这个世界上的民主为什么会倒退？到底是什么在破坏民主制度？什么是弱民主什么是强民主？如何实现强民主？如何解决民主制度下发生的种种问题？
这一切的答案，都在《The No-Nonsense Guide of Democracy》这本书中。作者Richard Swift分析了民主倒退的原因：财团老板们为了利润游说政客破坏民主，最高票当选制下两党换汤不换药，经济生活中民主的缺乏导致人民缺少独立思考的能力（当你一天至少8小时都处在老板们的极权独裁之下，那么你就很容易去习惯服从，而不是自决），新自由主义的奴才消费文化洗脑，政客和财团们故意把民主偷换为“选举独裁者”（选上精英之后然后由着他们胡做非为） ，跨国公司削弱了民选政府的控制力，强迫民选政府服从于它们而不是人民。
而没有经济民主的民主制度，也就是现在全世界通行的强市场/弱民主模型，一直以来都是不稳定的，因为资本主义市场会威胁民主。而很多国家无视自身传统，盲目抄袭美国的弱民主模型，结果造成了严重问题。作者主张，每个国家都需要根据自身传统，找出最适合当地人民的强民主模型。此外，作者在介绍世界民主历史的时候，也提到了中国的八九民运：1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall; Popular pro-democracy protests take place in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square but are crushed by the Chinese Government（柏林墙倒塌; 北京天安门广场发生了被大众支持的民主抗议活动，但遭到中国政府的镇压）
而强民主制度下，经济民主是必须的一环，同时还需要尽可能实现直接民主，人民直接决定自己，而不是由着精英们操纵他们。
作者也介绍了几种经济民主方案，有保留市场的经济民主（市场社会主义），有分布式民主计划经济，也有两者的混合方案。
总的来说，作者的构想和DSA是一致的，可以肯定作者是个社会民主主义者。不过作者在书中说“左派们抛弃了民主”，作者搞错了，抛弃民主的不是左派，而是披着极左外衣骗人的极右纳粹而已。而这本书的封面上有个推荐者，Howard Zinn，就是个著名的美国左派历史学家，《美国人民的历史》的作者。
最后，这本书的内容可以用书中引用的一句话概括：‘The cure for the problems of democracy is more democracy.’ （对于民主中出现的问题的解决方案就是更多的民主。）
这本书有中文版，在台湾发售，名为《民主不民主：直击民主政体》，但没有下载链接。
关键内容摘录：
第1章：What is democracy? （什么是民主？）
The conference agenda was a familiar one – deregulation, privatization, downsizing government. In short, the same agenda that eventually plunged us into the 2008/09 credit crunch and financial meltdown. The ‘free’ in free trade is the tricky part. Free means democratic doesn’t it? Not really. In effect our environmental and social rights were being traded away. No matter what we wanted as democratic citizens, corporate-inspired globalization was what we were going to get.
这次会议的议程是熟悉的 – 放松管制，私有化，缩小政府（典型的新自由主义垃圾主张）。 总之，这一议题最终使我们陷入了2008/09年的信贷紧缩和金融危机。 自由贸易中的“自由”是棘手的部分。 自由意味着民主不是吗？ 并不是的。 实际上，我们的环境和社会权利正在被剥夺。 无论我们作为民主公民想要什么，企业推进的全球化就是我们将要得到的。
The high point of the proceedings from an official point of view was the signing of a ‘democracy clause’ that committed all the leaders to maintaining elected civilian rule. It also achieved the US aim of isolating Cuba from the proceedings.
从官方角度来看，诉讼的最高点是签署了一项“民主条款”，让所有领导人对参与选举的公民们维持统治。 它还实现了美国的将古巴与诉讼隔离的目标。
But this seemed to those of us on the other side of the fence a rather hollow definition of democracy.How could our leaders be meeting in secret to develop a program that would restrict our democratic rights and possibilities and still call it democracy? Did the word mean anything at all?
