Why Communism is Brettschneider's Ideal Democracy - Zac

     Brettschenider provides an alternative model of ideal democracy which avoids the traditional divide between pure procedural theories of democracy and substantive theories of justice. They define democracy as having 3 core values: political autonomy, equality of interests, and reciprocity. Rather then a capitalist liberal democracy, it appears a heavily socialist or communist economic structure best fulfills political autonomy and equality of interests as described by Brettschenider. Moreover, Brettschenider's critique of procedural democracy, removes one of the main reasons for a democratist to avoid a communist system. Since, if a communist system better achieves Brettschenider's democratic values, it would be a better democracy then a pure procedural democracy, regardless of its majoritarian nature. 

    In defining equality of interests, Brettschenider requires the "interests of citizens be respected as having equal weight." Regardless of education or wealth, citizens ought to have an equal distribution of the ability to achieve their interests. Rather then having one billionaire buy votes or fund a propaganda machine convincing millions, one persons should have one equal vote. Communism appears preferable in securing this equality of interests, since it would prevent the inequality which enables inequal weighting of citizen's interests i.e. no billionaire propaganda machine. Moreover, it is unclear why these principles should stop at voting, I doubt Brettschenider would weaken the claim to that extent, in which case it appears citizens ought to have equal ability to achieve their interests in their day to day lives. Large differences in wealth and status make equal ability to achieve interests impossible i.e. gentrification displacing some people from their homes due to rising house prices. 

    In defining political autonomy Brettschenider argues we must treat citizens as rulers. I would add, we must treat citizens as equal rulers, since having some citizens be vassals of other citizen rulers is more akin to aristocracy then democracy. And once again it appears distribution of wealth is important here, on sheer GDP alone one could not define Venezuela as an equal of the United States, similarly it seems naïve to assume large wealth inequalities will not lead to similar power hierarchies and relationships between citizens as rulers (arguably a larger gap between Jeff Bezos and amazon delivery driver Jeff).

    To conclude, since we are no longer married to the procedures of democracy, to best achieve Brettschenider's democratic values uses a communist economic structure to truly uphold political autonomy and equality of interests.

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