Report raps Labour over Bradford West by-election selection process (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

David Green says he hasn't read the report but still doesn't accept some of the findings?

Perhaps the Labour Party as a whole need to take some responsibility.
I know a few people who couldn't be bothered voting for Labour because the are just as uninspiring as the Tories. There's nothing about the leadership of Miliband that makes me thing they'd do much different to the Tories or LibDems.

Perhaps Gorgeous George's greatest legacy will be to force Labour (especially) to send us some decent candidates who will fight tooth and nail for the city and district, both before and once in power.

I read with dismay that Bradford West was not on Labour's list of target seats. This was put down to the probability that Galloway will not defend it in 2015 (as he usually moves on) but I have it on good authority from a Respect worker that this isn't the case. Therefore, we'll have a choice between Labour's usual rubbish, Galloway's rhetoric on foreign policy, and other parties which haven't a hope of getting in. Oh joy. No political vacuum here.

All the downfall of Bradford has been done by the Labour Controlled Council and they are continued on the same mission.George Galloway,s selection was a protest vote.

Would GG have won if postal voting was properly enforced?

I think that the proposed boundry changes will be the reason why labour are not seeing this seat, Bradford West, as a priority.

Lets see if the new Bradford central one is!

angry bradfordian wrote:
David Green says he hasn't read the report but still doesn't accept some of the findings?

Perhaps the Labour Party as a whole need to take some responsibility.
I know a few people who couldn't be bothered voting for Labour because the are just as uninspiring as the Tories. There's nothing about the leadership of Miliband that makes me thing they'd do much different to the Tories or LibDems.

The report actually states that David Green has not seen the "full" report.

There is a big basic divide between Tories and Labour.

The Tories believe the working class should pay for millionaire tax cuts.

Thats the big difference.

Why do you think the Tories want to pull out of Europe, simples, to reduce employment rights so we can go back to Margaret Thatchers, low wage, low skill economy.

JAtkinson wrote:
Perhaps Gorgeous George's greatest legacy will be to force Labour (especially) to send us some decent candidates who will fight tooth and nail for the city and district, both before and once in power.

I read with dismay that Bradford West was not on Labour's list of target seats. This was put down to the probability that Galloway will not defend it in 2015 (as he usually moves on) but I have it on good authority from a Respect worker that this isn't the case. Therefore, we'll have a choice between Labour's usual rubbish, Galloway's rhetoric on foreign policy, and other parties which haven't a hope of getting in. Oh joy. No political vacuum here.

Bradford West, is and always was on the target list issued by the Labour Party.

Reality001 wrote:

angry bradfordian wrote:
David Green says he hasn't read the report but still doesn't accept some of the findings?

Perhaps the Labour Party as a whole need to take some responsibility.
I know a few people who couldn't be bothered voting for Labour because the are just as uninspiring as the Tories. There's nothing about the leadership of Miliband that makes me thing they'd do much different to the Tories or LibDems.

The report actually states that David Green has not seen the "full" report.

There is a big basic divide between Tories and Labour.

The Tories believe the working class should pay for millionaire tax cuts.

Thats the big difference.

Why do you think the Tories want to pull out of Europe, simples, to reduce employment rights so we can go back to Margaret Thatchers, low wage, low skill economy.

Cameron made a point of saying over and over again in his speech that he wants us to stay in Europe.

They appear to want a referendum of the issue to put the in/out argument to bed as there seem to be an awful lot of the public who want to be out.
It worries me greatly that the uninformed general public are to be allowed a vote on something most don't understand about. I'd include both Tory & Labour voters in that.

Reality001 wrote:

angry bradfordian wrote:
David Green says he hasn't read the report but still doesn't accept some of the findings?

Perhaps the Labour Party as a whole need to take some responsibility.
I know a few people who couldn't be bothered voting for Labour because the are just as uninspiring as the Tories. There's nothing about the leadership of Miliband that makes me thing they'd do much different to the Tories or LibDems.

The report actually states that David Green has not seen the "full" report.

There is a big basic divide between Tories and Labour.

The Tories believe the working class should pay for millionaire tax cuts.

Thats the big difference.

Why do you think the Tories want to pull out of Europe, simples, to reduce employment rights so we can go back to Margaret Thatchers, low wage, low skill economy.

"Tories want to pull out of Europe, simples, to reduce employment rights so we can go back to Margaret Thatchers, low wage, low skill economy."

As in Norway & Switzerland?

No faith in any party or report done on behalf of these parties.

Labour,conservative and Lib dems; none of these three parties together or on their own can be trusted.

Our great country and city has been ruined by these useless political parties. The problem is that they all have to carry the party line....step out of line and you get grilled and not are soon booted out.

We need more independents to fight the cause of the cities and towns for whom they were elected.

The people of the city should select their candidates, not some bureaucratic elitist system that stinks of that fire starting rat.