但是，对于我们这些在围栏另一边的人来说，这似乎是对民主的一个相当空洞的定义。我们的领导人怎么可以秘密开会来制定一项计划，以限制我们的民主权利和可能性，并将其称为民主？ 这个词真的意味着什么吗？
第2章：Democratic malaise （民主的衰退）
While democracy has triumphed as the political system of choice, there are increasing levels of popular disaffection. Voter turnout and other indicators of popular participation are in precipitous decline. The average citizen is feeling estranged from the political process and the more-or-less permanent political class that has come to dominate it. Money and those who control it easily shape the results of democratic decision-making. This is causing a crisis in the meaning of democracy.
虽然民主作为一个政治选择系统取得了胜利，但民众的不满情绪在不断增加。 选民投票率和其他民众参与指标急剧下降。 普通公民感觉与政治过程疏远，以及永久性政治阶级或多或少的主宰了政治过程。 金钱和那些控制它的人容易操纵民主决策的结果。 这导致了民主的危机。
• In government he has come to rely on the same group of insiders who helped to create the current problems.
• Outside his administration, meanwhile, the wealthy and powerful and their representatives have geared up to blunt any radical edge that may survive the insiders’ efforts.
•在政府部门，他依赖于制造出当前问题的同一群内部人士。
•与此同时，在他的管理之外，富有和有权势的人及其代表已经着手钝化任何可能在内部人士努力下幸存的激进政策。
Even where people still bother to cast their ballots they find the political arrangements in place limit their influence and frustrate their intentions. Systems based on the Democratic malaise Westminster ‘first-past-the-post’ (FPTP) model (peculiar to the English-speaking world) are particularly bad at reflecting the broad range of political pinions and options. Voters are often caught in the ‘lesser-of-twoevils’ syndrome. FPTP tends to favor a couple of large, well-funded parties with fairly similar ideologies (in practice if not in rhetoric), which reinforces the general public perception that politicians are ‘all the same’. These parties are often referred to as ‘brokerage parties’ because of their ‘all things to all people’ approach during election campaigns and their lack of commitment to any clear ideology beyond the pragmatism of power. They bring whatever interests are available into some kind of working arrangement so that ideology takes second place to getting a piece of the action.
即使人们仍然想要投票，他们发现现有的政治安排限制了他们的影响力并挫败了他们的意图。基于缺乏民主的威斯敏斯特’先发后’（FPTP）模式（英语世界所特有的）的系统在反映广泛的政治驱动力和选择方面尤其不利。选民常常陷入“两难”症候群中。 FPTP（就是最高票当选模式，被美国和英国所采用）倾向于赞同一些意识形态相当相似的大型的资金充足的政党（如果不是在修辞上就是在实际上），这加强了普遍公众对政治家都是“一路货色”的看法。这些政党常常被称为“经纪人政党”，因为他们在竞选活动期间对所有人都是“满足所有人的要求”的做法，并且对除了权力的实用主义之外的任何清晰的意识形态缺乏承诺。他们把任何可用的利益都带到了某种工作安排中，因此意识形态被贬为第二，从而进行一部分行动。
Extreme views, populist impulses, new thinking and idiosyncratic figures are all casualties of a bland sameness that pervades this kind of political culture. Brokerage parties (with constantly reworked ‘market’ solutions) provide a muscular orthodoxy that reinforces this by actively marginalizing outlying ideas. Oddly, this sameness does not lead to civility in political life for, where real policy differences are absent, politics tend to revolve around personality and endless expensive attempts at proving what a lowlife scoundrel the other guy is. Often there is plenty of scandal to uncover, as the absence of ideals means most politicians are attracted to politics for gain and glory.
