Colin Stark wrote:
>
> At 03:40 PM 1/17/98 -1000, Jay Hanson wrote:
> >From: Christoph Reuss <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >
> >
> >>What's the use of Direct Democracy if the people is brainwashed by
> >>corporate media and misinformed to take the wrong decisions ?
> >>How can ecological revolution succeed democratically with a majority of
> >>polluting egoists and "No Future" idiots ?
> >
> >
> >Good question! IMHO, democracy is an idea whose time has past.
>
> If it has passed, then it has passed without my noticing that it ever existed
>
> I believe that Direct Democracy might be worth trying while we await your
> gloomy predictions (whether or not they come about)
I believee another word for direct democracy is syndicalism (AKA
anarchism).
Most every time persons have tried to try this, they have been attacked
by
the heavy hand of the marketplace (AKA police / army). Remember
Joe Hill, Rosa Luxemborg(sp?), Emma Goldman(sp?), et al!
I cannot speak for "blue collar" workers, for my only work experience
is as a computer programmer in large commercial "DP shops" (from
insurance
to government contracting to "research"...). There is a book
published about 1978 which is *well* worth reading, both for what it
says about the organization of this kind or work, and also about one
researcher's [pro-worker] research methodoology: _Programmers and
Managers:
The Routinization of Programming in America_, by Philip Kraft. At the
time it was published, it earned a *scathing denunciation* by one ot the
then Big Names in theorizing about the organization of computer work
(at least Kraft didn't get hung for his treason to the tenured
class...).
"All" (Ah, but what a big little thing it apparently is!) programmers
and managers need to do to implement direct democracy (like all that is
needed for Christ to appear in their midst when two or three are
gathered together...) is for them to distance themselves from knee-jerk
hierarchical obedience to "upper mgmt" and discuss together what they
should be doing ahd how they should be doing it *in their current
situation*. They need, as Joseph Weizenbaum so eloquently pleaded,
to think about what they are doing, whatever it, so that those who
come after them will not wish they had not done it. It is simply
irresponsible to blindly obey orders rather than for a work group
to self-critically (sociology of knowledge, industrial sociology,
ethics of engineering, etc.) evaluate what is being asked of them
and respond with their best judgment (and efforts). Sometimes the
best implementation of a cdomputer system (as of many other things...
is to *not* implement it...)....
\brad mccormick
http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
