DEMOCRACY
TRANSLATOR: DE
MEN
Chapter I
Foundations of thoughts
The history of human society is the history of mankind’s
struggle in search of freedom. This history consists of the period of mankind’s
original freedom , the period when mankind lost freedom, and in the end, the
period when mankind finds its freedom in all consciousness (complete and
all-encompassing consciousness).
Self-conservation
is a fundamental need of humans. It is this basic need of human’s life that has
brought mankind from the state of original freedom to losing freedom. This is a
very long period in history that started with conflicts and led to the
destruction of some tribes. The need for self-preservation in tribal form appeared.
The formation of communities to preserve race forced humans to follow rules and
administration and leadership were the first steps towards losing mankind’s
freedom. As history developed, the appearance of captives, the process of
releasing captives and their re-assimilation into society has weakened the need
to preserve race in tribal form. Taking its place was the concern for
preserving people as part of an area, a geographical region – this is the
formation of territories and territorial lordship…after that came kingdoms,
national governments. If the need for self-preservation from man’s earliest
beginnings has led to his lost of freedom then the need for self-preservation
from mankind’s perspective - on a global
level – is the last step to allow man to achieve absolute freedom in
consciousness.
There
are two views that serve as bases to the way human life is organized. One view
is that society, or the state, is a being that exists over individual citizens.
The state can apply its force over the citizens in the name of the people. The
second view is that there is no such thing as society. There are only
individuals who together decide the rules and obligations that bring mutual
gain, and get together to do things that exceed the capacity of an individual
or a family. The reasonings in this book are based on the principles of
freedomism. According to its principles, an individual is a unique being who is
completely independent, has decisive power and must have the highest priority
over the community, group, society and state. The individual absolutely has the
reasoning power and ability to be master of himself and to decide on his
actions, therefore an individual is totally free in all actions, as long as
this individual’s action does not harm any other individual.
The
reason why these two concurrent views exist is because it reflects the factual
activities of two democratic structures that are relatively different today. On
one side is the US US US
Why
is it that the US US
First of all we need to differentiate the
democratic formats in the US US
The
democratic countries outside of the US
and Western Europe also formed their
democracies in a process similar to the western European countries, which is
the process of liberating people based on existing nations. However because
they were pioneers in liberating people the western European democracies had to
search for and build their own democratic structures. For other countries,
whether their democracy was founded from complete social revolutions or from
large upheavals in individual areas, also had (and applied) the experiences,
constructs and organizations from prior democracies. The absence of conditions
in which to build democracy like in the US ,
which was a democracy that took form at the same time as the nation was formed
on the basis of equal people without any strings to the past, is an important
reason why the superior democratic format of the US US US
The current environment of globalization has
opened a vast opportunity for the formation and building of democracies. Not
only that, globalization has uncovered the potential for connecting
democracies, for driving forward and extending the range of democracy on a global
level, for leading mankind into the kingdom of freedom.
Chapter II
Concept, Premise and Conditions
of democracy
Democracy is a social organization that offers the highest
guarantee of freedom to people.
The freedom of man is a notion. It
consists of human rights and the right for each person to defend his/her own human rights.
Because of that:
Democracy is a social construct
that provides the highest guarantee for human rights and the right of each individual to defend his/her
human rights.
We
all know the concepts of political philosophy are relative. On the other hand, democracy is a large
problem, intricate and related to many aspects of life. Because of that there
have been many definitions of democracy. So where did the above definition come
from and why is it so?
When
studying the formation and development of the US
democratic construct, a construct that’s superior and stable and was created in
conditions that were optimal, a question comes up: what has made the US
Therefore
there are two fundamental reasons that guarantee the stability and
self-improvement of the US US
The premise of democracy is the acceptance and
recognition of the difference and uniqueness of each individual human, of each
group of humans, of each community representing a race, religion, area or
region.
Therefore, to achieve equality each individual and society
itself has to accept and recognize the differences and uniqueness of people on
two levels: on an individual level – which are differences in race, looks,
character…; and on a group level – which are
differences between races, religions, areas and regions.
