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...after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. '...Impenetrability! That's what I say!'

The Misfit’s Dilemma

“It’s no real pleasure in life.”
-- The Misfit in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor

“When thinking comes to a standstill in a constellation saturated with tension—there the dialectical image appears.”
-- Walter Benjamin

The Current Debate

Introduction

Introduction

The link that exists, in principle, between democracy and an end to class domination has long been understood by socialists. In earlier times—from Plato to James Madison—it was also quite frankly acknowledged by the upholders of privilege. Only since the mid-19th century has the meaning of democracy been narrowed, in the minds of many, to accommodate constitutional arrangements compatible with the rule of capital. Throughout the period of the US–Soviet rivalry, “democracy” became, in fact, virtually a euphemism for such rule.

Emelio Betances is associate professor of Sociology and Latin American Studies at Gettysburg College, where he founded and directed the Latin American Studies Program. He is the author of The State and Society in the Dominican Republic and is currently writing a book on the role of the Catholic Church in Dominican politics. ebetance@gettysburg.edu