极端的观点，民粹主义的冲动，新思维和新特质的人物都是弥漫在这种政治文化之中的对民主的平淡无奇的伤害。 经纪人政党（提出不断改进的“市场”解决方案）通过积极边缘化边远的想法提供了强化的肌肉正统派。 奇怪的是，这种相同性并没有导致政治生活中的文明，因为在没有真正的政策差异的情况下，政治倾向于围绕个人言行和无尽的昂贵的尝试来证明另一个人的低级（美国的大选就是如此）。 通常有很多丑闻要揭露，因为缺乏理想意味着大多数政客都会为了获得利益和名声而被政治吸引。
As if this were not enough, even nation-states are now subjected to pressures from institutions buttressed almost entirely from public democratic pressure;institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). These are the semi-official bodies that enforce the shifting rules of the globalizing economy. The concentration of power in their hands and that of private actors in the global economy (transnational corporations, capital markets, stockholders, currency speculators, bond-rating agencies) has led to an explosion of social-science literature pondering the future of the nation-state. This literature tries (from widely differing points of view) to come to terms with a world in which the once sacrosanct sovereignty of (at least powerful) nation-states is now being hemmed in by economic forces that severely limit economic policy choices.
如果这还不够，即使是民族国家现在也受到来自机构的压力，几乎完全与来自公共民主的压力同样强大;例如国际货币基金组织（IMF）和世界贸易组织（WTO）等机构。 这些是执行全球化经济转变规则的半官方机构。 他们手中集中的权力以及全球经济中的私人控制者（跨国公司，资本市场，股东，货币投机者，债券评级机构）的权力集中导致社会科学文献爆炸性地控制着民族国家的未来。这些文献试图（从广泛的角度来看）建造一个世界，在这个世界中，曾经（至少是强大的）国家的神圣主权现在正被经济力量所束缚，这严重限制了对经济政策的选择。
第3章：Weak and strong democracy（弱民主和强民主）
Two strains can be identified in the history of democratic thought and experience. One is a weak democracy where popular sovereignty is hemmed in by the individual right to property that holds sway over
the collective rights of the community. This theory is based on a notion of possessive individualism and is a strong market/weak democracy model. The second strain is the notion of strong democracy rooted in the radical republican tradition, which emphasizes the self-rule of the political community and the equality of power in democratic decision-making.
在民主思想和经验史中，可以确定两种类型的民主。 一个是弱民主，人民的主权受到侵犯社区集体权利的个人财产权（也就是对生产资料和资本的私人独裁占有权）的束缚。这个理论基于个人主义的概念，是一个强市场/弱民主模式。 第二种类型是根植于激进共和主义传统的强民主概念，强调政治社区的自我统治和民主决策中权力的平等。
The lack of democracy in economic life undermines democracy everywhere else. Those with economic power – today largely major transnational corporations and banks – have myriad ways to get what they want out of the democratic process. A prerequisite for a more robust democracy is a coherent strategy to level economic and thus political inequalities. This chapter looks at entrenched economic power and evaluates the different strategies for challenging it.
第4章：Democratizing the economy（将经济民主化）
经济生活中的缺乏民主会埋葬其他所有地方的民主。 拥有经济实力的人 – 今天主要是跨国公司和银行 – 有很多方法可以从民主进程中获得他们想要的东西。 建立更强大的民主的先决条件是制定解决经济和因此造成的政治不平等的连贯战略。 本章着眼于根深蒂固的经济力量并评估挑战它的不同策略。
FOR MOST PEOPLE the eight-odd hours (or more in many cases) spent at work have more to do with dictatorship than with democracy. While some workplaces have grown more relaxed, the majority of them still closely monitor your time and what you do with it. When you arrive. When you leave. How you perform your tasks. How long you take for lunch. How many times you go to the bathroom. Whom you talk to on the phone. The demeanor you adopt for your employer. All can be prescribed in some detail, whether you work as a security guard in Berlin or in a fast-food franchise in Seoul, a maquiladora clothing factory in Central America or making circuitboards in Penang. This most basic experience of life, earning your livelihood, involves the surrender of both your time and your will to the direction of others. This is a major deficit in the building of democratic life. The experience of a managerial autocracy at work robs people of a sense of their own democratic agency. It contributes to a passive ‘follow orders’ mentality that sucks away the lifeblood of active citizenship.