We
must emphasize that for long periods of time in history, there have been large
differences between individuals and groups of people. Therefore to talk about the premise of
democracy also means to talk about the process of building this premise. An
important question is raised: how to achieve recognition and acceptance between
individuals, races, religions, areas that have experienced conflicts, fights
and hatred in the past, even in the present? We have to build a philosophy, a
behavioral culture that is not new but has not become popular: a spirit of
reconciliation and racial unity.
Therefore
to build the premise for democracy in most countries is to build a spirit of
reconciliation and racial unity.
In order to successfully build a democracy certain social
conditions are needed. There are requisite conditions (these are required and
have to be present immediately) and there are conditions that need to be built
over time.
Principal condition: No war or civil
war. Because war is an abnormal state of a person and of an entire society. It
is not possible to build a democratic society when the individual and society
are in an abnormal state.
Necessary conditions:
·
There is no racial
separation or discrimination
·
There is no ethnic
separation or conflict
·
There is no
religious separation or conflict
Here the words “separation”
and “conflict” need to be understood in their combined meaning, because there
can be separation and help given to a
few ethnic minorities, or there can be a religion that is singled out as a
national religion only in the sense that a majority of people follow that
religion.
The
differences and uniqueness of each individual and group is also an important
trait of a democracy. Each person, with
his own capacity for thought, preferences and different living conditions will
pursue different jobs, different occupations, and will achieve various results
in society. Similarly, a group that represents a race, a religion, or a region
has special traits. The plurality in the image of each individual and group
shows the ripeness of the premise and conditions of the democracy, as well as
of the democracy itself.
Chapter III
Concepts of democracy
There are many components and problems in a method of
social organization. However any kind of social organization needs to solve
three main problems for society: 1 – The problem of state 2- The problem of law
3- The problem of people.
The
essence of a method of social organization will be used as the basis to solve
the three above problems. This also means that the way that the three problems
above are solved will show the essence of a social organization. The method of
democratic social organization will solve the three problems with the following
contents:
1.
The problem of State
Currently there are two ways of
understanding the problem of state. Broadly speaking, the “state” means a
government with three branches: Executive, Legislative and Judicial; it is also
the representative of the country. More narrowly speaking, “state” is
equivalent with the administration performing the executive function. In many
cases and in paperwork, government means the administration. In both the broad
and narrow meaning the essence of a democratic government does not change: it is a structure that is built to guarantee
and protect human rights in a certain geographic area.
Based on the essence of a democratic
government, there are two main ideas that need to be studied, explained and put
into action.
a. Government is a structure that is built to guarantee
human rights:
It is true that human rights, the main
ingredient in a democracy, even though recognized and acknowledged by everyone
in society, do not suddenly exist. They have to be organized on a social level,
in an extremely scientificand labor-intensive manner. Difficulties and
restrictions in guaranteeing human rights in the democracies outside of the US
b. Government is a construct that is built to protect
human rights.
In life, human rights are often violated
because of the use of force. In a civilized society the use of force needs to
be eliminated. A human’s right to live leads to the right for self-defense, to
use force against others who have used force first. But the use of force for
retaliation cannot depend on the whim of each individual. It requires objective
laws that define offenses and perpetrators based on proof. When force is
forbidden in social interaction, humans need a structure that is responsible
for protecting their rights, under the regulations of a body of objective laws.
On the other hand, in a free society, a person does not have to have
interaction with other people. They only interact with others of their own
volition, under contract if the interaction happens in a set time. If a
contract is broken because of the one party’s summary decision the other side
will be financially hurt and will suffer a disaster…Here there also is a need
for a structure to act as a referee to resolve conflicts between people based
on objective laws.
On
the other hand the process to build the foundations of a government is a
complicated process without exact norms; it is a process of research and
experimentation. Human right violations exist within the process of building
and running government. Because of that, the governmental structure needs to
include a built-in construct to allow individuals to defend their human rights.
So, a government is built to guarantee human rights, to protect people
from crimes and from foreign forces, to act like a referee to resolve conflicts
between people based on objective laws and also to allow individuals to defend
their human rights.
2.
