On 10/15/06, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Yoshie wrote:
> In the days of Lenin, Mao, Ho, Mossadegh, Arbenz, Castro, etc., the
> gap in class backgrounds between leaders and masses was enormous.
> Generally, the leaders came from petit-bourgeois families of doctors
> and lawyers, when a majority of the population were either illiterate
> or functionally illiterate. Today, the class backgrounds of many
> nationalist leaders -- Evo and Lula, most obviously, but also Chavez,
> Ahmadinejad, Putin, etc. -- are much lower than the 20st-century
> socialist and nationalist leaders: they come from working-class family
> backgrounds and have risen through education, state bureaucracy,
> and/or union/movement bureaucracy.
I think it was Aristotle (or someone even earlier!) who pointed out a
paradox here. Middle- or upper-class leaders are less likely to be
corrupted than are those who rise to the top from the working and poor
classes. That's because middle- and upper-class types already have the
money, power, and influence while those from the working and poor
classes find it easy to fall for the temptation of bribes or undue
perps.
I can't think of any individual leader in ancient Athens who rose from
the lower order and exercised power in the fashion modern socialist,
populist, Islamist, etc. leaders have after taking state power through
nationalist revolution, though that may be because I know relatively
little about ancient history.
When the lower order -- mainly peasants -- exercised power in ancient
Athens, they appear to have done so collectively, through a large
salaried jury (salaried so common men could serve) who judged charges
against public office holders, ostracism (to check prominent citizens
whose power threatens to eclipse democracy by exiling them -- cf.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism>), and so forth.
I'm not saying that Evo or Lula is personally corrupt, but some of the
deputies may well be. Evo hasn't been in office long enough, but Lula
has. The corruption of the second rank can be extremely important.
(There's an old phenomenon I know from Chicago: hizzoner da Mare
Richard J. Daley of da Great City of Chicaga wasn't personally
corrupt, but his cronies...)
Among the 21st-century nationalist leaders that I mentioned above, it
is only Lula who has had serious charges of corruption levelled
against him, and even in his case, the main charges have concerned a
scheme to buy damaging dossiers about rivals and a cash-for-votes
scandal (paying deputies to vote for PT legislation -- cf.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_vote-for-cash_scandal>) rather
than personal enrichment . Of course, corruption of that sort
couldn't have arisen in one-party socialist states for they didn't
have competitive elections and parliamentary politics of the sort that
exists in multi-party democracies.
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
