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Socialism and Democracy; Equality and Difference:

Disentangling a Network of Conceptual Confusions and


Misrepresentations
Guillermo E. Rosado Haddock

1 A Sort of Brief Introduction


In my paper The Two Greatest Lies in Politics of the last two
Centuries we critically examined the so-called North-American
democracy, infested as it is by the power of money, by a bi-partisan system
completely controlled by the permanent government of the military
industry and the secret agencies, and an electoral system that allows the
existence of the so-called superdelegates1 in the primaries and the electoral
colleges in the elections2, in order to exclude possible presidents that could
try to resist and disrupt the power of the almighty permanent government.
We also critically examined the theoretical weakness of false Marxist
socialism and communism, which talks about a non-existent so-called
scientific socialism without knowing the criteria which can make a
theory scientific, and only use that void talk to mask in most cases the
special personal interests of a hoard avid of power and notoriety, whose
most glaring objective has been to replace the privileges of the capitalists
by similar or even more reproachable privileges for themselves.

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For example, in the primaries of the so-called Democratic Party of the USA of 2016 from
the very beginning more than 90% of the more than 360 superdelegates supported Rodham-
Clinton, making it almost impossible for the independent candidate Sanders to win the
primaries. But as if this were not enough, more than 120,000 names of voters in Brooklyn,
Sanders childhood neighbourhood, were disappeared from the electoral lists in order to
avoid a triumph of Sanders in New York. That is USA democracy!
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As in 2000, in 2016 the electoral colleges overturned the electoral vote, though this time
colliding with the permanent government. By the way, all this issue of the presumed Russian
intervention in the elections is a smoke screen to manipulate the people away from the
information disclosed by Wiki Leaks that the Democratic Party had interfered in the primaries
of the Republican Party, which is almost the only way to explain why the three candidates
from the core of the Republican party who, according to polls, would have easily defeated
Rodham-Clinton- did not win any primary, while the three outsiders, Trump et alia
astonishingly won them all. But the Democratic Party most surely could not have had such an
interference in the inner affairs of the Republican Party without the intervention of the
experienced and omnipresent core agency.

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In this paper we will be concerned with showing not only that
genuine democracy and genuine socialism are possible, but more
importantly, that genuine socialism and genuine democracy are inseparable
components of the only truly just society to which the whole of humanity
should aspire, if it is going to survive.

2 On Defining Genuine Democracy and Genuine Socialism


The term democracy originated in Ancient Greece and meant
essentially that the people, the simple citizens are the ones who govern,
and was contrasted with the government of the chosen ones, of the elite
that since ancient Greece to our days has alleged to have been especially
chosen, be it by the divinity, by blood, by race, by money, by their
presumed knowledge of so-called scientific and dialectical materialism, or
whatever to govern over the plebs, the non-chosen ones. But even when, as
happens in less wild capitalist countries than the United States of America,
those who govern are directly chosen by the people as their representatives,
usually from the very beginning of their political functions they represent
only their own interests and those of their near and not so near-
collaborators. That is the case of so-called representative democracy,
which though a pseudo-democracy, is still somewhat more democratic and
socially conscious3 than wild capitalism and other caricatures of
democracy4, and by far more democratic than the tyrannically pseudo-
socialist, in reality, bureaucratic countries5 and their most successful
cousins, the capitalist bureaucratic ones6. In order for democracy to work,
it has to be a participative one. As the visionary words of Abraham Lincoln

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Germany, France and other European capitalist countries, in which education and medical
treatment are still public or semi-public, can serve here as examples.
4
Brazil and Argentine can serve here as almost tragic examples.
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Of course, Cuba, Venezuela, as well as the old Soviet Union and its brother-countries in
Eastern Europe and Maos China can serve as examples. In such countries the nucleus of
enlightened party leaders control, by means of the states apparatus, the political, economic
and social life of the whole country, presumably in the name of the workers, and build all
sorts of privileges for themselves, even though private property is officially avoided.
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Present China and Vietnam can serve here as examples. In such cases, the almighty
communist party allows some selected persons sometimes family and friends of the
members of the party nucleus- to develop capitalist enterprises under the surveillance of the
state. The dominant class, to use some popular terminology, is still the partys upper
bureaucracy, as in the case of the pure bureaucratic countries.

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put it, a genuine democracy should be a government not only of the people
and for the people, but very especially by the people: it should be
controlled at all times by the people.
Going now to the other component of the pair of concepts under
consideration, let us first point out that Karl Marx and his followers have
characterized socialism as a government in which everyone receives
according to his work and to his capacities, whereas communism was
defined as a government in which everyone receives according to his
necessities and to his capacities. The problem here lies in the second
common component of both definitions. What is meant by capacities?
and who decides which capacities are socially and economically relevant?
But even more important, to what extent the difference in capacities should
manifest in the differences in social privileges. It seems that there is no
ground in any sort of capacities differential that could justify so monstrous
privileges as those existing both in capitalist countries and in some so-
called socialist countries between the lifestyle and luxury of the
billionaires, respectively, of the upper hierarchy of the so-called socialist or
communist parties, and the simple workers. Probably the most blatant
example of the latter sort was the case of his majesty Fidel Castro, with the
small island named Cayo Piedra with all sorts of luxury, as well as some
other twenty luxurious houses in the whole Cuba at his disposition and that
of his wife and their four sons.7 Basically a similar situation has existed in
other so-called socialist countries, as attested, for example, by the
luxurious palace with a golden toilet of Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania, as
well as the now museum, which housed Todor Zhivkov and his family in
Bulgaria, without mentioning other luxurious mansions and other sorts of
privileges at the disposition of the leaders of so-called world socialism.8

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See on this point the book by Castros especially near bodyguard for some seventeen years,
Juan Reynaldo Snchez, La vie cache de Fidel Castro, in English The Double Life of
Fidel Castro, St. Martins Griffin, New York. By the way, one should not be confused by the
concessions made to the masses when such bureaucratic governments came to power, some of
which, like Cubas medical system, are important steps in the right direction. But, as is well
known, similar things have happened, since the French revolution: when any government
supported by the masses arrives to power, a few changes that benefit the masses are
indispensable to consolidate the power of the new exploiting class.
8
In German and Spanish, but not in English, there exist the words listig and listo,
respectively, meaning astute, which could allow for the invention of more accurate words

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It is pertinent to combine the true sense of Lincolns words with
those that were the main slogan of the French revolution, namely, libert,
galit et fraternit, that is: liberty, equality and brotherhood. What is
meant is the individual liberty in multiple aspects, but including especially
the liberty of citizens to govern themselves; equality being meant in the
sense that all men are essentially equal, an issue that needs to be made
precise; and finally the brotherhood of all citizens, and I would expand it
as it should be- to the brotherhood of the whole humanity.
Genuine socialism propounds the essential equality and brotherhood
of all human beings, and the workers direct control of the means of
production. Hence, socialism is not only not incompatible with democracy,
as both the wild capitalism of the United States of America has tried to sell
to the world, and Marxist bureaucratic tyrannies, like those in Cuba and
Venezuela, and before them in the old Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and
China, and even bureaucratic capitalism, like that in present day China,
have loved to stress; but is its most perfect complement: political control
from below and economic control from below go hand in hand. That is
the genuine socialism and the genuine democracy to which societies should
converge: control by the people from below both of the government -
participative democracy-, and of the whole economic process, organized in
communities, councils and cooperatives, with the assistance and theoretical
help, but not the leadership, of economists and other professionals. Briefly,
genuine socialism is the control of the economic process of the people,
for the people and by the people. Thus: both socialism without
democracy and democracy without socialism are travesties.

3 On Equality: some Conceptual Specifications


Certainly both the justification of democracy and the justification of
socialism go through the analysis of the presumed equality of all human
beings expressed in the slogan of the French revolution. A conceptual
clarification of the concept of equality seems unavoidable.

like socialistig in German, respectively, sociolisto in Spanish and possible derivatives,


instead of having to refer to those pseudo-socialists and pseudo-socialisms by using quotes.
By the way, socio in Spanish means partner and, thus, sociolisto would literally mean
astute partner.

