4. THE POLITICAL PARTIES

Factions or parties have existed since the first popular assemblies were formed. The reason is that in every political discussion, there always appears a minority group of individuals who lead the debates and a majority who support or reject them, according to their ideas and arguments, but who lack their own initiative; that is, groups of "supporters" of the various leaders of an assembly. Naturally, a leader's fundamental interest is to have the largest number of supporters, since it depends on whether their proposals are approved or rejected.

In this dialectical relationship, supporters are alienated from the leader, and their only option is to change the leader, or what is the same, to substitute one alienation for another.

Political parties will be the historical consequence of the adoption of universal suffrage, in which the vote of the assembly is extended to a large number of the population. However, the alienation relationship between the leader and his supporters is the same, but so numerous that it requires a certain organization. This need for an organization will generate a more or less hierarchical structure, whose competence will come to require an internal assembly, where the leader is elected, its statutes, its governing bodies, and its electoral programs are approved.

Starting with the formation of political parties and their full integration into the representative democratic system, people with a political vocation must necessarily join one of these organizations, and, once integrated, manage to be nominated candidates within their electoral lists, so the original assembly process is repeated, and leaders still need the support of "supporters" within the party itself; that is, whenever there are factions, there will be individuals alienated from their leaders. To put it another way, as long as there are parties there will be a free leader and alienated supporters. We do in choosing a certain party leader to choose a potential "dictator" and tacitly acknowledge our alienation and submission. For this reason, and once again, we should not choose them to govern us, but to administer us.

As if this were not serious enough, citizens in today's democracy hardly have the real possibility of knowing objectively who they have voted for. Their choice is based on the knowledge they gain through electoral "propaganda" and manipulating those mass media interested in their choice.

Today, opinions for or against political ideologies and their parties are manipulated just as easily as fashions, cultural trends, or mass idols' preferences. In our consumer society, where there is a total overlap between politics and the economy, the parties become strongly bureaucratized organizations whose objective is to defeat competition with the same strategy as if it were just another product for the market. And this organizational model is found in both right-wing and left-wing parties, because, as Hawley puts it, "as soon as mass political participation is organized in a democracy of competitive parties ... they become forms that lead to opportunism ».

The demand for political competition forces them, above all, to conquer power. Once power is conquered and ends are reached, they are supposed to find a way to justify the means. But unfortunately, it often happens that the fraudulent, deceptive and corrupt means they use end up becoming the ends.

There is also an unfortunate relationship between the mediocrity of party politics and the mediocrity of the criteria of the mass society that supports and elects them, which is the consequence of this fraudulent democratic procedure and the consequent distancing of the most conscious citizens from their representatives. . Therefore, sovereignty in today's society does not reside in the citizens, but in the masses conveniently manipulated by the parties.

If manufacturers are obliged to sell their production to make the investment profitable, to the extent that political parties need to invest heavily to create the image of their candidates, they are also obliged to win, without taking too much into consideration other criteria than the of pure electoral profitability. Thus, a small group of corporations and super-millionaires, related to the great political parties, control most of the mass media's advertising messages that lead them to electoral victory. Therefore, the political parties are in the hands of those who finance their electoral campaigns. Who, who does not yet have a solid political background, can resist this powerful influence? Today's democracies are the best that can be bought with money.





On the other hand, the current ideological discrepancies between the various political parties lie in their different conceptions of ethical and moral values ​​that should or should not be considered fundamental rights of the citizen; criteria on economic and financial measures to promote job creation; the limits to be imposed on freedom of action and expression; differences on the political conception and form of the state or other criteria and ideas on social welfare in general. This discrepancy is based on the inability to accept that there are already universal values, both ethical and economic, that should be adopted by all parties, whatever their ideology.

But this attitude is changing because, due to the dramatic consequences of the successive wars and armed conflicts; the catastrophic effects of financial speculation, and the destruction of the environment, we are beginning to accept certain consensual values ​​as universal and binding, on which both social and economic behavior should be governed globally. In other words, with totalitarian and radical ideologies ruled out, we are increasingly aware that there is only one way to manage the economy and citizen coexistence on principles that are already universally accepted.

As a consequence of this globalized unification of criteria and values, there must come a time when there is no longer a place to defend fundamental discrepancies between the various political parties, which in practice will mean their uselessness and inevitable disappearance.




At this critical moment, we must find a new way to manage citizens' legitimate interests, without falling into the awkwardness of eliminating democracy or unsupportive selfishness.

Once these fundamental and universal principles have been adopted, it will no longer be necessary to have a government. Still, only a simple "managing commission" with power, but not authority, manage what it has been commissioned for. Therefore, there will no longer be "authorities" linked to political parties to be replaced by independent "managers", integrated into two commissions. This, which may seem revolutionary, is the way in which we are building the "government" of the European Union, based on a Commission, a Parliament and a Council, which acts as the Upper House, or European Senate. This thesis's hypothetical revolutionary component is simply the way to adapt this system to the national states and incorporate the digital means made available to us, not only to facilitate management but also to make it cheaper, more agile, participatory, and, above all, transparent.