By Shriraksha Mohan, Andy Douglas, and Howard Nemon
In most political democracies, elections have become a mere formality of choosing a leader who appears to be the lesser of two or more evils. In a two-party democracy like the USA, voters have been choosing between the “immoral” and the “less immoral”, the “incompetent” and the “less incompetent” to maintain a facade of democracy. In November 2024, American voters will experience a déjà vu of elections in 2016 and 2020.
This is not to say that there are no differences between the policies of the parties. But the problem is not a two-party system or a three-party system. It is the political party system, where these parties are more concerned, in general, with winning elections and power than serving the people. Party interests precede the interests of the common people. In democracies where party politics dominate, naive voters, who have more in common with each other than with the party leaders, are pitted against one another as rivals, and polarization ensues.
Socioeconomic and political consciousness of the electorate is a prerequisite for the success of democracy. An educated electorate can discern a political party’s or a candidate’s agenda without being swayed by propaganda. Many politicians across the political spectrum–left, right, or center–are not immune to lobbying and accepting money from big corporations to run their election campaigns in exchange for legislation favorable to corporations if they win the election. How many of these elected representatives are truly concerned about the welfare of the people they represent when their election campaigns are funded by big corporations?
P.R. Sarkar, the founder of Prout opines,
“The prerequisites for the success of democracy are morality, education, and socio-economico-political consciousness. Leaders especially must be people of high moral character, otherwise the welfare of society will be jeopardized. But today in most democracies, people of dubious character and those with vested interests are elected to power. Even bandits and murderers stand for election and form the government. Prout demands economic democracy, not political democracy. To make democracy successful, economic power must be vested in the hands of the common people and the minimum requirements of life must be guaranteed to all.”
In the absence of economic democracy, people do not have the power to make economic decisions. Corporations control the local economy, flow of money, incomes, and investments, resulting in the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few people. This, more often than not, results in the diminished bargaining power of the people in political processes as well. Political democracy without economic democracy reduces democracy to a charade, a pretense to make common people feel they are empowered. In reality, economic disenfranchisement gradually leads to political disenfranchisement.
When money concentrated in the coffers of the rich determines political outcomes, democracy turns into a plutocracy. It turns into a government “of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich”. It behooves us to think if we should have a healthy economic democracy, first, before we sign up to be participants in a political democracy.