[Translated from Socialistische Gruppe]
No doubt: something does not please somebody who argues this way. However, instead of accusing the other of what he does, he accuses him of what he neglects, thus does not do: The opponent’s actions disregard the democratic procedure. This criticism does not aim to begin with the identification of the conflict, which is always presupposed with criticism, but with the opponent’s authorization: Instead of addressing the observed conflict, thus the matter that does not suit one, one tries the opponent by a recognized yardstick, to obligate him to honor a common value against which he allegedly offended.
This attempt is always paradoxical: One does not stand up in the name of one’s own interest. That does not happen, even though it is the motivation for the annoyance. Rather, one criticizes the other in the name of an allegedly hurt value -- and thereby documents that one is ready to relate one’s own interest to it -- the reason for the annoyance -- because one wants to get it acknowledged by the opponent: One accuses him of not honoring the democratic procedure, thus of not holding his interest subordinate to this yardstick. One believes, paradoxically, that an opponent, whom one at the same time accuses of putting his interest above the democratic procedure, thus treating the praised value like dirt, can be counted on by the mere appeal to democratic values to nevertheless still subordinate his interest to them. Turned around: instead of criticism, this attempt to appeal to a common higher value can be used against the critic: if everything is made dependent on adherence to the democratic procedure, each objection must be withdrawn if the opposite side can prove that everything took place according to the “rules of democracy.”
Only in the rarest of cases do the critics want to follow this implication of their own argument, which appoints itself to the common democratic values. The popularity of the objection “undemocratic” obviously is not abandoned by the proof that everything happened according to rights and law. However, only because the critics -- against all the facts – bring a dogmatism of its own kind into notice: Actually, if everything “really” would have happened “genuinely” democratically, the same result would not have come out as it did. They blame the decision that does not suit them on the way it came off, and that it simply could not have been democratic -- with this result. As if democratic procedures were invented so that the interests of all concerned find consideration!
The critics rarely shift from accusations that the criticized one lacks willingness to show consideration for others: “entrenching behind official authority” is the scold, as if the authority of an office holder was not created so that he can decide according to his own discretion; here the “formal-legal” argumentation is attacked, as if the rights that he appoints himself do not “actually” apply to him too. The main and general point is always the criticized one’s “unwillingness to dialog,” as if readiness to talk about everything would guarantee that everything is also considered. Thus whether the demanded and so rarely held vote is now legally planned becomes the indicator for whether someone decided “autocratically” and did not -– as would be proper -- transfer his interest, equal to all others, to a vote for everybody’s evaluation. In short: everywhere is missing, in the opinion of the critics, that which distinguishes democracy. Thus good faith in the philanthropic meaning of democratic procedures is always the basis for the criticism.
An impartial view of this procedure shows that it does not concern consideration of others, but that the whole voting process is a method of suppression: Everyone knows that the majority clinches the vote. By winning the vote they acquire the right to pass over the interests of the minority. The minority has to bend to the majority vote and accept that its own interests are not realized.
Which of several conflicting interests is implemented, and which remain in the distance, is the only decision that a vote can result in: If it simply concerned the decision what is to be done, one would have to discuss the project and the means for its realization. For judgments about the main issue, voting would be counter-productive. However, such debates presuppose a common interest in the thing negotiated. Whoever fixes a vote assumes to the contrary that a debate gives nothing. It thus proceeds from irreconcilable interests, between which it wants to result in a decision. And votes are only suited for one thing: to decide which interest is to become generally accepted against the others.
Why so many praise the vote as an achievement of civilization is also no secret. The conflict of interests, which they find in capitalism, is so natural to them that they think of the vote as an alternative to the continuous fight of all against all. Only if one regards it as the most natural thing in the world that the advantage of one is always the disadvantage of the other, if one fears universal war – compared with that, then the suppression of the minority appears as a desirable way out.
It is not even correct that votes prevent the eruption of conflicts by leading to a single resolution binding on everyone. Votes cannot produce a commitment to a result at all: If it is only a vote, then each person can compare the majority decision with his interest and place the condition of this interest in relation to the result of the vote. Everyone subject to the vote can consider whether the result is acceptable because of something they have in common that preceded the vote and therefore became “strained” -- or whether it does not implement it because the differences outweigh their common concern. Then one does not want to be the suppressed minority of the majority and separates from the others. Withdrawals and splits are part of political parties and membership groups because people who want something different have to go their own way.
If a vote is set whether or not the result is acceptable, if the vote is thus made binding on all involved, then that is because the result is made binding. However, that can only be the act of a power standing above the vote that can force everyone to accept the result completely independently of their own interest. The commitment to the result of the vote, against all the opposing interests, can only be an act of the highest power, which subordinates all interests to itself.
Against all rumors that “we all” would only have done “our duty” to the state, there must be this force, prior to and independent of the opposing interests, which permits and forces them against each other. Opposite interests, which are not capable of community, come to no consent. That must be forced on them -- by a power that all are equally subjected to and to whose decisions they all have to bend themselves to. Equal subordination under the government authority is thus presupposed by every binding vote. And therein the voting subjects of the state authority are a community that exists only as one in which their interests are not at all relevant.
If only the state with its power can ensure commitment to a result that is not to the taste of a good part of those affected, then the vote itself is also its work. It decides when it permits votes, where it prescribes it, and where “democracy is not ready.” It organizes a vote or cancels it according to its discretion. In short: The highest force organizes voting as its means, and not only where the conflicts of the bourgeois world receive a procedural form helpful to the state.
The whole voting process has its starting point in the relationship of the democratic state power to its subjects, where it comes into its own: In elections, that “highlight of democracy,” where nothing is decided anyway, but is coordinated to secure agreement. The citizen may “chose” between different figures who apply for political offices in which the reasons of state have already been long defined. And the citizen always says yes to the reasons of state, to the purposes of rule, if he “decides” whether he would prefer a Republican or Democrat or maybe a Green as President. It would also be absurd if the highest power could be given the sovereign use of its power by those over whom it rules.
But even here -- on the highest levels of power – it is known that there can be a center between opposite interests only if this much is first certain -- that voting is only good for producing acclamation: Only if the use of power stands firm do elections “decide” something, i.e. who may exercise it. In a struggle for a real alternative to state leadership, no vote in the world could prevent civil war.
By the way, that democracy is a procedure for the exercise of power and nothing else is acknowledged by the critics: The meaning and purpose of the whole procedure -- subjecting -- becomes the theoretical criteria for every criticism: They also receive the reproach “undemocratic” by asking for democratic authentication: where does the critics’ authorization come from? Who gave them the right to criticize? The majority, who are rightfully silent because that is their function in a democracy? No, no critic may appoint himself to be the majority! He already proves it by breaking the silence and because he has something to object to! Whoever practices criticism can only arrogate that right himself: Self-appointed! Shut your mouth!