The DEMOCRACY. Dictionary

Not so long ago a seminar devoted to the future of Russia and the World took place. As always, many words have been spoken, 3 or even 4 analyses of the situation were made, still, as always, there has been neither said nor offered: what we were supposed to do, where to go.

At this seminar, an expert from the Carnegie Moscow Center – a genuine American - delivered a report, which was a big success. But when he has started talking about democracy, his formulation has shocked: ‘democracy is one of agreement variants between the elite and the people»! Being asked a qualifying question, what elite he talked about, as you may guess, naturally, he has explained: ‘about administrative and financial ones’.

‘DEMOCRACY’ Concept

Frankly speaking, the wording we heard was embarrassing. Certainly, we have taken the Big encyclopaedic dictionary and read: ‘DEMOCRACY (from Greek demos - the people and... kratos), the form of a state-political system of society, based on recognition of the people as a source of power. Main principles of democracy - the majority rule, equality of citizens, the security of their rights and freedom, supremacy of law, separation of powers, electivity of the head of state and of representative bodies’.

Accurate, clear, without ambiguity!

Let's try to analyze, whence these concepts so differently explained by the dictionary and the carrier of ‘genuine’ democracy have come.

It makes no secret that even a simple concrete thing, say a bicycle or a table, is rather difficult to define accurately. It is even more difficult to describe the concepts, because unlike the things, concepts cannot be ‘touched’.

Again, it is a nobody’s secret that the concept ‘democracy’ has been deformed in our society, for a long time already it mismatches its definition in dictionary.

As it was noted many times by now, the consumer society exists under certain laws and these laws, apart from the other, say that if the essence of phenomenon starts to be deformed, sometimes it is possible not to return the phenomenon to its primary essence, but to change the definition of phenomenon. So, if democracy is declared in your country, but actually there’s no democracy, there is no need to return the political structure of the state to democracy, it is possible to correct the definition of ‘democracy’ and, thus having calmed down, to go on with perfect living.

Today our leaders have concentrated enormous resources in their hands. These people do not represent neither cultural, nor scientific, neither technical, nor whatever other elite, except for the administrative and financial one. It is obvious, the essence of their management is not the expectations of people, but solely the further concentration of resources.

Has anybody paid attention that recently together with concepts ‘innovation’ and ‘modernization’ are increasingly frequently voiced in public the word-combinations ‘Social agreement’ and ‘Social contract’?

Wikipedia tells us that: ‘The social agreement (social contract) - is a theory or model that typically addresses the questions of the origin of society and the legitimacy of the authority of the state as result of the agreement between people. The concept of social contract means that individuals have consented to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler or magistrate (or to the decision of a majority), in exchange for protection and support of social system through supremacy of law. The social contract means the consent of the governed people with a set of rules under which they are governed.’

As you may see the ends meet! All of us live in a society under the Social contract made between us and the Government. In compliance with an old tradition, i.e. as always, we, i.e. the people, had practically no part in working out of this agreement, i.e. we were given this document in the form acceptable for ‘the elite’.

There’s little left to be done, the people should start conceiving the concepts ‘Democracy’ and ‘Social contract’ as a single merged concept. Typically, in the West they have already almost reached it, i.e. the majority of ‘progressive western mankind’ has already identified one with the other, and already does not think different, at all. Our record of democracy lasts not 300 years, but only 20, we still have this prospect in the future.

By the way, you can easily check these words yourselves: ask a European or an American to explain in words, what the ‘democracy’ means for them, and you will see that already every second foreigner will not remember its primary meaning.

Long live the new, i.e. ‘genuine’ democracy with no sovereignty of people! Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!