The socialist dimensions of democracy—with comments on the myth of the bourgeoisie and democratic politics

Abstract

巴林顿·摩尔的“没有资产阶级，就没有民主”使得民主变成了资产阶级的专 利，今天这个专利演变为亨廷顿的“中产阶级带来民主”。从社会主义运动史与比较 制度变迁的关系出发，我们可以发现民主经历了一个正反合的演变过程，从原初旨在 实现人人平等的多数人统治，演变为保护少数人即资产阶级财产权的工具，再发展到 今天作为实现大众平等权的工具。在民主的发展过程中，资产阶级的主要贡献在于宪 政建设和精英民主，而大众民主的到来，则要归功于以下层阶级为主体的工人运动和 其他非资产阶级阶层的斗争。在考察民主历程的基础上，重新认识民主的社会主义属 性，有助于质疑形成于特定经验的社会科学的普适性问题。 关键词: 民主 资产阶级 财产权 平等权 社会主义 Barrington Moore's “No bourgeoisie, no democracy” made democracy a monopoly of the bourgeoisie. Today, this has evolved into Huntington's thesis that the middle class has brought with it democracy. Proceeding from the relationship between the history of the socialist movement and comparative institutional change, we find that democracy has experienced a process of development involving the combination of positive and negative, from its original purpose of realizing majority rule in which everyone is equal to a tool for protecting the property rights of the minority, viz. the bourgeoisie, and thence to a tool for the mass of the people to realize equal rights today. In the course of its development, the main contribution of the bourgeoisie has been constitution‐building and elite democracy, while the advent of mass democracy should be attributed to the workers’ movement with the lower classes as its main force and to the struggles of other non‐bourgeois strata. To gain a renewed awareness of the socialist attribute of democracy on the basis of an examination of the historical course of democracy helps us question the universality of a social science shaped by particular experiences.