对于大多数人来说，在工作中度过八个多小时（或更多时间）与独裁有关，而不是民主。虽然一些工作场所变得更加轻松，但大多数工作场所仍然密切关注着你的时间以及你对它的处理方式。你到达的时间。你离开的时间。你如何执行你的任务。你吃了多久午餐。你去洗手间多少次了。你在电话上与谁交谈。你为雇主采取的行为。无论您是在柏林担任保安还是在首尔的快餐连锁店工作，中美洲的加工厂服装工厂或在槟城制造电路板，都可以被详细规定。这种生活中最基本的经历，谋生之道，包括把时间和意志交给别人去控制。这是民主生活建设的重大缺陷。在工作中对专制管理的经历毁灭了人们对他们自己的民主机构的感觉。它有助于消除积极公民的活力，制造一种被动的’服从命令’的心态。（《精英与社会》中也表达过类似看法。）
It is just not realistic to expect active citizenship from people who have so little power to influence the rest of their lives. A lack of democratic engagement leads almost inevitably to a passive consumerist approach to democracy. This is reinforced by a political class that has grown adept at manipulating consumer preferences in the ‘political marketplace’. This is done through a virtual industry that runs expensive campaigns and projects elaborately crafted images of honesty, sincerity and strength on the part of politiÂcians. It is much easier to manipulate unreflective and insecure consumers of politics than it is to negotiate with a self-consciously activist citizenry. Consumerism in politics fits naturally into the consumer-oriented culture of 21st-century capitalism. When your main decisions revolve around choice of different cola and cigarette brands it is not a big jump to reduce democratic engagement to a choice between Brand X politician and Brand Y politician. If, however, you are used to having an active say in your workplace and community, this is unlikely to satisfy you.
期望拥有如此少的影响他们的生活的权力的人的拥有积极公民意识是不现实的。缺乏民主参与几乎不可避免地导致被动消费主义的民主方式。政治阶级越来越善于在“政治市场”中操纵消费者的偏好，从而加强了这一点。这是通过一个虚拟行业完成的，该行业进行昂贵的活动，精心制作精心策划的政治形象，诚实，诚意和力量。操纵没有反弹的和不安全的政治消费者要比与自我意识激进的公民进行谈判要容易得多。政治消费主义自然适合21世纪资本主义以消费者为导向的文化。当你的主要决定围绕着不同的可乐和卷烟品牌的选择时，减少民主参与到X品牌政客和Y品牌政治家之间的选择并不是一个大的跳跃。但是，如果你习惯在你的工作场所和社区有积极的发言权，这不太可能让你满意。
Unequal citizens have unequal resources (money, time, education, inclination) to bring into the arena of democratic decision-making. If Microsoft’s Bill Gates is worth $50 billion or so, he can buy a lot of ‘democracy’.In these circumstances democracy is eroded. The best of democratic theory assumes that some basic equality is necessary if citizens are going to exercise a more-or less equal weight in shaping the direction of political life. Capitalism, on the other hand, with its ethos of ‘possessive individualism’, values above all the right to acquire as much property and wealth as possible. This is considered a just reward for an individual who exercises skill, ingenuity and initiative. The wealth and propertythus acquired can be passed onto the next generation who may or may not be skillful and ingenious. Under capitalism, inheritance has gradually created a class of wealthy people who control the productive resources of society (factories, real estate, capital, access to raw materials and credit).
不平等的公民拥有不平等的资源（金钱，时间，教育，倾向），以进入民主决策的舞台。如果微软的比尔盖茨价值500亿美元左右，他可以购买大量的“民主”。在这种情况下，民主就会受到侵蚀。最好的民主理论假定，如果公民要在塑造政治生活方向上施加更多或者至少是同等的权重，那么一些基本的平等是必要的。另一方面，资本主义具有“所有制个人主义”的精神，最重要的是有权获得尽可能多的财产和财富。这被认为是锻炼技能，独创性和主动性的个人的正当奖励。获得的财富和财富可以传递给下一代，他们可能会或可能不会熟练和巧妙。在资本主义制度下，继承逐渐形成了控制社会生产资料（工厂，房地产，资本，原材料和信贷）的富裕阶级。
This inherited advantage is today largely what dictates the life chances of most of us. While there is the occasional well-publicized ‘rags to riches’ story, most people realize that they have a better chance of winning the lottery than of rising into the economic élite by dint of their own effort. The willingness of people to accept such inequalities is mute evidence of a shouldershrugging acceptance of the power of wealth to shape supposedly democratic outcomes.
