Rousseau and the Development of Democracy - Assignment Example

Rousseau and the development of democracy Rousseau has an innovative approach to the idea of democracy in that while he still believes that power should be within the sovereignty, he believes the sovereignty is within the population. Therefore the power that is developed is based upon the idea that power is defined by the will of the people. However, Rousseau acknowledges that the will of the people is not always defined by what is best. Democracy, the way in which Rousseau defines it, is the assertion of the decision making that is done by the people, but he qualifies what this means by the discussion about the general will. The will of the people is not always created by informed decision making processes so the general popular vote is not always the best possible conclusion to an issue. This problem must be resolved in order to have effective democracy. The methods used to create the popular vote are through the majority who come to an agreement. Direct democracy encourages the popular vote just as the example that is given suggests in that a ‘town hall’ atmosphere provides for voices to be heard and the popular decision to be understood. The conflict that arises from this type of ‘town hall’ form of decision making is that it does not always provide for methods from which to create informed decisions. This can be seen in Western societies where it is often the media that defines a problem and an informed choice by the public is not fully possible. Soundbites and propaganda create answers to questions that are not always the best possible choice. In a world where there is a glut of information, it is often the case that information is not clear or is created through beliefs that are spread in ways that suggest they are true, when the reality is that they are not true. Suggested truth can become a snowball of misinformation that defines the way in which Western popular opinions are created. Rousseau divides the influence of the popular decision from the well made decision in creating a definition for the ‘general will’. The general will is created when decisions are made knowing all the facts and ramifications of the decision and understanding the consequences that will come from the decision that is made. An example can be seen through war when intelligence and political information may not all be well understood by the public. In addition to political and defense information, there may also be social and cultural reasons for making a decision based upon the studies of well informed academics where the general public may not have that information. With the media created through limited information that is given in short bites of information, the public in modern society rarely has a clear picture of how decisions best serve the ‘general will’ as it is described by Rousseau. In modern Western societies it is most often found that representatives make up the full decision making body and the ‘town hall’ form is not a part of real decision making practices. For Western societies this provides for people to depend on and trust those that they have put into office to look at all the information available and to make the best possible decision. This was not, however, the ideal situation in regard to how Rousseau looked at this process. While he believed in representation under very specific circumstances, which means that they strictly adhere to the decisions of the people that they represent, for the most part he did not find this to be the best possible solution Rousseau manages this conflict by suggesting that the only true way to serve the general will through popular decision making is to provide information so that there is a collective deliberation of those with rational tools from which to create the best possible choices. When the population is able to make informed decisions through information that is complete and provides for the best performance of rational thought, then the general will and the popular will can become interconnected. Through this method, Rousseau seeks to solve his conflict between popular and general wills. In a utopian world this would be the ideal set of circumstances for governing. If the people could be trusted to be rational and conduct an investigation based on education and academic understandings of the many problems associated with a choice, then the people would be the best possible solution for running a nation. The unfortunate truth of our world is that too many people allow mythology and a lack of true education run the way in which they view the world. There are too few highly educated people in the population and law and decisions would be made without truly informed concepts if the popular vote were allowed for creating the framework of law and policy in this world. Clients Name Name of Professor Name of Class Date Marx and the Proletariat Marx set up a system in which capitalism was the enemy of the working class. His ideas are based on the idea that capitalism was an evil in which the majority became enslaved to the elitist few. In light of recent economic events, this is does not seem that far from the truth. His ideas were based on the concept that the people needed to create a revolution in order to get the idea of classes under control. The ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ is based upon the idea that the people need to take back control from the elite few and form governance based upon the needs of the people and not the needs of the economy by which so much of the political world is governed. In taking back that control, the working class would start a war with the elite and most likely win due to nothing more than numbers The dictatorship of the proletariat is not a dictatorship in the conventional sense. This type of dictatorship is not based upon the will of one, but the will of a movement of individuals who would make up one voice. The idea that Marx promotes, along with Engel, is that the people could have a single voice and through their actions of revolution become a ruling entity. He intends for this to be temporary and for this dictatorship to eventually transform into Communism. Marx would see society move from a Socialist state to a Communist state. Marx would most likely not see America as a democracy. His vision in comparison to the world of United States is similar to the ideas of democracy between Athens and Sparta where they had two very different cultural adaptations to how to approach government, but both were technically based on democratic principles. The way that Marx would envision democracy is very different than a capitalist state such as the United States would exhibit. The irony of his belief system is that he believed that democracy was a revolutionary form of politics and the United State was create through this revolutionary form, but because it adopted capitalism as a foundation for that democracy, Marx would believe that it had been formed solely to serve the elite. An ideal world would have no concept of classism. The idea of a world in which all people were truly equal would be a wonderful place in which to live. Marx theorized that a classless state would eventually have a lessoning of the power of government because the elite who most often run government would no longer hold the same kind of power that they had previously held. This type of state is unlikely to exist, however, because it is within human nature to define and categorize, and once people are categorized some begin to emerge as more powerful with a larger group of leaders, while others follow and facilitate the work of the leaders. Even in tribal societies where the communities were smaller, groups would emerge where some took the power and others would follow and help. It is not natural for human beings to live outside of a class system. They will always naturally divide and group up in order to be with others who have similar skills and needs, serving or being served depending on the amount of power they have attained. The utopian views of Marx would not interlace with the views of Hobbes and Locke. Under the description provided for the views of Lock, it appears that he did not have much hope for the nature of humankind. He believed that humans were inherently selfish and the way in which they conducted their lives was based on self-serving and actions. Locke’s view of people would never allow for the selflessness and communal spirit with which Marx viewed the people in his proletariat. Hobbes, on the other hand, believed that people were basically good but that they were naturally inclined to make acquisitions. If people were inclined to make acquisitions, this might mean that they are naturally inclined toward a capitalistic society. This is in direct opposition to the way that Marx would like to think of the potential of society. Marx believes that a capitalistic society is the worst thing for most of the people within that society, thus the nature of human beings to lean towards acquisition would be in conflict with that belief. He would view the ideas of Locke and Hobbes as formed from the point of view of capitalist aesthetics, creating a conflict with the views that he chose to believe. Marx would not think much of these ideas as they come in direct conflict with his hopes for humanity within the social and political world. The nature of their beliefs were based upon opinions jaded through a capitalist society. Read More