Remember, the social Democrats sided with the Nazis over the socialists. They’ve done it every time they’ve been given the opportunity, and will continue to do so as many times as people fall for their shtick.
“The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house."
-Audre Lorde
The people directly controlling the society collectively, rather than private ownership of said societies social wealth.
True democracy requires democracy at all levels of society. Workplace democracy, state democracy, community democracy, etc. Democratizing the electoral system but maintaining private ownership of production merely results in exactly the situation we are in now, with an illusion of democracy, where we choose from a pool of candidates selected by the elites in control of production in order to maintain control of their production.
There are different elites, and they have differing goals, but one thing they all have in common is they believe in the subjugation of the working class and the hoarding of the products of the labor of the working class. That’s why imperialism is non-partisan in the US. It serves capital.
That’s why there’s no meaningful changes to the status quo for the working class unless on the back of a social movement. They don’t serve us, they keep us placated while they serve the people who pay them.
But what is democracy? Is it just equality? Or having an equal say in what's being done?
The people controlling the society collectively, rather than private individuals maintaining ownership and control of society. Production is part of society. It is one of the most important and powerful parts of society. It influences every other aspect of society, in a way no other part does. Such an integral part of our society being privately and anti-democratically controlled is how we end up where we are, where the world is literally boiling and we’re still expanding emissions, where the majority of people are living paycheck to paycheck, and not even our “pro-labor” party tries to help them…. Etc..
How equality does society need to be controlled in a 'true democracy'? Completely equally? I'd rather have competent people controlling more of it than incompetent people.
What are you even advocating for here? You seem hung up on some weird definition you have in your brain, and ignore what I said.
If it’s controlled by a small group of people, while there is a larger group of people who a disaffected and incapable of direct participation in governance, then it’s not a Democracy, as simple as that.
I'm trying to nail down what democracy is, because you seem to be excluding ownership by your definition. If you use that definition, I can't argue with you, since we're talking about different democracies.
I think a democracy is a government that does the will of the people as much as practical. (No constant mind reading etc) (But we also can't have total democracy because of the tyranny of the majority.) It seems like you're defining it more broadly.
I think well regulated economies are an effective way of giving greater control to component people in order to effectively do what people want. I don't think economies invariably must lead to a small group of people in control of the government to the exclusion of everyone else.
How do you have private ownership of enterprise and the means of production without then allowing those individuals to make What should be collective decisions? The factory owner, unregulated, polluted. With regulations under a capitalist system, he still pollutes, but he has to put a muffler, and the area where his factory is has been designated a sacrifice zone and those living there less important than the profits of the owner.
Where do the rights of the people fit in when you give property itself rights? How do you maintain private property without violent enforcement? How do you then prevent those with private property from co-opting the very violent enforcers for their own means (such as the regular use of police to bust union activity), or purchasing the regulators and regulatory bodies and using them to create regulations that don’t restrict them, but instead raise the bar for entry into the market?
There’s not yet been a capitalist society invulnerable to market and regulatory capture. In fact, there’s entire books that show, with the math to prove it, that this is an inevitable outcome of the system, and that all our regulations and reforms do is stave off the inevitable for a short while longer.
What should be collective decisions?
Not invariably, if you charge him for it and have sufficient enforcement, the pollution will be incidental.
Please explain, I don't see how ownership does that.
That'll be inevitable either way, if nothing else to prevent assault.
By making a democracy structure that is minimally influenced by money by highly valuing the opinion of the people and heavily regulating campaign contributions.
Please point to those. Seems to me like you get cycles of increasing and decreasing capital control.
Does anyone else (like a dictionary) agree with your definition? Personally, I think it's a bit extreme.
Yeah hundreds of millions of people across the last hundred years have felt the same. We’re called communists. I’m An anarcho-communist myself, but there’s many different flavors. You can look to Professor Richard Wolff for a prominent US voice who often speaks of the inherent anti-democratic nature of private business and capitalism.