The problem of law
In the most common meaning, laws are
regulations to control people’s actions in society. Any society needs and has
laws. The difference in laws between the various forms of societal organization
is in the source, function, application and defense of law. In a democratic
society, an especially easy thing to see is that law exists everywhere, in all
areas, professions, levels of life and activities of all wakes of society. In a
mechanical sense, the variety, richness and number of laws reflects the level
of a civilzed society. The number of laws is the number of relative rights that
are put into regulations. We study the relationship between law and human
rights, and on a higher level, in relation to freedom in a democratic society.
To come into life human rights need laws; human rights themselves exist
because of laws, and the defense of human rights relies on laws as a means.
Similarly, the ability of each person to defend his/her human rights (not
counting yearning, which is a driving
power of humans) is guaranteed by law and is closely related to law. Therefore
we can conclude: Law is the midwife, the
personification and soul of freedom and is also the means to defend freedom.
The way we build law and treat law is also the way we build freedom and treat
freedom. This is the law-abiding spirit in democratic societies.
To guarantee the true law-abiding spirit, a democratic society needs to
define law as an entity that needs to be built and perfected as a system, a
structure and an institution. At the
same time, the guiding principle of the law is nothing else but the guarantee
and protection of human rights.
a- The law is a special entity that is built and
perfected as a principle, a structure and an institution
In the process of building a government, the building
and applying of the law is also established and performed; there is a special
structure of three separated branches of government to do this. However when we
define law as a special subject, a separate and complete entity, there is a
very large difference from the definition to the focus of attention and
resources, as well as the people’s control that will lead to a positive
difference in the building, applying and perfecting law.
The separation of executive, legislative
and judicial law is in reality a segmentation of function to make sure that
laws are created and formed conforming to the will of the people, so that the
application of law is equal for everyone, and law is protected on an equal and
objective footing. This means that the
process of building and running, applying and defending law is not deformed by
many functions being taken into just one institution. On the other hand, to
assure that the process is running smoothly and is not clogged up from the time
of formation until its application and defense, there needs to be a societal
organization that is equivalent to the separation of functions in government.
After a certain time, once the system and
structure of society have fulfilled their functions and duties through the
period of research and experimentation, we need to establish a societal
institution based on that system and structure.
b- Functions of the law: guarantee and protect human
rights
To apply the function of guaranteeing and
protecting human rights, the law and system of laws need to fulfill the
following duties:
-
Confirm human rights: without doubts, the
highest thing required of law is the confirmation of human rights. These are
the basic rights of each individual which are: the right to live, property rights,
freedom of speech and religion, the right to search for happiness. Confirm the basic rights about civil
freedom: the right to stand for office
and to vote; the right to convene and build societies; the right to be treated
equally before the law; the right to be fairly and justly judged… the law also
has to confirm a system of rights that follow the basic rights and economic
rights, cultural, societal and life rights.
-
The law assists in the process of building
the system, structure and social institution to guarantee and protect human
rights. The process of building the government as well as building the system,
structure and social institution have the participation of law in all aspects.
The law’s objectives to guarantee and protect human rights helps these
processes to be done quickly, to be applied effectively and in a more stable
manner because of the synergy of goals.
-
The law helps to build the people’s awareness
of human rights, of freedom, democracy and the need for protecting human
rights. To be aware of human rights, of freedom, and democracy, and from that
to build a defense mechanism for human rights is very important. This awareness
cannot be self-aquired by the citizens but has to be guided, trained and
defined by law from the functional organizations of the government. Therefore
building people’s awareneness about human rights, freedom and democracy is an
important component in the law’s function of guaranteeing and defending human
rights.
3.
The problem of people
All societal constructs need to solve the
problem of people. In simple terms: who, which group of people influences the
building process and activates the law system? And whose rights, which group’s
interests does that government and law system bring about and protect? The democratic
way of building society has confirmed in its premise and in the democratic
constitutions that the people are the main actors in the process of building
and activating the government and law. At the same time the activities of the
government and law guarantee and protect the rights of the people. In other
words, power belongs to the people. The problem posed here is how to allow the
people to truly take part in the building of societal constructs and how to
make those social constructs guarantee and protect human rights and the right of each person to
defend his/her own human rights? There are two things that need to be
accomplished by the democratic society organization. That is building the
awareness of human rights, of freedom and democracy for the people and building
the structure to allow each person to protect his/her own human rights.
a-
Awareness of human rights, of freedom and democracy
Human rights are a very new concept in the
history of mankind. There are two theories on the source of human rights. Some
people affirm that the rights are bestowed by god, others affirm that they are
given by society. In reality the source of rights is the foundation of man[1].
Man is a subject belonging to a special species – a cognitive subject – man
cannot be active effectively under stress, to have rights is a must- have
condition for man’s special existence. So having rights is a moral principle
that confirms and acknowledges the freedom for each person to act within a
certain society. There is only one main right – all other rights are the result
or consequence of this main right – the right of humans in relation to
individual life. Life is an active process of self-preservation and
self-generation, which means: to freely accomplish all actions that nature asks
of a sentient being in order to support, move, complete and enjoy its own
private life. Such is the meaning of the right for living, for freedom and for
searching for happiness.
In real life, human rights are defined in
as: individual freedom rights and political –civil rights (citizens’ rights).
-
Individual
freedom rights include the following:
§ The right to live: this is the right of all rights.
§ Ownership right, which is the only way to realize all
the other rights. Without ownership right, there is no way to practice the
other rights. Because each person has to maintain his own life, if a person
does not have ownership rights to
products that he creates cannot make a living. If a person produces
goods that others take away from him, then he is a slave.
§ Freedom of speech: this is the freedom to express and
present your ideas without being meddled with, muzzled, or punished.
§ Religious freedom: the right to follow or not follow a
religion. This right represents religious tolerance, for which humans have struggled
for thousands of years.
§ The right to search for happiness: this is the right
to perform all actions that each individual deems necessary to attain
happiness.
-
Civil and political
freedom rights (citizen’s rights) include the following:
§ Freedom to vote and to run for office.
§ Journalistic freedom.
§ Freedom of assembly and freedom to establish societies.
§ The right to be protected equally by the law.
§ The right to sue and to be judged fairly.
There are other rights to represent and apply basic human rights. For
example: freedom of residence and movement, the right to inherit, the right to
have your human rights protected ,etc…
The
citizens’awareness of freedom and democracy needs to stress on their
participation in building the governmental and law structures. Also needed is
knowledge of the system of procedures and formalities, addresses people can
submit complaints and denouncements to, or start litigation to defend their
rights. Knowledge about freedom and democracy needs to be presented in a simple,
understandable manner and relate closely to the citizens’ lives.
b
- Build a system to guarantee a person’s
ability to defend his/her individual rights: the Court of human rights.
This is the most important element in the concepts of
democracy, of the structure and organization of democracy. This is the nucleus,
the most important mechanism in the self-perfecting structure of any democracy.
If this mechanism can be built, if this concept can be brought to life, the
democracy will overcome all difficulties and trials and move towards a state of
completeness. There are 2 reasons to this:
First
of all, human rights are subject to violations anywhere, at any time, in
any situation. Human rights are violated because:
-
The building of
government and law in order to guarantee and preserve human rights is a complex
process that needs to be experienced and learned. This process in itself
includes human right violations.
-
The natural
inclination towards hoarding power and means in each individual taking part in
building democratic mechanisms will lead to violations of human rights daily
and hourly, both against individuals and groups of people.
-
Violations happen
because crime.
Therefore protecting human rights has to be given top
priority and there needs to be a foundation to deliver that protection.
Secondly, no one can protect one’s human rights better than
oneself. At the same time, the Court of Rights is a solemn and most effective
way to protect human rights, especially to protect poor and normal people.
Chapter IV
Realizing democracy
From the viewpoint of democracy, many people think the
countries in the world are in three stages. Countries that have democracy in a
relatively perfect state, also called liberal democracies, are the US
From the viewpoint of realizing democracy, following the
contents presented in this book, there is not much to apply to countries that
are liberal democratic. However the Human Rights court still needs to be part
of improving democratic societies. Furthermore, the current governments of the US and Western Europe are still too cumbersome when compared to
their true role as well as to the trend of harmonization and globalization
based on a common understanding of global responsibility from all the countries
in the world.
Because of that the
realization of democracy is a problem posed to countries that have democratic
foundations but in which citizens do not have true freedom and in the future,
to the autocratic countries that will change into democracies. As mentioned in
the beginning of this book, the situation of countries that already have
democratic foundations, but in which citizens do not have true freedom, is
caused by the lack of fundamental elements of a true democratic construct. On
the other hand the way democracy was built, the order taken to build democratic
entities is also an important reason that makes those countries difficult to
cross the threshold of electoral democracy to become a liberal democracy.
Countries usually start the process of building a
democratic structure after a peaceful or violent revolution, by preparing a
democratic constitution (by hiring well-known lawmakers in the world); by
building national political parties; by building the process to vote for
congress and government (presidential or semi-presidential governments); by
campaigning and organizing general elections. People think that success in
building a democratic regime consists of keeping the above processes flowing
uninterrupted, with nothing to disrupt or change them. A more dangerous thing
is to assume that the newly established institutions could be applied
throughout the entire democratic process. For example, there is a theory that
the constitution reflects the balance of power between political parties at the
time the constitution is built?!? By observing this entire process we can see
that the activities to build a democracy only happen on a national level, with
a small number of people participating. As to the people, it seems that they
only have one thing to do which is to vote while recognizing that perhaps the
country has just changed regime!
This
is a backwards process, or as a Vietnamese saying goes, it is “building a house
from the roof down”. The most important thing in the way of building a
democratic regime is that it has to happen from the lowest democratic level –
which is the smallest geographical and administrative unit where a democratic
structure can be built – with everyone taking part in it at the same time. The
entire concept of democracy has to happen on a fundamental level and be closely
related with the people’s lives. Only on this level can the common people work
together to build government and the system of law, as well as the foundations
for the Human Rights court so they can protect their rights. The only objective
of all activities to build a democratic regime that are on a higher level than
the fundamental one is to open the way, to support and to provide the necessary
conditions to meet the needs for building and operating the democratic process
on the fundamental level. The measure of human rights and of the level of
democracy of a country is not in the democratic political activities on a
national level but in human rights, in the level of participation from people,
in their ability to protect their rights on a local level.
In
this spirit, a government only needs to be a light government that fulfills
minimal functions to maintain national activities. The main functions of a
government is to be a representative of the nation, to maintain national unity;
to build and maintain armed forces (police and army); to maintain a judicial
system to settle disputes between people. Another important function is to
push, support and provide conditions for the building process and for
activities of the democratic system on a local level.
So
then in countries that already have an electoral democracy, how should
democracy be put into action?
-
First of all
people need to be equipped with
information on human rights and
freedom, about formats of society organization that guarantee freedom
(human rights) to everyone, starting with the elite, who have a will to realize
democracy. Note that equipping every
citizen with this information is a must. Therefore we need to build knowledge
about freedom and democracy in a simple, easy to understand way that is closely
related to people’s lives.
-
Build a
democratic society that includes government, a law system and a system to
protect human rights (a Human Rights court) in the local democratic
environment. To make this happen, first of all we need to erase indifference
towards the existing political structure; switch the center of society building
from a national level to a local level; make the whole building process and
activities for all levels above local level within influence of the local
level.
In other words, the existence and
activities of all structures outside of the local level only serve the building
and activities of the local democratic construct.
-
In the current
atmostphere of joining together and globalization, the building of a democratic regime needs to be
put into the context of global democratization. This means that the human
rights that are referred to in the Declaration of Human Rights have to be
guaranteed; at the same time there is a need to consult the democratic regimes
in various countries to build a
freedom continuum in the whole world.
The
logic presented in this book is really not difficult to comprehend: Democracy
is a social structure that guarantees at the highest level human rights and the
ability for each person to defend his/her own human rights. To guarantee human
rights people have to be directly involved in building this social structure,
therefore the contents of building the social structure first and foremost
needs to take place on a local level – which is the smallest unit of democracy
– and is tightly related to people’s lives.
On the other hand, the ability of each person to defend his/her human
rights depends on the people’
s understanding about human rights,
freedom and democracy. At the same time there needs to be a structure to
protect human rights, which is the Human Rights court. Therefore, democracy is
the process of building social regime and people’s awareness to guarantee and protect each person’s human
rights.
