Stark alternatives -- those who don't have "naive faith" must believe the thing is a "total sham". One could base a fundamentalism on such a dichotomy. It may sound like a pedantic distinction, but capitalist democracy is not a synonym for bourgeois democracy.
Capitalist democracy or "democratic capitalism" is an Irving Kristol neo-logism, in spirit if not in strict etymological fact. The trajectory of its well-spun connotation is an inflection away from social democracy or democratic socialism and its moral claim is that ONLY capitalism and NOT socialism can be democratic. This moral has practical implications too. If only capitalism can be democratic, then it is perfectly democratic to not let socialists play at democracy. Whether or not one idealizes bourgeois democracy, "democratic capitalism" has no more to do with it than does, say, "democratic centralism". Capitalist democracy is Americanism plus Free Enterprise plus the Right to Work. Perhaps the U.S. in 2002 is "roommier" than Germany in 1938 only to the extent that "capitalist democracy" hasn't entirely triumphed over bourgeois democracy. Carrol Cox wrote: >But again, my central point is that incontinent use of the label >"fascist" shows a naive faith in the goodness of simple capitalist >democracy. Doug Henwood wrote, >If capitalist democracy were such a total sham, how come you're not >in jail? Is it just because you're so marginal? Or is the thing >actually a little roommier than Germany in 1938? Tom Walker 604 255 4812
