambitions.
Who is to blame for all this? It is “we the people” who have chosen to be governed by a representative democracy that has very limited possibility of direct decision making (except in some small town governments). Could we change our state of affairs at the state level and federal level? You bet, as long as we all unite in making the change.
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