Basically if you want to make a change....look in the mirror and make it yourself rather then place your trust and the city's future in the hands of shortsighted pre-selected politicians.

World of Reality wrote:
All the downfall of Bradford has been done by the Labour Controlled Council and they are continued on the same mission.George Galloway,s selection was a protest vote.

Labour (still without a working majority) have only been in charge for months, rather than years, and it was a Conservative - LibDem alliance which ruled the roost for the previous 10 years, possibly longer (I think - willing to be corrected).

Reality001 wrote:

JAtkinson wrote:
Perhaps Gorgeous George's greatest legacy will be to force Labour (especially) to send us some decent candidates who will fight tooth and nail for the city and district, both before and once in power.

I read with dismay that Bradford West was not on Labour's list of target seats. This was put down to the probability that Galloway will not defend it in 2015 (as he usually moves on) but I have it on good authority from a Respect worker that this isn't the case. Therefore, we'll have a choice between Labour's usual rubbish, Galloway's rhetoric on foreign policy, and other parties which haven't a hope of getting in. Oh joy. No political vacuum here.

Bradford West, is and always was on the target list issued by the Labour Party.

"Labour's 106 Battleground Target Seats" notes David Ward's Bradford East seat (high up at number 10 (I'm assuming they're rated in order of importance) but not George Galloway's Bradford West seat.

Not a LibDem fan, but David Ward seems to be a very good MP for local people, and people I know in his constituency generally rate him highly.

As for my MP, Mr Galloway, he has all the potential but has delivered little in his first 10 months. However, he will get in again unless Labour put up a serious candidate with the ability to be a great local MP & put radford on the national MP - both of which GG promised and failed to do (IMHO). The "106 Battleground Target Seats" suggests that the candidate will not be the best of the best - s/he will be 107th best at best - and the war chest will be spent on the top 106, rather than Bradford West.

Once again, Labour ignore us and will fail. As much as I complain about him, rather GG than a nobody.

Labour's 106 target seats: http://labourlist.or
g/2013/01/labours-10
6-battleground-targe
t-seats-for-2015/

All this just shows how much the Labour Party and the Muslim Party Of Great Britain....I mean the Respect Party will fight for the Muslim vote and ultimately the Islamification of our country. As a white working class male neither Labour or Respect offer me anything.

"It talks about the influence of ‘Biraderi’, clan-based loyalty among Bradford Pakistanis, which has in the past “offered parties an apparently easy mechanism to amass block votes” and goes on to say that Labour in Bradford needs to learn the lesson of the by-election and change itself radically."
Basically the party, the manifesto and recent political history have no bearing on the voting habits of many people in such areas. It's down to the origin of the candidate or the recommendations of certain so-called community leaders.

and bears sh*t in the woods

Let's be honest here and Muslims-especially hard line Islamists-will get the block male Muslim vote in Bradford irrespective of which party rosette they wear and most Muslim women are told who to vote for by their dominant husbands.

Reality50 wrote:
Let's be honest here and Muslims-especially hard line Islamists-will get the block male Muslim vote in Bradford irrespective of which party rosette they wear and most Muslim women are told who to vote for by their dominant husbands.

Lol ! - get back onto the BNP/EDL website, racist Islamophobe.

webess wrote:
Would GG have won if postal voting was properly enforced?

Where's your proof that this fraudulent activity took place, Islamophobe ?

World of Reality wrote:
All the downfall of Bradford has been done by the Labour Controlled Council and they are continued on the same mission.George Galloway,s selection was a protest vote.

Get real! It was Pickles, the darling of the Thatcherite monetarists, who was in charge when the rot set in in Bradford. He was rewarded for his efforts with a safe Tory seat and is now a member of Cameron's cabinet. You can usually recognise him, he's the fat guy in braces.

The Hoffster wrote:

webess wrote: Would GG have won if postal voting was properly enforced?

Where's your proof that this fraudulent activity took place, Islamophobe ?

http://www.guardian.
co.uk/politics/2010/
sep/06/men-jailed-at
tempted-postal-vote-
fraud

It wouldn't be the first time it's happened in Bradford west.

The Hoffster wrote:

webess wrote:
Would GG have won if postal voting was properly enforced?

Where's your proof that this fraudulent activity took place, Islamophobe ?

Why are you an Islamophobe just because you call into question the validity of postal voting? I seem to recall a high court judge describing our postal voting system as worthy of a banana republic. Take a look at -

http://www.guardian.
co.uk/uk/2005/apr/05
/politics.localgover
nment

Postal voting should be outlawed. Certain nameless pro Islam political parties are exploiting the chaos that is called postal voting.I won't respond to Hoffster's childish insult as frankly everything I said is true and I take none of it back.

Only a fascist would deny the people a vote on the EU. I support a vote on the EU and the sooner we withdraw from the European Union totally the better. Britain has a brighter future going it alone.

BD16 wrote:

The Hoffster wrote:

webess wrote: Would GG have won if postal voting was properly enforced?

Where's your proof that this fraudulent activity took place, Islamophobe ?

http://www.guardian.

co.uk/politics/2010/

sep/06/men-jailed-at

tempted-postal-vote-

fraud

It wouldn't be the first time it's happened in Bradford west.

That was in relation to the 2005 general election, buddy {rolleyes}..

Reality50 wrote:
Postal voting should be outlawed. Certain nameless pro Islam political parties are exploiting the chaos that is called postal voting.I won't respond to Hoffster's childish insult as frankly everything I said is true and I take none of it back.

What's religion got to do with it, Islamophobe ?

Do you think it's safer to mention *that* rather than someone's skin colour ?

MontyLeMar wrote:

The Hoffster wrote:

webess wrote:
Would GG have won if postal voting was properly enforced?

Where's your proof that this fraudulent activity took place, Islamophobe ?

Why are you an Islamophobe just because you call into question the validity of postal voting? I seem to recall a high court judge describing our postal voting system as worthy of a banana republic. Take a look at -

http://www.guardian.

co.uk/uk/2005/apr/05

/politics.localgover

nment

Again, what's religion got to do with all of this ?

Shall we start labelling all criminals as atheists, Christians, Jewish, Hindus, Sikhs... etc ??

Beleive that people died for our freedoms and yet, today in 2013 we still have persons of a racist and somewhat fascist point of view instigating hate against minorities and other ethnic groups. Politics has got nothing to do with religion. Politics is all about the political elite making these morons blame others for the collective failures of successive parliaments....well done sheep as you keep voting the same set of people in again and again.

Morals and tolerance should be at the Forefront of any political force, I fail to see any morals or integrity in any political party or in any of their candidates.

Stop pointing fingers at one another. Get up and stand up for your rights.
You,we only elect leaders as we are either weak or for some other unknown reason unable to pursue politics for ourselves. It's about time our so called elected leaders are kicked in the backside and thrown out of power.

If you cannot stand for your fellow man and woman, men and women of all creeds and backgrounds then you are not fit to lead anything. Stand for equality and integrity in everything, freedom to express your views, freedom to worship whoever you choose, free to debate...all so long as you keep your feet on the ground and do not influence your way of life on others.

Good and bad exists in all but some can hide it better then others.
We must actively seek to hold our leaders accountable and stop blaming the results of their policies on each other and each others ways of life.

Democracy? Well learn to understand what a democracy really is. It's basically the majority ruling the minority. That's an inappropriate and disproportionate way to rule.

Check out the meaning of democracy.
The root word of democracy is embedded in European culture yet no one really knows what the word means. In the historical aspect, this type of democracy is seen as collectivism....all the parties are in essence the same...just the frills are slightly different.

The Greek/Latin root word of democracy is derived from words meaning MIND CONTROL. Yes I await to be corrected. Kindly do your research, use the Internet and confirm for yourself where democracy comes from, read up on the UK laws of state and how it governs us. Most of you will not read up as its not in your forte and the old English will leave you somewhat bamboozled, that's exactly why you are a voter and not the one who is leading....keep on whining and moaning then as that's how the voter feels each time he is betrayed.

The Hoffster wrote:

BD16 wrote:

The Hoffster wrote:

webess wrote: Would GG have won if postal voting was properly enforced?

Where's your proof that this fraudulent activity took place, Islamophobe ?

http://www.guardian.


co.uk/politics/2010/


sep/06/men-jailed-at


tempted-postal-vote-


fraud

It wouldn't be the first time it's happened in Bradford west.

That was in relation to the 2005 general election, buddy {rolleyes}..

http://www.thetelegr
aphandargus.co.uk/ne
ws/9596811.Conservat
ives_launch_booklet_
to_help_stop_postal_
vote_fraud/

It's obviously still a cause for concern.

BD16 wrote:

The Hoffster wrote:

BD16 wrote:

The Hoffster wrote:

webess wrote: Would GG have won if postal voting was properly enforced?

Where's your proof that this fraudulent activity took place, Islamophobe ?

http://www.guardian.



co.uk/politics/2010/



sep/06/men-jailed-at



tempted-postal-vote-



fraud

It wouldn't be the first time it's happened in Bradford west.

That was in relation to the 2005 general election, buddy {rolleyes}..

http://www.thetelegr

aphandargus.co.uk/ne

ws/9596811.Conservat

ives_launch_booklet_

to_help_stop_postal_

vote_fraud/

It's obviously still a cause for concern.

A quote from the article:

"According to Mr Galloway, 10,000 people have registered for postal votes in the by-election. He said he was “vehemently opposed to the postal voting system on demand” because it was “wide open to fraud.”

George is certainly worried. He probably fears that if the opposition get their act together they could get him out by postal votes like in the good old days in Birmingham.

