The system is corrupt from our perspective, but it’s working as intended from the perspective of the wealthy who created it and maintain it.

“Bourgeois Democracy”: What Do Marxists Mean By This Term?

In a bourgeois democracy, the operative principle is protecting the state and the bourgeois order. Everything is subordinated to that objective. We’ve had an opportunity to watch this principle unfold in the aftermath of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Some Republican members of Congress, representing one wing of the U.S. ruling class, incited and abetted what the other wing has called an “insurrection.” And yet, on Inauguration Day only two weeks later, we saw a number of them — presumably “seditionists” against the bourgeois regime — being normalized as the traditions of the day were played out. They made speeches, presented gifts, bumped elbows, and generally reveled with Democrats. After all, they are all members of a “bourgeois party” — and thus worthy of “protection,” as Lenin wrote:

The ruling party in a bourgeois democracy extends the protection of the minority only to another bourgeois party, while the proletariat, on all serious, profound and fundamental issues, gets martial law or pogroms, instead of the “protection of the minority.” The more highly developed a democracy is, the more imminent are pogroms or civil war in connection with any profound political divergence which is dangerous to the bourgeoisie.

Every sign points to these two wings of bourgeois democracy uniting to enact a new “anti-terrorist law” that will be used to go after the “profound political divergence” they most fear: the political organization of the working class against capitalist rule.