Democracy, the market, individuality…

A Swedish leader or editorial writer wrote about an affair in Sweden concerning people belonging to the Moderate Party buying votes to the Swedish Parliament:

“It’s not difficult associating to enterprises and entrepreneurs when the moderates in Stockholm are shaken by the scandal with bought members.”

What they have done is not least full of enterprise. Moderate candidates to the Parliament have simply tried to make long-term investments in a well paid job in the Parliament. A revision firm is involved in the investigation of the scandal. The step isn’t far away that the Moderates are introducing themselves on the market he thinks. Even if you shall not exaggerate the scandal the question returns if there isn’t an ideological component in the whole thing.

Because it’s about a party valuing the market higher than anything else and this party’s members would prefer that the politics move away as much as possible in favor for this market.

And in such a climate the democratic voice is hardly as sacred, as in other movements where the politics’ and democracy’s power are seen as more central.

Yes, are they in fact scared to death for democracy? If they get an opportunity they want to undermine it? In favor of themselves?

The democracy’s subversive formula is as follows:

One human being – one vote. This means that the low paid person’s voice is as much worth as the billionaire’s when they are voting.

However, in the market society it’s the billionaire who has the largest influence. But what happens if the billionaire uses his resources for buying votes?

Then the politics falls to pieces. The democracy is invaded by something for it alien to its nature: the power of money.

This is already the case in a country like Italy, where the media mogul Berlusconi is governing the politics with his money and his Medias.

We don’t have such a meltdown here yet. But the Moderate scandal in Stockholm has undeniably its idea political significances.

Another leader/editorial writer writes about the same scandal; that the electoral cheaters farthest in want to make the society entirely nonpolitical. It’s the “business concept” itself, that the representative democracy’s decision makers shall have as little influence over the society as possible.

It’s how the strict right has resonated ever since this country got universal suffrage.

And apropos the much honored individuality:

“Strange to say, we have gotten parties that are for an individuality that’s sticking out for their own personal sake, but now [in the politics] are promoting a vapid conformism [to gain votes].”

And are those who are preaching the individual (the neoliberals for instance) capable of treating individuals individually instead of lumping them together as for instance accusing people for being cheaters - all of them (in the welfare systems)?

Are they giving or have they given other people the same rights as they are demanding for themselves, and do they feel that they have the corresponding duties? Yes, you can wonder.

A Swedish blogger writes about an article about this affair with the heading saying something like “The confidence for the politics is becoming damaged.” The question is if t isn’t already substantially damaged, maybe because that this old type of party politics doesn’t work anymore.

Now with the European Union why shall one vote for politicians who don’t have so much to decide over because the real right to decisions lies somewhere else. But they can lift substantial fees and pensions. In some countries the members of the Parliament has juridical immunity – if such demands are coming to Sweden we really have to look up.

In the comments to the article some commentators try to come with the old waltz that the social democrats aren’t a bit better. As if cheating in one party apologizes cheating in another.

On earlier days' statare or agricultural laborer receiving allowance in kind - and the superclass then and now…

We don’t really believe in getting together to fight for things (together) in this society (we are solely individualists and not dependent on other people, neither on good nor on bad things other people do)?

At least we grassroots don't any more, we don't group as we did? Because we don't need it? Don't we?

But see about the power elites and the superclass below. They get together and group (but how? But that's another thread and discussion)!

Instead the individuals (some at least) try to make their voices heard entirely on their own. Individuals are screaming their voices hoarse? In an ocean of screaming voices are anybody really heard? Or whose and what voices are heard? Some have quite cynically given everything up. Or given up in a feeling of powerlessness (even if this feeing isn’t actual always).

And what about whistle blowers? Individuals daring to speak up (on their own) with no support and no backing?

Can individuals (genuinely autonomous, i.e. genuinely independent) exist in (a healthy) collective? Yes, I think that is possible. But in less healthy systems (group, political party, country etc.) there is an either/or, not a BOTH individual AND collective (and what is true, genuine individuality? Is individualism this? Can so called "individualism" be a disguised standardization? Practical for the power? Is individualism the same as being your true self, being personal, truly, genuinely unique?)?