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Without being extremely pedantic, it seems pertinent to point out that
the notion of equality has been made precise by mathematicians. A relation
of equality is a special case of a relation of equivalence. A relation of
equivalence R on a set M is a relation having the following three simple
properties: (i) R(m,m) (Reflexivity), (ii) if R(m,n), then R(n,m)
(Symmetry), and (iii) if R(m,n) and R(n,t), then R(m,t) (Transitivity), where
m, n and t are members of M. Note that the relation of being identical to
itself is a relation of equivalence, in fact, it is a relation of congruence or
strong equivalence, a notion that we do not need to define here. More
common concrete relations, like that of having the same colour, among
cats or having the same height among human beings are also equivalence
relations, they are equalities in a special sense, namely, in that of having
the same colour, respectively, the same height. Thus, e.g., (i) Charles has
the same height as Charles; (ii) if Charles has the same height as John, then
John has the same height as Charles; and (iii) if Charles has the same
height as John and John has the same height as Peter, then Charles has the
same height as Peter.

4 A Fundamental Philosophical Distinction


The extraordinarily talented seminal philosopher of ancient Greece,
Aristotle made a fundamental distinction between substance and accident.
Making things simple, the substance of something existent is what makes
that existent what it is, whereas the accidents are properties that the
existent may or may not have. This originates a distinction between
precisely those accidental properties, that an object may have or fail to
have, and essential or substantial properties, that an object cannot fail to
have. Thus, a human being was for Aristotle a rational animal, being
rationality an essential component of all humans; whereas having been
born in Greece, in England, or in India, being black, white or yellow, fat or
lean, short or tall, more intelligent or less intelligent, having the talent for
painting of a van Gogh or the (lack of) talent for painting of the present
author are accidents of a human being. It seems pertinent to use this
distinction between essential and accidental properties when examining the
notion of equality, in order to avoid conceptual confusions.
Both in the first decades of the Cuban bureaucratic government and
in China in the period of the so-called cultural revolution the

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governments implemented the practice of sending university professors
during the summers to work in the agriculture and, in the case of China of
putting rural workers to teach I do not know what- at the universities.
Though it should be clear that the main objective of such an irrational
practice was to domesticate and humiliate university professors who in all
recent societies have been a source of criticism and dissent from the
political and economic practices of governments-, the ideological
justification of such a practice was that professors, rural workers and
presumably all human beings are essentially the same and are
interchangeable. Of course, the partys high bureaucracy did not emulate
that practice of working in the fields during the summers, while letting the
rural workers occupy the ministries of the government or the direction of
the communist party!
Leaving the motivations and objectives aside, that practice was based
on a fundamental confusion between essential and accidental properties of
human beings. As human beings we are essentially equal, have the same
human rights and the right to directly participate in the construction of the
economy from below and contribute to the political decisions that concern
our society, as well as the same rights to receive essentially equal
compensation. But accidentally human beings are very varied, and such
differences are very often of enormous importance, in order to successfully
complete different practices.9 A typical university professor, for example,
does not have the hours of practice and the knowledge of the land as a rural
worker; and the rural worker usually does not have the theoretical
knowledge to teach any matter at a university. As a matter of fact, not even
other professors are capable of replacing a determined professor and teach
the same courses. A professor of literature cannot replace a physics
professor even in the most elementary course on classical mechanics, not
to say in one on general relativity or quantum mechanics; nor the other
way around can a typical physics professor, no matter how excellent, teach

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To put this point somewhat graphically, I used to say to my students that I had no objections
to receiving the same economic compensation as the non-qualified workers in charge of the
cleansing of the buildings and the campus of the university. But I would certainly object to
having them or some secretary, or some post-modernist literature, history or sociology
professor- trying to teach my logic courses, or courses on Husserl, Kant or Frege, or on any
important and rigorous philosopher.

