Claudio Lomnitz: Democracy and Leftists Movements in Latin America Claudio Lomnitz - La Jornada
go to original May 8, 2013

We all know that representative democracy is an inadequate policy in Latin America. Why? Baldly stated, because in our continent the capitalist economy has usually been insufficiently dynamic to fully absorb the population. So there have always been multitudes dedicated to work little and be badly represented to the State - peasants [campesinos], those in the informal economy - who experience the State as an institution dedicated to extortion or repression, rather than as a mechanism maintained by their taxes and that, in exchange, represents them. This situation, which today is usually called "exclusion" leads to a representative democracy that represents some sectors better - let's say those in the formal economy - than others. In fact, those in the self-identified middle class have the feeling that the State represents them or, at least, that it should represent them, and that one has a right to demand representation.

Due to this situation of "exclusion" (which, in reality, is actually more a condition of excess in the face of capitalism's mechanisms of inclusion), the Latin American democracies, in order to function, have to combine the mechanisms of representative democracy with a supplement - expressed in the continuous and perpetual negotiation with what could, in short, be called "the street". That is, successful governments find ways to deal with the sectors that occupy the streets and other public spaces. Ideally, the governments seek to develop mechanisms of inclusion and justice for those multitudes: new forms of employment, new strategies of re-distribution, new policies of inclusion by means of education and systems, etc.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

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