An Essay on The Re-Design of The Systems: Part Four - Realism as a Component of

Socialism by Tommy Null

"All forms of the state have democracy for their truth, and for that reason are
false to the extent that they are not democracy." - Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel's
Philosophy of Right (1843)

Today, mostly in countries that have little or no knowledge of Marxist theory,

Socialism is seen as a utopian idealism, a perfect, most fruitful life where no
problems would occur. This is false. The real goal of Socialism is (feel free to
contradict) to make people economically equal through 100% inclusion in the vote
and being "owners of the decision", a term which I made to describe common
ownership as having a slice of the pie, and deciding the actions of a whole via a
rational vote.

Our current system of government in the United States is CALLED Democracy.

Democracy, by the earliest and purest definition, is a direct vote of every person
to decide the fate of a group or place, such as whether to pas vital laws on tap
water, or more serious votes, such as abortion, and other such issues. In the
United States, we utilize a system called Representative democracy, where we
choose someone to represent the views of a community and uphold those feelings in
the vote. The problem, or rather one of the biggest problems with representative
democracy is that
It utilizes a flawed voting system, where the peoples' vote, like in that of
deciding a president, are treated as more like an opinion, which can be taken out
of context, or completely ignored. Therefore, the opinions taken into the vote by
our elected officials could, and usually is, different than the vote of the
people.

Robert A. Dahl, Sterling Professor emeritus at Yale, outlined the most

"Democratic" voting system in his book "Democracy and It's Critics";

1.Effective Participation - Citizens must have adequate and equal opportunities to

form their preference and place questions on the public agenda and express reasons
for one outcome over the other.

2.Voting Equality at the Decisive Stage - Each citizen must be assured his or her
judgements will be counted as equal in weights to the judgements of others.

3.Enlightened Understanding - Citizens must enjoy ample and equal opportunities

for discovering and affirming what choice would best serve their interests.

4.Control of the Agenda - Demos or people must have the opportunity to decide what
political matters actually are and what should be brought up for deliberation.

5.Inclusiveness - Equality must extend to all citizens within the state. Everyone
has legitimate stake within the political process.

That is, in essence, all that should be required of a civilized and intelligent
government which seeks to hear the voices of the people. If we all get our voice
heard, know what to know, know how to bring deliberation into policy, and have our
votes counted as equal, our democracy can be whole and un-tarnished by majority.
The problem inherent in such systems is that people see them as Utopian fantasy
lands that cannot be created by humans outside of the mind itself. The truth is,
that an economically equal land where everybody has the same starting point, is
just as difficult to put into effect as any other government, but the outcome of
other votes is, as we all know, the same.
The perfect government is not one that makes life perfect and without problems,
but instead fixes those problems in a timely manner. Bumps in the road certainly
don't change your overall view of a pleasant, droopy car ride through the farm
country.

Realism is an ideal that I hold very close to me. If it is not possible, I do not
even waste space in my brain hoping for it. If it cannot be made into a list of
objectives, it is not worth thinking about until it can be. My involvement in
Socialist theory is tight-knit with my realism. Idealism is pleasant, but
ignorance is bliss. And if I have to ignore the facts to be a flower child, I
would rather be a suit and tie.

I have a view of Socialism which is that it is an objective set of tasks. Coming

up with new tasks and new ways to fix problems with my socialist theory is one
that i hold very near to me, and it helps me as a political writer of sorts, and
the more I can see things as ways to fix problems and not problems themselves, the
clearer the path to solving the problem.

Socialism, as I construe it (the closest as possible to the ideals of Marx, Lenin,

Trotsky), is a way of tackling, from a revolutionary perspective, a large group of
social issues by way of including the opinions of the people whose problems they
ARE. That seems, to me, the most logical of ways to form, or better, RE-form,
government.

In a realistic society, i.e., the one we live in, our decisions are made by the
deicision - MAKERS, the law men who go to school to become law men, pay exorbited
amounts to become law men, and then spend their lives making laws for the people
to follow.

The law makers, as a small few, do not think of the people when making a law. He
thinks of what he is told by the people lobbying for competitive legislation. He
thinks of the people who have been made the mascots for a cause. He does not ask
the city or town as a whole,
"Town, what are YOUR subjects on tax hikes for tires in this cold season where you
will certainly want new, safer tires?" because he knows, and more importantly his
boss knows, that the people would NOT want to pay more for tires than they do, or
be kicked around by a bit-by-bit capitalistic ploy.

The people, then, have no knowledge of the legislation that invariably will
involve either the taking of more of their money, or the LACK of the taking of
more of their money.

The people who most influence the law makers know that while the will of the
people is not to spend more, that his capital-central existence is in place to
tell the law makers to make the people spend more.

The law makers, having taken the speech of their bosses (the ruling class) to
heart, use that to form legislation that undermines his own life, which I am sure
most have found out after they become disillusioned with the political game.

Then the people have to deal with it.

Every once in a while, representative votes happen, and all the plights of the
people seem to suddenly hush in the ears of the elected official. They only hear
that sweet bell of capital and power ringing in both ears. This is because, from
the beginning, that official was running for a capitalist party.

But if the vote was made more efficient through genuine votes from everyone in the
town, with local government agents to come to your house if you are disabled or
otherwise cannot leave your house. Our government's most solemn and real duty is
that to the people, and there is no lengthes a genuine government would NOT go to
to ensure that it heard and responded to every voice it hears.