这种继承的优势今天在很大程度上独裁决定了我们大多数人的生活机会。虽然偶尔有广为流传的’乞丐到富豪’故事，但大多数人认识到他们彩票中奖的机会比通过自己的努力成长为经济精英的机会更大。人们接受这种不平等的意愿是一种无言的证据，表明他们无法接受财富的力量来塑造所谓的民主结果。（《美国人民的历史》中提到超过90%的美国精英来自中上层家庭，而今天，世界上最富有的8个人的财富和世界上最贫困的50%的人的财富一样多）
Market socialism（市场社会主义）
This basic adaptation of socialist theory holds that while most productive property (factories, natural resources, access to credit) should be either socialized or held co-operatively, the market remains the best way to decide things like prices, the flow of labor and most decisions to invest. Their idea is to combine the efficiency of the market with the democratization of productive units to ensure that no private monopolies can displace the public interest. Where investment decisions involve major externalities (effects on, say, the environment) a democratically accountable system of central planning would still have a role. Some sectors like health and education would be exempt from market-type criteria. The ‘market socialists’ envision a maximum of democratic consultation (they vary on the possibilities for workers’ self-management) in factories and offices, thus overcoming the passivity of wage labor and enhancing active citizenship. There would need to be a continuing role for a regulating state to lay the ground rules of the economy, establishing broad agreement on incomes policy and taxes, and ensuring (in the absence of the corrupting influence of a corporate élite) that the market continues to serve the social goals.
社会主义理论的这种基本适应形式认为，尽管大多数生产资料（工厂，自然资源，获得信贷）应该是社会化的或者是合作式的，但市场仍然是决定价格，劳动力流动和决定投资的最佳机制。他们的想法是将市场效率和生产单元的民主化结合起来，以确保没有私人垄断可以取代公共利益。如果投资决策涉及重大的外部效应（对环境产生影响），民主负责的中央计划体系仍将发挥作用。一些行业，如健康和教育，将免除市场类标准。 “市场社会主义者”设想在工厂和办公室中最大限度地进行民主协商（这些协商方式取决于工人自我管理的可能性），从而克服雇佣劳动的被动性并提高积极的公民意识。需要一个政府继续发挥作用，奠定经济的基本规则，就收入政策和税收达成广泛的一致，并确保（在没有企业精英的腐败影响下）市场继续为社会目标服务。（市场社会主义的支持者之一是《after capitalism》的作者David Schweickart，我曾经在博客上介绍过他的主张，不过他是主张投资由各级民选机构民主的计划的。）
Planning from below（自下而上的计划）
Planning from below is a strategy for democratizing the economy more in line with the classic socialist vision. It foresees only a minor role for the market and puts the emphasis on a system of democratically controlled co-ordination of economic life. There are many versions of this, from radical visions of a highly decentralized society that has abolished money to elaborately thought-out systems for running advanced industrial economies. Some, such as the famous advocate of decentralization, EF Schumacher, and those he has influenced, see democratic control of investment and development at the local community level as the key.
自下而上计划是更符合经典社会主义观点的经济民主化策略。 它预见到市场只扮演一个小角色，并强调民主控制的经济生活协调体系。 有很多版本，从高度分布式的社会这一激进的愿景，到已经废除金钱的了精心设计的经营先进工业经济体系。 一些人，比如着名的分布式倡导者EF舒马赫以及他所影响的那些人，都把民主控制地方社区层面的投资和发展作为的关键。
The British political economist Pat Devine, in his Democracy and Economic Planning, puts forth a model based on what he calls ‘negotiated coordination’. He details a system that would combine decentralization of decisions with the development of new democratic bodies like ‘interest sections’ and ‘accountable planning commissions’ at all levels of the economy. There would be workers’ self-government in all enterprises. Planning advocates like Devine believe that market socialism relies too much on competing self-interests and will impede the emergence of a truly self-governing society and an economy that is organized around the democratically decided goals of human beings. Devine identifies the high level of management and administration that are already part of modern economies as an inevitable departure from a ‘pure market’. He feels that if these were properly democratized they could act as the basis of a ‘negotiated co-ordination’ of an economy planned from below. He places a heavy emphasis on the achievement of equality and equal influence to create the capabilities necessary for a truly self-governing society.