Not so simple -

via French via Latin from Greek - demos (the people) + kratia (power, rule).

You had me going there for a minute.

http://oxforddiction
aries.com/definition
/english/democracy?q
=democracy

The Hoffster wrote:

MontyLeMar wrote:

The Hoffster wrote:

webess wrote:
Would GG have won if postal voting was properly enforced?

Where's your proof that this fraudulent activity took place, Islamophobe ?

Why are you an Islamophobe just because you call into question the validity of postal voting? I seem to recall a high court judge describing our postal voting system as worthy of a banana republic. Take a look at -

http://www.guardian.


co.uk/uk/2005/apr/05


/politics.localgover


nment

Again, what's religion got to do with all of this ?

Shall we start labelling all criminals as atheists, Christians, Jewish, Hindus, Sikhs... etc ??

yes lets do that!! and see how they like
it

@JAtkinson


The traditional etymology for democracy suggests that it derives from two Greek words: demos, meaning "the common people", and kratos, meaning "rule". While "rule of the common people" appears to describe what we today understand the word democracy refers to, that translation actually appears to mask or confuse much of the history and meaning related to the word.

For example, the word demos did not originally refer to "common people"; rather the word demos referred to districts within Attica, the region that constituted the city-state of Athens. Each citizen of Attica, regardless of where he eventually resided (foreigners, women and slaves were all excluded from citizenship), was known by his demos. To participate in political affairs, each citizen had to be registered as a member of a demos. Thus the word demos eventually came to be associated with people from different regions of Attica and the political process within the Athenian city-state that we know today as democracy. The original, and arguably correct, meaning of demos also survives in the English words demographics (which refers not to the measurement of human characteristics in general but rather to the measurement of characteristics related to a group of people living within the same region), endemic (which refers to characteristics that are unique to a particular region), pandemic (which refers to all regions and the people therein) and academy.

The ancient Greeks, however, had other words besides demos that either meant or related to the idea of "common people". One such word, idiotes, meant "unskilled person" but eventually came to be a derogatory reference to people who did not participate in public life; it is from idiotes that we get the English word idiot.


Another ancient Greek word meaning "common people", "people of the nation" or "people assembled" was laos. The word laos in fact is quite old, dating back to the time of Homer, and was included in names like Menelaus, Nikholaos (Greek for Nicholas) and Laertes. It is from laos that we get the words layman and laity. The word laos also continues in Modern Greek today to mean "people of the same community".

Given the availability of those and other Greek words (such as kosmos and anthropoi) that referred to "people of a nation", "ordinary people" or, even better, "of the citizens" (polite) or "of the assembly" (ekklesia), it appears somewhat obvious why the word demos was chosen over such words. The Athenian democracy was not originally envisioned as a government of the people, as we see it today; rather, it was originally envisioned by Cleisthenes and others as a government representing all of the districts.

There is also good reason to believe that a problem also exists with regard to the assumption that -cracy derived from kratos, translating as "strength" or "rule". The Greek word kratos, after all, actually appears to be more closely associated with acts of strength, courage and/or violence than with governance. So the word kratos appears to potentially carry the rather negative connotation of "governance by force". The democracy of the Athenian city-state, however, was a means of arriving at solutions to problems through discussion, compromise and, to the greatest degree possible, consensus. The political process called democracy was inherently therefore quite different from the rule of tyrants and leaders (archos), who impressed their will upon the people through threats and violence. So it seems somewhat unlikely that, apart from democracy's critics, the citizens of Athens would have generally viewed their democracy as a "tyranny of and by the uneducated masses".

The word democracy appeared at a time when another word like it was also commonly being used to describe another form of government: aristocracy. The word aristocracy is commonly believed to have derived from the word aristokratos, meaning "leading force". The word aristokratos, in fact, referred specifically to the hoplites who served in the front ranks of a phalanx. The soldiers in the front two ranks of a phalanx were regarded to be the best and bravest soldiers. They were, after all, the ones who led the attack on the enemy. They were also the ones who endured the brunt of the enemy's counter attacks. Thus the aristokratos were the heroes of any battle that ended in victory.

While it is certainly plausible that the Greek word aristokratos gradually evolved into the word aristocracy (Greek aristokratia) as the traditional etymologies suggest, there is also strong linguistic evidence that suggests both aristocracy and democracy (Greek demokratia) evolved from a different Greek word: krisi, which means "judgment". If so, aristo krisi would translate not as "the rule of the best" but rather as "the judgment of the elite". Similarly demo krisi would translate not as "the rule of the people" but rather as "the judgment of the towns".