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courses on Shakespeares works. Similarly, not anyone can play sports at a
very high level. The natural talent needed and the hours of practice make
such tasks feasible only by a few people. Those are examples of accidental
and, by the way, in such cases and circumstances, very important
differences between different human beings. Even in the pairing of human
beings accidental properties of the beloved other play a decisive role.
But absolutely no accidental property of any human being even that
of being the most intelligent of all humans- justifies an unnecessary
comfort and excessive richness, while others languish in a miserable
existence. Society has to learn to completely revise the way it compensates
its members, while acknowledging the special and sometimes very
valuable accidental qualities of human beings and fostering their
exceptional talents. Education has to change and the axiology has to
change, in order to develop human beings less egoistic, less interested in
having especially comfortable life situations, while totally insensible to the
sufferings of others that crawl in misery: solidarity and brotherhood should
be emphasized.

5 On Constructing Socialism and Democracy from Below


Violent political revolutions have failed to produce the desired
change in all human beings, which were not prepared to construct the new
society from below, and certainly not in their leaders, who are always very
happy to replace the ancien regime in the name of the masses, while
silently building for themselves new privileges. In all such revolutions
since the American and the French ones at the end of the eighteenth
century, and including all the so-called socialist revolutions of the
twentieth century, the people were not psychologically and emotionally
prepared to directly control from below both the political forces and the
economic decisions of their countries. They were replaced, be it by the new
bourgeoisie speaking in the name of the people but propounding their more
specific class interests, be it by the Marxist-Leninist so-called
avantgarde, presumably speaking on behalf of the so-called proletarian
masses and, according to the Marxian scheme, supposedly building the
dictatorship of the proletariat, though as a matter of fact what they build is
the dictatorship of the higher echelons of the so-called communist or

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socialist party over the proletariat and over all other sectors of society,
while secretly but consciously obtaining privileges for themselves.
Hence, the route towards a genuine democratic and socialist society
which is certainly not the same thing as a social-democratic society, in the
current usage of that term- is a long and tortuous one. We are not going to
see it, but should prepare the way. And though it is not what one
understands by a social-democratic society, like those in Scandinavian
countries, the route most surely goes through it. Excellent and completely
free public education at all levels, as well as excellent and completely free
medical services of all kinds should be two of the first objectives in this
long battle, while at the same time debilitating private education and
private medical services up to their extinction. Those two fundamental
components of any human society should not be in private hands and
represent privileges.10 All human beings have exactly the same rights to
excellent medical treatment, as well as the same rights to maximally
develop through the best possible educational system their intellectual,
artistic, athletic and, in general, human capabilities. And I mean, being
essentially equal human beings, they have equal rights to develop their
intellectual, artistic and athletic capabilities, but by no means do I pretend
that such capabilities are equally distributed among human beings. As a
matter of fact, it is particularly important for society to maximize the
development of the special capabilities of its different members, with the
clear conscience that they are not equally distributed among them.
There are no quick solutions, presumed royal roads of revolution or
whatever, that would transform society into a genuine democratic and
socialist one. On the contrary, many years of hard preparation work and
some generations will be needed in order to reach such a goal. On the one
hand, one should transform through education, creating an educational
system that maximizes the intellectual and artistic capabilities of each
child. In particular, the system should give special attention to disciplines

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By the way, it should be stressed here that in any society, and very especially in a genuine
socialist one, no professionals are as important as teachers, on the one hand, and physicians
and other health professionals, on the other. Engineers, economists and university professors
also have their due importance in the future society to which we shall strive; while lawyers
and financial advisors will tend to disappear as societies develop economically, politically and
ethically towards a genuine democratic and socialist society.