英国政治经济学家Pat Devine在他的《民主与经济计划》（这本书也是DSA的推荐书籍之一）中提出了一种基于他所谓的“协商合作”的模式。他详细介绍了一个分布式决策权力与发展新兴民主机构（如“利益部门”和“负责任的计划委员会”）的系统。所有企业都会有工人自治。像Devine这样的计划倡导者认为，市场社会主义过分依赖竞争性的自我获利，并会阻碍真正的自治社会和围绕着民主决定的人类目标而组织起来的经济的出现。 Devine认为已经属于现代经济的高层管理和行政管理是不可避免地背离“纯粹市场”的。他认为，如果这些得到适当的民主化，它们可以作为自下而上的经济计划的“协商合作”的基础。他非常重视实现平等和影响力的平等，以创造一个真正的自治社会所必需的能力。
The socialized market（社会化的市场）
This proposal for democratizing economic life is closely associated with the British economist Diane Elson. She and other advocates of the ‘socialized market’ believe a strategy that bends market outcomes to social purposes will allow democratic intervention in a variety of ways that would ensure more popular control. Elson proposes a dramatic extension of common property rights over investment that would work through a system of participatory regulation to enforce social and ecological criteria on all major investment decisions. She believes that the seeds for this already exist in a range of corporate accountability initiatives that deal with such matters as minority hiring, child labor, working conditions and environmental impacts. The ‘socialized market’ would include a basic income for all and reinforcing those markets (which Elson calls ‘associative’ and ‘provisioning’) would decentralize power and promote values of solidarity. Advocates of a socialized market believe that it is necessary to move beyond a sterile debate between ‘market’ and ‘plan’. Elson concludes: ‘My vision is not a “market” society but not a “bureaucratic” society either; it is a society in which democratically accountable state agencies structure markets so as to give a much greater chance for households and associations to flourish.’
这个使经济生活民主化的建议与英国经济学家Diane Elson密切相关。她和“社会化市场”的其他倡导者认为，将市场结果转化为社会目的的战略将允许以各种方式进行民主干预，从而确保更大众的控制。Elson提出将投资领域的共同财产权的范围大幅度扩大，通过参与式监管制度强制所有重大投资决策遵守社会和生态标准。她认为，这种种子已经存在于一系列涉及少数群体雇佣，童工，工作条件和环境影响等问题的企业问责制提议中。 “社会化市场”将包括所有人的基本收入并加强这些市场（Elson称之为“合作”和“供应”）将分散权力并促进团结协作的价值观。一个社会化市场的倡导者认为，有必要超越“市场”和“计划”之间的无谓辩论。Elson总结道：“我的愿景不是”市场“社会，也不是”官僚“社会;它是一个社会，在这个社会中，民主的有能力的政府机构构建市场，为家庭和社团的繁荣提供更大的机会。“
Only in an economy beholden to the interests of the entire society can we hope to bring an end to what the French social theorist André Gorz calls the domination of economic reason. This kind of all-inclusive economic rationality, expressed through the under-regulated market, cancels out the possibility of an economics based on a thought-out human purpose. ‘The market itself is not the goal of any of the actors that confront one another there; it is the space that results from their confrontation just as “traffic” is the result of all those who are driving their cars at any particular moment and have… an average speed imposed upon them by all the other drivers, none of Democratizing the economy whom has actually chosen it.’ At the moment this economic rationality (a rationality lacking reason in Gorz’s view) is creating a world of compulsory labor that produces too much, uses up too many resources, distributes its rewards unfairly and is endangering the global ecosystem upon which we depend to survive. Only a viable economic democracy has a chance of redirecting economics to serve some sane human purpose – where people control capital, rather than its controlling us.