It should be noted that the Sanskrit word kratu, which the Greek word kratos is said to derive from, is sometimes translated as "strength", "power" and, perhaps mistakenly, "sacrifice". But kratu more often appears to mean "wisdom", "judgment" or "will". The "wisdom" meaning of kratu was reflected in Avestan xratu, Old Armenian xrat and Modern Persian xerad. The same meaning is reflected in Greek krites ("judge"), Greek krisi ("judgment") and perhaps even Hebrew hikhria ("decide/settle"). And it is in fact from Greek krisi and kritikos (meaning "able to judge") that we get the English words crisis, critical and hypocrisy. Clearly the time when the people would most likely be gathered to make a critical decision was at a time of crisis, so there is also ample cognitive basis for believing that those three words were potentially etymologically related even before Solon, Cleisthenes and Ephialtes helped to establish the government scholars today typically regard to be the first authentic democracy.

Unfortunately, as far as I am aware, no proof can be offered as to what the true origin of the word democracy is. Thus, ironically, it actually comes down to whether you and others like you agree with the traditional view or whether you and they agree with what is presented herein. In the end, I hope that critical thinking and good judgment will win the day, and that a more honest answer to the question will eventually be agreed upon.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles
.com/5138131

The Hoffster wrote:

Reality50 wrote:
Postal voting should be outlawed. Certain nameless pro Islam political parties are exploiting the chaos that is called postal voting.I won't respond to Hoffster's childish insult as frankly everything I said is true and I take none of it back.

What's religion got to do with it, Islamophobe ?

Do you think it's safer to mention *that* rather than someone's skin colour ?

Postal voting needs stricter management before it’s implemented. All political parties are exploiting it. With regards to skin colour, you may be right. I’ve never seen that mentioned on any thread or in any comment, feels quite surreal!!!