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that help children develop their brains to the maximum, for example,
mathematics, foreign languages and, as far as feasible, philosophy. Special
attention should also be given to disciplines that help the emotional
maturity and moral character of individuals. Besides, for example,
sociology and world history, once more, foreign languages play a decisive
role, since they help in the development of empathy with other people and
cultures, and can serve as a barrier against ethnic and racial prejudices.
Certainly, racism and other ethnic barriers are fruits of ignorance and
stupidity, and are very common in countrys, like the USA, that are
fundamentally monolingual11.
On the other hand, especially in capitalist countries, there should
occur a conscious axiological revolution, that is, new values of solidarity
and brotherhood should be instilled in the people, replacing the capitalist
mentality for which the value of a human being is measured by his bank
account and his material possessions. As a matter of fact, there is a lot of
work to be done, not only in schools, but also in the communities and work
places, organizing cooperatives in communities and regions, as well as
community councils in each and every community of the country and
workers councils in all work places, that is, organizations horizontally
constructed, which protect and at the same time empower people, which
will be the constituting fundamental cells building the basis of a society in
which the people will be empowered with the political and economic
decisions, a society built from below, and politically, economically and
ethically just.

6 On Transcending the Frontiers


The objective of building a genuine socialist and genuine democratic
society from below cannot be the objective of an isolated country, while
the rest of the world is plunged either in the swamp of capitalist pseudo-
democracy or under the bureaucratic tyranny of the communist partys
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I mean here the term monoloingual not in its usual technical sense, as contrasted to
bilingual, that is, a person that speaks two (or more) languages with equal mastery as
mother tongues, but in the wider sense of being capable to understand and basically
communicate in a second language. In the USA, with an overwhelming minority of Spanish-
speaking persons the immense majority of Anglo-Americans and African-Americans are
completely incapable to understand, not to say to speak, Spanish (or any other language),
except their native tongue, which in many cases they speak fluently but far from correctly.

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higher echelons. The internationalization of the efforts towards true
democracy and true socialism seems to be a necessary condition for their
success. But internationalization does not mean chaotic internationalization
with no matter which country. What is at stake is to build solidarity and
brotherhood between countries, not to find partners in international
commerce or international wars, as has occurred even before the advent of
capitalism, and by far much more since that advent. Solidarity and
brotherhood between countries begins with those that have the stronger
cultural and, in general, ethnic bonds. Thus, for example, for Latin-
American countries the by far most natural bond is with other Latin-
American countries. Most of them speak the same language Spanish- or a
very near relative of it Portuguese-, share in (sometimes very) different
proportions the heritage of the Iberian (Spanish-Portuguese) peninsula,
African and Indian heritages, as well as the heritage of non-Iberian Europe.
The ethnic ties of Latin-American countries are by far much stronger than
those of the members of the European Union, and if the European
countries have been able to form and preserve a union, it is of the utmost
importance to build something similar or even much stronger in Latin
America. The dream of Bolivar and others of a sort of Latin-American
Union or Federation, but in this case of genuinely democratic and
genuinely socialist countries, should be the goal to which should strive the
whole of Latin America. But it is not the ultimate goal, since the ultimate
goal is the brotherhood and mutual solidarity of all of mankind, as well as
the continuous and global effort to preserve the conditions that make life
possible in our planet.
Europe also should strive towards a consolidation of their union,
while at the same time working to build genuine democracy and genuine
socialism from below, as should other groups of countries with ethnic
affinities around the world. And even the United States of America should
not only internally strive towards a genuine (participative) democracy and
a genuine socialism from below, but should also strive towards a federation
with their ethnically nearest countries, like Canada and England; instead of
seeking as economic, political and military partners countries whose native
tongue North-Americans do not understand and whose traditions and
values are so distant from theirs that collision seems inevitable as has
happened in the Middle East. In fact, only after the solidification of the

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regional bonds between countries with similar ethnicity, mentality and
history can one seriously think about the possibility of extending the
solidarity bonds and the brotherhood to all of mankind. Nonetheless, even
before arriving to that level of global solidarity and brotherhood of all
mankind, the different federations or unions of countries should make
efforts to protect our planet, by stopping the destruction of our
environment and reducing to a minimum the present climate change. If
humanity does not work hard in that direction, the destruction of our world
will arrive much earlier than genuine socialism and genuine democracy for
the whole of mankind.

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