只有在符合整个社会利益的经济中，我们才能希望结束法国社会理论家André Gorz所说的经济理性的奴役。这种包括一切的经济理性，通过监管不足的市场表现出来，取消了基于深思熟虑的人类目的的经济可能性。 “市场本身并不是在那里相互对抗的任何行为者的目标;正是因为“交通”是所有那些在任何特定时刻驾驶他们的汽车并且具有……所有其他驾驶员强加给他们的平均速度的结果，任何没有将经济民主化的人实际上已经选择了它“，目前这种经济理性（Gorz认为是一种缺乏理性的理性）正在创造一个产生过多的强制劳动的世界，耗费了过多的资源，不公平地分配其回报，并且正在我们赖以生存的危及全球生态系统。只有一个可行的经济民主有机会重新将经济导向为为人类理智的目标服务 – 人民控制资本，而不是控制我们。
第5章：Beyond the nation-state （超越民族国家）
Globalization and the politics of influence practiced by the major world powers is a constant limitation on popular sovereignty. It takes decisions out of the hands of elected officials or at least gives them the excuse not to act. This chapter evaluates the different efforts to move democracy beyond the nation-state – from structures of regional governance to the evolution of an international civil society and a cosmopolitan democracy.
全球化和世界大国实行的影响力政策不断限制了人民主权。 它剥夺了民选官员作出决定的能力，或者至少给了他们不采取行动的借口。 本章评估了将民主推进到民族国家之外的各种努力 – 从区域治理结构到国际公民社会和世界性民主的演变。
The nation-state advocates are accused of standing for a dubious nostalgia that history has already passed by. Those who advocate an internationalizing of democracy are accused of abandoning its best defense with a wild jump into the future that is at bottom a kind of capitulation to corporate globalization. This polarization is probably not useful. It seems likely that some kind of hybrid strategy that affirms people’s right to decide on all levels needs to emerge from this debate. It makes little sense to fight for strong democracy only or mainly on one level. The energy and imagination of the anti-globalization movement faces a multilevel world of power, with the central axis of the whole system running through Washington and New York. It needs a multi-pronged process of democratic action that entrenches popular power in local communities and regions but also projects it onto the national and international stage.
民族国家的倡导者被指责为历史已经过去的怀旧。 那些主张民主国际化的人被指责放弃其最佳防御，并跳入未来，这是对企业全球化的一种投降。 这种极化可能没有用处。 在这场辩论中，似乎可能会出现某种确认人们有权决定各个层面的混合策略。只在或主要在一个层面上争取强民主没有什么意义。反全球化运动的能量和想象力面临着一个多层次的权力世界，整个体系的中心轴贯穿于华盛顿和纽约。 它需要一个多管齐下的民主行动进程，使当地社区和地区的民众权力得到巩固，并将其推向国家和国际舞台。
第6章：Democratizing democracy（将民主民主化）
Popular discontent with our model of weak democracy has undercut confidence not just in those we elect but in government itself. This has rebounded to the benefit of those who would leave everything up to the market. Debate rages as to how to restore popular faith in democracy. This chapter looks at such issues as direct democracy, decentralization and greater proportionality that could breathe life into ossified democratic structures.
大众对我们的弱民主模式的普遍不满，不仅造成了选民们的信心削弱，而且对政府本身的信心也削弱了。这已经影响到那些将一切投入市场的人的利益。 关于如何恢复对民主的信心的争论很激烈。本章着眼于直接民主，权力分散和更大的相称性等问题，这些问题可能使僵化的民主结构重新恢复活力。
第7章：Democracy and ecology （民主和生态）
The environmental crisis is challenging orthodox democracy in some vital ways. A market democracy where real democratic power is traded for ever expanding consumer prosperity is just not sustainable. The short time-frames within which most politicians operate cannot cope with the long-term impacts of ecological change. This chapter sorts through the toolkit of Green ideas for building an eco-democracy where environmental health is a first principle.