The Original Meaning of “Democracy”: Capacity to Do Things, not Majority Rule
Josiah Ober
Democracy is a word that has come to mean very different things to different people. In origin it is, of course, Greek, a composite of demos and kratos. Since demos can be translated as “the people” (qua “native adult male residents of a polis”) and kratos as “power,” democracy has a root meaning of “the power of the people.” But power in what sense? In modernity, democracy is often construed as being concerned, in the first instance, with a voting rule for determining the will of the majority. The power of the people is thus the authority to decide matters by majority rule. This reductive definition leaves democracy vulnerable to well-known social choice dilemmas, includ- ing Downs’ rational ignorance and Arrow’s impossibility theorem: If democracy as a political system is reducible to a decision mechanism based on a voting rule, and if that voting rule is inherently flawed as a decision mechanism, then (as critics have long claimed) democracy is inherently flawed as a political system.1 If democracy is, at its core, something other than a decision mechanism based on a voting rule, social choice dilemmas may not prove to be inherent flaws in democracy as a system.
This paper concerns the original Greek meaning of “democracy” in the context of the classical (fifth and fourth centuries B.C.) terminology for regime-types. The conclusion is that democracy originally referred to “power” in the sense of “capacity to do things.” “Majority rule” was an intentionally pejorative diminution, urged by democracy’s Greek critics (Raaflaub 1989, Ober 1998).2 Of course, we are not bound by any past convention, much less by the inventors’ original definition: if we can devise a better meaning for a political term, it should be preferred. But if common modern usages are not particularly good, in the sense of being “descriptively accurate” or “normatively choiceworthy,” then there may be some value in returning to the source. Reducing democracy to a voting rule arguably elides much of the value and potential of democracy. The original Greek meaning, while having no inherent authority for us, suggests ways to expand our modern conception of democracy and thereby (incidentally) to render it less vulnerable to the problems associated with aggregating diverse preferences by voting.
The Greek vocabulary for political regimes tended to focus in the first instance on the empowered or ruling body, which might be an a single person (one), or a limited number of persons (the few), or a large and inclusive body (the many). While the Greek vocabulary for regime-types is extensive, the three key terms for the rule of the one, few, and many are monarchia, oligarchia, and demokratia. Even in this small sample, two things immediately stand out: First, unlike monarchia (from the adjective monos: solitary) and oligarchia (from hoi oligoi: the few), demokratia is not in the first instance concerned with “number.” The term demos refers to a collective body. Unlike monarchia and oligarchia, demokratia does not, therefore, answer the question: “how many are empowered?” The standard Greek term for “the many” is hoi polloi, yet there is no Greek regime name pollokratia or pollarchia. Second, Greek names of regimes divide into terms with an –arche suffix, and terms with a –kratos suffix. Aristokratia (from hoi aristoi: the excellent), isokratia (from isos: equal) and anarchia are classical regime- names that stand outside the one/few/many scheme yet fall into the –arche/–kratos grouping. Not all regime names use the arche or kratos roots; see Table: column IV. Yet (with the exception of tyrannia – which in the classical period had consistently negative connotations) the –arche and –kratos families tended to dominate the terminological landscape. By the time of Plato and Aristotle, a number of new regime-terms had been coined by comic poets, philosophers, and political partisans engaged in intellectual debates. Timokratia (from time: honor) and gynkaikokratia (from gynaikos: woman) were made up by classical philosophers and comic poets to describe imaginary regimes. Ochlokratia (from to ochlos: the mob) was a post-classical (first appearing in Polybius: 2nd c. B.C.) and strongly pejorative variant of demokratia.3
I II III IV V
Empowered body
A. One
B. Few C. Many
D. Other (exem- pli gratia)
–kratos root
autocracy
aristokratia
demokratia isokratia ochlokratia (mob)
timokratia (honor) gynaikokratia (women) technocracy
–arche root
monarchia oligarchia
polyarchy
anarchia
Other regime-name terms
tyrannia basileia
dynasteia isonomia (law)
isegoria (speech) isopsephia (vote)
isomoiria (shares) eunomia (law) politeia (mix of democracy and oligarchy: as used by Aristotle)
Related political terms: persons, abstractions
tyrannos basileus (king)
hoi oligoi (few) hoi polloi (many)
to plethos (majority) to ochlos (mob) isopsephos (voter)
dynamis (power) ischus (strength) bia (force)
kurios (master) exousia (authority, license)
Table: Greek (and neo-Greek) terminology for regime types. Earlier (fifth-century attested) forms in bold, later (fourth-century) inventions in plain face, post- classical/modern inventions in italic.
The Table offers a rough map of the terminological terrain. I focus in the first instance on the six bold-face terms in columns two and three of the Table: demokratia, isokratia and aristokratia among the –kratos roots and monarchia, oligarchia, and anarchia among the –arche roots. Each of these is attested in the fifth century, although oligarchia and aristokratia are probably somewhat later than demokratia, isokratia and monarchia. Given the Greek penchant for creative neologism, not least in the
realm of politics, it is notable that some terms are “missing” – I have already noted the absence of polloi-derivatives. Nor is monokratia, oligokratia, or anakratia ever attested. Demarchia refers not to a regime type, but to a relatively minor local office (ho demarchos, meaning something like “the mayor”).
Since so much of the Greek regime-type vocabulary falls into two suffix-groups, and since there are notable “gaps” in each group, it is reasonable to suppose that kratos meant something rather different from arche and pointed to a different conception of power. We might seek to explain the –arche and –kratos groups by reference to political legitimacy – that is, along Max Weber’s familiar dichotomy of Herrschaft and Macht. Greek philosophical thought (Aristotle’s Politics is the locus classicus) was indeed concerned to distinguish between “correct” and “incorrect/corrupt
ed” regimes – and this might be seen as approximating Weber’s legitimacy-based categorization. But the terms with which we are primarily concerned do not fall neatly into “legitimate” or “illegitimate” groups on the basis of their suffix-roots. One might therefore conclude that there is no rhyme or reason to the Greek vocabulary of regimes, that kratos and arche were catchall terms for “power” in some ill-defined sense. Christian Meier (1970, 1972), a leading practitioner of the conceptual terminology-centered German approach to intellectual history known as Begriffsgeschichte, despaired of bringing the general Greek vocabulary of power into any systematic order and therefore concluded that the Greeks never had a very specific idea of power.4 Yet this seems to me to be too pessimistic.
Some of the “other” terms for regime (column IV) do fit the Weberian conception of Macht, as “power without legitimacy”: By the time of Aristotle, tyrannia and dunasteia were used of severely corrupt, badly “incorrect” forms of the rule of the one and the few, respectively. By the same token, Aristotle’s confusing decision in the Politics to use the term politeia – usually “constitution” or “political culture” – for a particular regime type (variously defined in Aristotle, but basically a “good” mixing of oligarchia and demokratia) places “the regime called politeia” quite solidly within the Weberian category of Herrschaft.
Perhaps, therefore, a modified Weberian categorization would help explain the –arche and –kratos root terms. Each of the three –arche root terms (III) seems to be concerned with “monopoly of office.” The word arche, in Greek, has several related meanings: beginning (or origin), empire (or hegemonic control of one state by another), and office or magistracy. A Greek magistracy was an arche, the public offices as a con- stitutional body were (plural) archai. An archon was a senior magistrate: the holder of a particular office with specified duties (in classical Athens, for example there were nine archons chosen annually – along with several hundred other magistrates5).
Each of the three –arche-root regime-names answers the question: “how many rulers?” The earliest of these seems to be monarchia, which appears in archaic poetry, and is strongly associated with eastern, non-Greek rulers. I would suggest that the primary meaning of monarchia was “domination of the official apparatus of government by one man.” Likewise, classical Greek descriptions of oligarchia concern a form of government defined in the first instance by access to participation rights in general,and magisterial office in particular. An oligarchia was a regime in which the right to hold office was strictly limited to “a few” on the basis of a property qualification and often, additionally, on the basis of occupation or ancestry. Likewise, anarchia describes a condition in which the magisterial offices of the government are vacant, generally due to civil strife over who is to occupy them. While lacking the specifically Weberian force of “legitimacy,” the –arche root terms are concerned with how many people may occupy official positions of authority within a constitutional order of some kind. It is therefore unsurprising that oligarchic regimes were often named for a fixed number of potential office-holders: The Thirty, The Four Hundred, The Three Thousand, The Five Thousand, and so on.