Back 30-40 years many young people lived in collectives, some even with kids and families. But today those living in those collectives don’t believe in ANY collective solutions!? Yeah, maybe for very good reasons? Or?

Some say

“We have to trust people!”

At the same time people are not trusted! People are said to use the systems for instance. And thus we can’t trust anybody? And the people that are working hard are punished too for those misusing systems and things. A kind of collective punishment.

Think if one could move to an isolated island somewhere and get away from all this!?

Yes, some have said that you can trust too much AND too little.

Why can’t some people trust maybe at all?

And what about those trusting too much?

How was it in older days with people falling behind chairs? If a child lost both his/her parents and if it had no relatives? Who took care of those? Who saw so they got food and shelter? If a child was born disabled what did this mean? This child became a heavy burden to its parents a whole life?

If you couldn’t support yourself you had to rely on other peoples’ kindness and good will? Were all people in the society kind and good people helping the help needing? Were it the ones with most resources (in form of wealth, health, money) who helped those incapable of taking care of themselves because of low age, because they were disabled maybe already from they were born?

The one with less resources were they the ones that least of all cared?

Who cared less and contributed less is my silent wonder?

How often did infanticides occur because a child was born disabled because it would mean a too heavy burden for a family? How did one treat old people who were of no use anymore?

Who took care of people needing care (the truly, genuinely weak) of any kind? They could founder? And often foundered?

Children (especially to poor people) were auctioned off (for instance because one or both parents had died and they had no relatives who could take care of them) less than 100 years ago here, I think, to the ones taking them for less money. Like they were livestock. And they were also workers in the families where they landed, thus actual livestock (and child workers exist in this word today. And it existed during the 60's). Yes, they were workers at a very early age.

According to a now 29 year old woman the institutions she grew up in were better than (ELEVEN different) foster homes (in which she got abused, for instance sexually). So families paid for taking care of children aren't always so good today either! Institutions seem to be better according to this young woman. But institutions were bad here earlier too (and not so long ago).

Less than one hundred years ago (I think even to around 1940!!) we had agricultural laborer receiving allowance in kind. They had nothing else to sell than their workforce. And it wasn’t valued highly… They were tied to their employer, till they were of no use anymore. Totally in the hands of the good will of their master and the landowner (earlier days superclass, though those days "superclass" had limited power compared to the superclass today?).

Some women sold their bodies (women are doing this still), because they had nothing else to sell (they believed?) or nothing else to trade.

How did earlier societies take care of those needing care?

Also see about the truck system:

“A truck system is an arrangement in which employees are paid in commodities or scrip rather than with standard money. This limits their ability to choose how to spend their earnings—generally to the benefit of the employer. As an example, scrip might only be able to be used for the purchase of goods at a 'company store' where prices are set artificially high.

While this system had long existed in many parts of the world, it became widespread in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as industrialization left many poor, unskilled workers without other means to support themselves and their families. The practice has been widely criticized as exploitative and similar in effect to slavery, and has been outlawed in many parts of the world. Variations of the truck system have existed world-wide, and are known by various names.”

The earliest coins were used already in old Greece.

Also came to think about the power elite(s), and the super class and oppression (the elites are getting together, grouping, while we grassroots are divided and ruled) and also about being obedient and keeping quiet ( and private egoism).

From an earlier posting (about the super class):

We had thralls or trälar (slaves) too here in Scandinavia, for instance during the Viking-era. And later people were held as thralls, but in another sense. They weren't literally in villenage, but still villains in many senses.

Apropos the book ”Superclass; The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making” by David Rothkopf a commentator on a blog wrote about oppression, here my a little free translation and additions:

“One can scream oneself blue and it doesn’t matter or make any difference. But remember that the power, the oppression is dependent on psychology to a large degree. It’s dependent on that there are enough stupid people. Not unintelligent, of course, but self-righteous and dumb (foolish, stupid).”

The blog-owner replied:

“Of course you are right, and do you know this is also what David Rothkopf points out, he means that it’s ‘smooth’ for the superclass to govern so long as the voters in the democracies don’t take their responsibility and inform themselves so they can vote rationally.”

Yes, the power has interests in that the people under them don’t!?

For instance, we should all be interested that all people got enlightened! That all had good schools for instance, and had the same chances getting good education, with well-educated teachers (in all respects).

How do we deal with power abuse for instance? Do we deal with this individually?

Thoughts during a quite hectic morning April 23 (dentist and hairdresser): My maternal grandfather worked full time as chauffeur (car, truck and bus) and had one week off (vacation) each year, at most. And long workdays. They (he and my grandmother with four kids) also supported themselves with having cows, and sometimes a pig and hens I think. This meant that he had to get up early in the morning, start a fire so the house got warm, go out and feed the cow(s), milk it (them), and then go to work. When he came home he had to milk the cow again and give it food. In the summer he had to see so he had hay for he cow over the winter.

Today the pressure on people is different than it was then.

But people got exhausted then too, but it was called with other names?

Was he there for his kids? For his wife? For himself?

Is there a perfect system? With all harmed people in the world what is the less imperfect system? So most people can survive, and live decently.

And why are some people weak? Were they born this way? Do we have to take care of them? Or not or in what way? Can they founder?

I am on the weak peoples' side...

Addition April 25:
People lining up in South Africa to vote. All haven't been allowed, haven't had the right to vote and some had more votes than other people during history, and it looks as there exist compulsory voting too (you are not free to vote or NOT vote if you don't want to!! You HAVE to vote! Is that freedom or democracy?). How is it in the world today in those respects? My maternal grandmother was 27 when she got the right to vote on the same premises as men. My paternal grandmother was 35 then.

“It’s just TOO much!” - more on responsibilities - or on making certain solutions suspicious (in the interest of who?)…

Zygmunt Bauman.

In what sort of environment does Sisyphus Junior live today (compared to the environment in which Sisyphus the older lived in)? Two conditions go hand in hand: the idealization of the individualism on one hand and the throwing of suspicion on common solutions on the other. The decreased interest for shared concerns is supported by a society that wants to throw the earlier common obligations in private hands.

My addition: And on individuals (with in some cases no powers or possibilities dealing with them).

At the same time this shows a growing inability posing boundaries for egoism/selfishness, for creating justice (between people) and for soothing the uncertainty which undermine people’s self-esteem. In this way a larger and larger gap between the small life and the big life, between the private and the public, is created.

My addition: Never the two meet!? And those two understand each other less and less, and this makes the gap even bigger. Till they never meet and in the worst cases can’t respect each other?

Gradually the art of translating private problems to public political conditions decreases and the reverse.

My addition: They never meet? And the man on the street doesn’t feel involved or included, instead of the opposite, and the loyalty to the society (and to other people) and the common decreases even more? Who looses most on this? Are anybody gaining on this either actually?

This means that the responsibility that earlier was considered the common now more and more is moved or shifted to the individual. How often haven’t we heard:

“Everything is up to you!”

“You can if only you want”

or

“You are your own life’s project-leader!”

Addition: so if you fail it’s only and entirely your own fault (how practical!!). Nobody else and least of all the society have anything with this to do!?

The consequences of the individualism is self-evident; the existential questions of vital importance that Sisyphus the older were struggling with is forced more and more out of the field of vision.

“I don’t have time thinking on the meaning of life, and other introvert questions, how can you believe such a thing? I have enough with making my life go round (caring about my old mom, getting day nursery for my kid, not stress myself to death).”

My addition: how practical for the power if the individuals stop questioning different state of affairs!

Striving for a better tomorrow for many –something that demands community and cooperation – has become replaced by a feverish chasing after a different NOW for the individual.

But even when the professionally responsible for the society, according to Zygmunt Bauman, are dumping their differences and conflicts at the feet of the individual with the “well-meaning” exhortation to judge about all of this critically from their own apprehensions, is it strange that Sisyphus the younger feels tormented?

Paradoxically enough the exhortation that we shall take the life in our own hands

“Nobody but you yourself can save you!”

leads to a feeling in many, many that they have less and less control over life (if we don’t deny this entirely?).

The so called freedom has become unfreeness. Freedom of choice has become coercion. And many people don’t manage neither the one nor the other.

Watch this movie by Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein.