Zinn examines America’s democratic legitimacy

Boston University Professor Emeritus Howard Zinn claimed there were several fallacies in the democratic system, including the idea that American democracy is based on a wholly legitimate constitution and that it is superior to government systems in other nations during a lecture last night.

The lecture, ‘Bringing Democracy Alive,’ drew approximately 200 students, professors and intellectuals to the Photonics Center.

Zinn prefaced his lecture by expanding the traditional definition of democracy to include an economic aspect that, as he put it, is ‘all too often forgotten.’

In raising this issue he posed the question: ‘How meaningful are political rights without economic rights to go along with them?’

Zinn continued by outlining certain fallacies that often lead people to make false claims about the legitimacy and success of ‘democracy,’ which he emphasized, ‘should always be put in quotes.’

The first of these fallacies, Zinn said, is the assumption that a democracy appeals to the majority of people in a society. Looking back on United States history, he noted facetiously ‘We’ve had our little flaws … like slavery.’

He went on to ask, ‘How can you be a democracy and be a slave society?’ and ‘For what people in a democracy is there no democracy?’

Zinn claimed another fallacy dealt with the issue of comparing American democracy to other nations that ‘are less democratic’ in attempts to glorify and take pride in American government. Zinn argued against such comparisons, saying that democracy ‘should be held to the highest of standards’ namely equality.

Comparisons with other countries are dangerous because of the tendency to have stronger beliefs in one’s own way of thinking, Zinn said.

‘When you think that you have more democracy than another area, you begin to think that you have the right to step in and spread your democracy,’ he said.

This danger in ‘feeling superior,’ Zinn argued, is directly applicable to the situation that the United States currently faces with Iraq. Just because we feel that we are ‘democratic’ and Iraq is ‘tyrannical,’ we do not have the right to effect a ‘so-called regime change,’ he said.

The final fallacy Zinn pointed out was the tendency for Americans to think of democracy as a set of institutions and structures that are based on a legitimate constitution.

‘[This mindset is] deeply embedded in our culture,’ Zinn said, saying all students have been taught since middle school about the ‘nice check and balance system that we have.’

This system works well, Zinn argued, until we ‘face reality’ and realize it only works when nothing is going wrong in the world.

Once we get ‘beyond the glow surrounding our founding fathers,’ we see that our Constitution ‘was not framed in order to create a democracy, but rather, it represented specific economic interests,’ Zinn said. These interests were of concern to the 55 wealthy white men who framed the Constitution in ‘the shadow of Shays’ Rebellion’ that instilled an intense fear of rebellion by the common people on the original writers, Zinn claimed.

Because of this constitutional history, Zinn emphasized America needs to ‘halt the continued reverence’ of the democratic ideals contained in the Constitution and recognize that substantial structural failures do exist.

It is only when we realize this that we are able to ‘bring democracy alive’ as the African-Americans did some 50 years ago after decades of repression, exploitation and exclusion, Zinn said.

Even after the African-Americans were able to win certain procedural rights such as the right to vote, Zinn emphasized ‘there was still an element of democracy that was missing the issue of economic justice.’

This missing element highlights the dire need for a ‘new social movement’ that transcends the flawed structures of ‘democracy’ and keeps true democratic ideals alive. Without social movements and action removed from the political sphere, Zinn argued, democracy would not be alive today.