By contrast, the –kratos terminology seems not to be about offices as such. Unlike arche, the word kratos is never used of “office.” Kratos has a root meaning of “power” – but Greek linguistic usage of the noun kratos and its verbal forms ranges widely across the power spectrum, from “domination” to “rule” to “capacity.” We can, however, narrow the range for –kratos as a suffix. Unlike the –arche-root group, which, as we have seen, is entirely composed of “number terms,” none of the terms in the –kratos group is a number term. The first of our three primary –kratos-root terms (II), aristokratia, does not get us very far. It remains possible, on the analogy of oligarchia in which the hoi oligoi monopolize offices, to imagine that aristokratia pertains just in case hoi aristoi (the excellent) hold a similar monopoly. But among the other prefix-roots in the –kratos group, only gynaikokratia can be a plural, and thereby refer to potential officeholders.
Isokratia does not refer to a group of persons but rather to an abstraction, “equal- ity.” Isokratia shares its prefix-root with two other terms used by the fifth-century B.C. historian Herodotus as periphrasis for democracy: isonomia and isegoria. On the analogy of isonomia (equal-law), isegoria (equal-public address), and the evidently early regime-term isomoiria (equal-shares: attributed to the predemocratic Athenian lawgiver, Solon) it seems likely that iso- prefix-roots refer to distributive fairness in respect to access in a sense of “right to make use of.” Equal access in each case is to a public good (law, speech, “shares”) that, when it is equitably distributed, conduces to the common good. Thus, isonomia is fair distribution of legal immunities across the relevant population and equal access to legal processes. Isegoria means equal access to deliberative fora: equal right to speak out on public matters and to attend to the speech of others. By analogy, isokratia is equal access to the public good of kratos – to public power that conduces to the common good through enabling good things to happen in the public realm.
So kratos, when it is used as a regime-type suffix, becomes power in the sense of strength, enablement, or “capacity to do things.” This is well within the range of how the word kratos and its verb forms were used in archaic and classical Greek. Under this interpretation for isokratia, each person who stands within the ambit of “those who were equal” (say, the citizens) would, enjoy access to public power in this “capacity” sense. This might include, but need not be limited to, access to public offices. In sum, rather than imagining the –kratos group as sharing the –arche group’s primary concern for the control of a (pre-existing) constitutional apparatus, I would suggest that the –kratos-root
terms originally referred to a (newly) activated political capacity. This would explain why there is no monokratia or oligokratia: “the one” and “the few” were regarded as inherently strong and capable, through control of wealth, special education, and high birth. So it was not in question whether the one or the few possessed a capacity to do things – the question was whether or not they controlled the apparatus of government.
Which brings us, finally, to demokratia. Demokratia cannot mean the “demos mo- nopolizes the offices” in that the demos (unlike the implied plurals hoi oligoi, hoi aristoi) must refer to a corporate body – to a “public” – and that public cannot col- lectively be an “office-holder” in the ordinary sense. But if we extrapolate from the definition I have proposed for isokratia, the term makes both philological and historical sense: Demokratia, which emerged as a regime-type with the historical self-assertion of a demos in a moment of revolution, refers to a demos’ collective capacity to do things in the public realm, to make things happen.6 If this is right, demokratia does not refer in the first instance to the demos’ monopolistic control of pre-existing constitutional authority. Demokratia is not just “the power of the demos” in the sense “the superior or monopolistic power of the demos relative to other potential power-holders in the state.” Rather it means, more capaciously, “the empowered demos” – it is the regime in which the demos gains a collective capacity to effect change in the public realm. And so it is not just a matter of control of a public realm but the collective strength and ability to act within that realm and, indeed, to reconstitute the public realm through action.
The demos’ capacity was first manifested during a popular uprising that sparked the democratic revolution of 508/7 B.C. But revolutionary moments are fleeting. If the demos were to sustain a collective capacity to do things over time – to form plans and carry them to completion in ordinary circumstances – then demokratia, as a form of popular self-government, required institutional forms (pace Sheldon Wolin7). Notably, the institutions of Athenian demokratia were never centered on elections. Voting on policy was certainly important – the individual Athenian citizen could be described not only as isonomos and isegoros, but also isopsephos: an equal in respect to his vote. But in contrast to isonomia and isegoria, isopsephia is another “missing” classical Greek regime name: It is unattested until the 1st century B.C. and was never periphrasis for demokratia.
The demos was composed of a socially diverse body of individuals, each capable of choosing freely in his own interests. Its members were not unified in their desires by an “all the way down” ideology. Many of them required some sort of subsidy if they were to participate on an equal basis. All of this meant that in order for the demos to be politically enabled, in a regular and sustainable way, some difficult collective action and coordination problems must be addressed. The Athenian regime did not try to address those problems by voting rules alone. Lotteries for offices and agenda-setting deliberative bodies were primary Athenian democratic institutional forms. But even these institutional forms do not fully capture the meaning of demokratia as capacity to do things. A fuller sense of demokratia is offered in Pericles’ funeral oration in Thucydides (2.37), and in preserved speeches delivered to the Athenian assembly and lawcourts. Given that the funeral oration passage is so well known, I skip over it in favor of a passage from a court case of the mid-fourth century B.C. (Demosthenes speech 21: Against Meidias) Here, Demosthenes employs a rich vocabulary of strength, control, ability, and protection in summing up the democratic relationship between law, action, and public goods:
For in fact, if you cared to consider and investigate the question of what it is that gives power and control (ischuroi kai kurioi) over everything in the polis to those of you who are jurors at any given time . . . you would find that the reason is not that you alone of the citizens are armed and mobilized in ranks, nor that you are physically the best and strongest, nor that you are youngest in age, nor anything of the sort, but rather you’d find that you are powerful (ischuein) through the laws (nomoi). And what is the power (ischus) of the laws? Is it that, if any of you is attacked and gives a shout, they’ll come running to your aid? No, they are just inscribed letters and have no ability (ouchi dunaint’) to do that. What then is their motive power (dunamis)? You are, if you secure them and make them authoritative (kurioi) whenever anyone asks for aid. So the laws are powerful (ischuroi) through you and you through the laws. You must therefore stand up for them (toutois boethein) in just the same way as any individual would stand up for himself if attacked; you must take the view that offenses against the law are public concerns (koina) . . . (21.223–225).
So if the original meaning of democracy is the collective capacity of a public to make good things happen in the public realm, where does the idea of democracy as defined in the first instance by voting rules and by the monopoly of offices on the part of the many come from? Answering that question is beyond the scope of this paper, so suffice it to say that ancient critics of popular rule8 sought to rebrand demokratia as the equivalent of a tyrannical “polloi-archia” – as the monopolistic domination of government apparatus by the many who were poor: this is the strategy, for example, of the so-called Old Oligarch, an anonymous fifth-century pamphleteer. But just as kratos is not synonymous with arche, so too in classical Athens demos originally meant “the whole of the citizenry” (qua free native male population of a national territory) – not a sociologically delimited fragment of the citizenry. Placing democracy on a par with oligarchy, as little more, in principle or practice, than the monopoly over established governmental offices by, respectively, the many (poor) and the few (wealthy), is to accept fifth-century anti-democratic polemics as an accurate description of political reality. If our goal in returning to Greek antiquity is to gain an understanding of political power that might be of value to us, we must learn to attend to ancient democracy’s practitioners as well as to its critics.