Chapter V
Democratizing the globe
Humans
are currently living in a most significant era of history. This is the period
where humans start to officially recognize the means and ends to reach the
freedom they have been searching for for the past ten thousands years. Freedom of people who are living on this
earth, in its truest sense, has to be complete freedom. This means that a
person in the US , in Somalia , in North
Korea , in France
or Venezuela
The most important clue that proves we’re in the process of
global democratization lie in the natural forces of history that are currently
stimulating man’s desire for self-preservation as a species, on a global level.
Simply speaking, man is facing the threat of self-destruction or annihilation
in a near future.
-
The threat of
self-destruction: there are 2 looming threats, which are an atomic wars on a
global level and a global environmental catastrophy.
-
The threat of
annihilation: theories and signs about the end of the world and the possibility
of attack from extraterrestial aliens or from another civilization.
The voluntary cooperation of people on a global level,
led by instinct and human subconsciousness (the need for self-preservation of
humans), will be combined with understanding and recognition that comes from
real life, which is:
-
Recognition about
the increasing dependency between countries, which stems from economic
globalization, and spreads to culture, society and politics.
-
Recognition of
the common harm, the meaninglessness of conflicts and wars between countries.
On which
fundamental premises will the ongoing process of globalizing democracy be
established and pushed forward? There are 3 basic premises to globalizing
democracy:
The first premise is a global economic and technological interaction.
This process is happening very strongly with the main stream being
globalization of economy with the guidance and support of the Internet: an
inter-relation of science and technology. In this aspect, the world has been
and is continuing to become “flatter”.
The second premise is language connection. There is no need to
dwell on the meaning of globalizing language, as it is well known that in order
to cohabit and cooperate effectively then there needs to be a language
connection. The problem here is how this connection occurs. Today there are
translation utilities for many languages, as well as the trend of using English
as a global language in many countries. But both of these approaches do not
really answer the need for a global language connection. The human race needs to establish a common
language that is easy to learn, to read, write and understand. A suggestion is
to search between the current global languages to see if there is a language
that meets those criteria, to see if can be modified and perfected by world
linguists to be used as a common language in the world. It is easy to imagine
that a language that is easy to learn, read and write and can be used by all
countries on top of their maternal language in international relations will be
useful for the interaction and cooperation of people.
The
third premise is a freedom connection. This is the goal as well as the most
important content of global democratization. There are 2 processes that exist
at the same time and strongly support each other. It is democratizing countries
and building a global democratic structure. The function of democratizing
countries is to build freedom, and democratizing on a global level creates the
freedom connection. These 2 processes need to work together to perform very
important goals:
-
To build and
distribute knowledge about human rights, freedom and democracy. This is a
required condition on both the national and global levels. In order to bring
this concept to life the world needs to build
an Institute of Global Democracy
-
Integration of
the norms and regulations of the national and international human rights
tribunals. This is fairly easy to understand: human rights have the same value
globally, the premises of democracy are the same in all countries, so the
protection of human rights at all levels must be integrated in judicial norms
and regulations.
-
In order to
facilitate the progress of the global democratization process there needs to be
a strong global revolution. At the same time there needs to be a force to lead
and carry out this great process – that would be multi-national or
international parties.
Nguyễn Vũ Bình
Bibliography
1 - John Stuart Mill: On
Liberty - Vietnamese version, Tri Thuc Publishing House, 2005
2 - Jean Jacques Rousseau: The
Social Contract – Vietnamese version by Ho Chi Minh City Publishing House, 1992
3 - N.M. Voskresenskaia và N.B.
Davletshina: The Democratic Regime – Government and Society, Vietnamese
version, Tri Thuc Publishing House, 2008
4 - John Stuart Mill:
Representative government - Vietnamese version, Tri Thuc Publishing House, 2007
5 - Montesquieu: The Spirit of
Laws – Vietnamese version, Education Publishing House, Hanoi
6 - Alexis de Tocqueville:
Democracy in America
7 - Ayn Rand: The Nature of
Government - Ebook
The author reserves all copyrights to this
book
Contact information:
Nguyễn
Vũ Bình, số nhà 26, ngách 349/30
Phố
Minh Khai, phường Vĩnh Tuy, quận Hai Bà Trưng, Hà Nội
Email: datrolai2007@yahoo.com
Email:
thanglongdoicho@gmail.com
Telephone: 0987 572 844
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