环境危机正在以一些重要的方式挑战正统民主。一个建立在真正的民主权力被交易为不断扩大的消费者繁荣的基于市场的民主是不可持续的。大多数政客所处的短期时间框架无法应对生态变化的长期影响。本章对绿色理念工具包进行分类，以建立一个环境健康是首要原则的生态民主制度。
第8章：Strong democracy in the Global South （在全球南方的民主）
In the Global South, democratic rights are often a life-and-death question. But they are also notoriously fragile in a situation of huge inequalities, where the powerful frequently resort to brutal suppression to maintain and expand their privileges. This chapter looks at the struggle to build a more robust democracy and how it takes quite different forms based on differing national experiences. It also examines how such efforts can be side-tracked unless they are deeply embedded in popular life.
在全球南方（指亚非拉地区），民主权利往往是一个生死攸关的问题。 但是，在巨大的不平等情况下，他们也是非常脆弱的，在这种情况下，掌握权力的人经常采取野蛮的镇压来维持和扩大他们的特权。本章着眼于为了建立一个更加强壮的民主的斗争，以及基于不同的国家经验，它是如何采取完全不同的形式。 它还检查了这些努力如何被边缘化，除非它们深深植根于大众生活中。
第9章：Conclusion（总结）
Democracy involves risk. This is what is most difficult for many of its advocates to accept, even those who see themselves as risk-takers when it comes to entrepreneurial matters. And democracy is always messy: lots of meetings and reversed decisions. But we owe it to ourselves and the peace of the world to get involved and take on the responsibilities that real democracy puts on us.
民主是有风险的。对于许多倡导者来说，这是最难接受的，甚至那些在企业问题上将自己视为风险承担者的人也是如此。民主总是很混乱：很多会议和相反的决定。但我们应该为自己和世界的和平参与并承担真正的民主赋予我们的责任。
A more equal economy with democracy built into the workplace is crucial to this effort. The economy today exerts a constant pull that is used to ‘discipline’ democracy with what is ‘realistic’; to keep some in poverty and others in villas, BMWs and stock options. But even if the essential element of democracy is built into the economy, accumulations of privilege will continue to be an anti-democratic irritant. We’ll need to replace our passive consumerist democracy with a reinvigorated polity to provide us with a platform to fight for fairness and equal rights against the blinkered technocrats and free-market globalizers. The inequality generated by the strong market/weak democracy model undermines the mutuality and solidarity between people in society. This inevitably leads to a politics of polarization and resentment between classes, genders, regions and ethnic groups. As we saw in Chapter 8, this is particularly true of the cleavages that are ripping apart political entities across the poor Majority World. To build a strong democracy based on a ‘popular sovereignty’ that is more than a convenient fiction is the potential beginning of sanity, stability and sustainability.
在工作场所建立民主的更平等的经济对于这一努力非常关键。今天的经济发挥着不断拉动的作用，用来’用’现实的’来’管理’民主;通过别墅，宝马和股票期权维持一些人的贫困，和另一些人的富有。但即使民主的基本要素建立在经济中，特权的积累仍将是反民主的刺激因素。我们需要用激进的政体取代消极的消费主义民主，为我们提供一个平台，以争取公平和平等的权利，以对抗那些狡猾的技术官僚和自由市场全球化的鼓吹者。强市场/弱民主模式所产生的不平等破坏了社会中人们之间的相互联系和团结协作。这不可避免地导致政治上的阶级，性别，地区和民族之间的分化和仇恨。正如我们在第8章中看到的那样，这一点在贫困的主流世界中把政治实体分开的分裂中特别真实。建立一个强大的民主必须基于不仅仅是一种方便的虚构的”人民主权“，这是健康，稳定和可持续发展的潜在开端。
We all know by now what more politics-as-usual will mean. It may be that democracy will always be unfinished business. But it is our business. Let’s take it back.
到现在为止，我们都知道政治保持常态更多情况下意味着什么。 民主可能总是处在未完成的事业阶段。 但这是我们的事业。让我们把民主拿回来吧。