Also collectivism




"Collectivism holds that the individual has no rights, that his life and work belong to the group (to "society," to the tribe, the state, the nation) and that the group may sacrifice him at its own whim to its own interests.  The only way to implement a doctrine of that kind is by means of brute force -- and statism has always been the poltical corollary of collectivism." -- Ayn Rand

"STATISM is that particular form of collectivism in which individuals are forced to be subservient to government (as distinguished, if possible, from a religious or cult leader, roving invader or local gangster).  Anyone in government who wants to extend his power, or anyone else (who has political influence) with agendas to advance, monopolies to secure, axes to grind or revenge to take -- can make claims that certain governmental actions would be in the national, state, society or even family interest and must 'therefore' take precedence over any individual interests whatsoever.  With this 'justification' the people in government can proceed to enforce such claims, often enthusiastically, sometimes brutally, but always with impunity." -- Rick Gaber

"The policy of seeking values from human beings by means of force, when practiced by an individual, is called crime. When practiced by a government, it is called statism ..." -- Nathaniel Branden


Relevant Comments

"Collectivism is the ancient principle of savagery.  ... Collectivism is not the 'New Order of Tomorrow.'  It is the order of a very dark yesterday." -- Ayn Rand

"Altruism demands that an individual serve others, but doesn’t stipulate whether those others should be one’s family, or the homeless, or society as a whole. Collectivism states that, in politics, society comes first and the individual must obey.  Collectivism is the application of the altruist ethics to politics." -- Dr. Andrew Bernstein,


This is applicable to the various political parties we have a choice of voting for; in essence they are all the branches of the same tree used to subdue and rule the masses whether or not you voted.

Again I say, democracy is a mind control tool for the masses to engage in 'electing' persons/institutions to rule over us. We vote to allow power to those elite who do not have our interests at heart....they simply make it appear that our collective interest is the reason we vote.

The caption to the photo of Imran Hussain shows that the T&A has still not saved up for a spellchecker.