Why bourgeois democracy is a dictatorship of the rich

We’re told we live in a democracy, but right now it looks like whoever we vote for we’re going to get pretty much the same thing. What’s democratic about that?

We’re told we have rights like freedom of speech and a free press, but the government is banning protests and the newspapers are all owned by billionaires. What’s the point of these “rights” if they don’t actually mean anything?

Some people say proportional representation will bring more democracy, or maybe more regional mayors. But that hasn’t worked in other countries, why would it work here?

The fact is that the world is run by and for the rich. They decide everything, and it always benefits them. The rest of us don’t get a say, and we just have to accept whatever they do. That isn’t democracy, that’s a dictatorship.

This session with Ben Gliniecki is going to give us the arguments we need to prove that what we live in today isn’t a real democracy. It will give the vision for what socialist democracy will look like.

Recommended reading: The role of the state and social democracy

Further reading: The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky (V.I. Lenin) / Thesis and Report on Bourgeois Democracy and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (V.I. Lenin)

Recommended listening: