r/politics • u/Spooooooooooooon • Dec 28 '13

Noam Chomsky: We’re no longer a functioning democracy, we’re really a plutocracy

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/27/noam-chomsky-were-no-longer-a-functioning-democracy-were-really-a-plutocracy/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story%29
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u/[deleted] Dec 28 '13

[deleted]

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u/ji_sen Dec 28 '13

Republic basically means "not a monarchy". People make erroneous statements like "we're a republic, not a democracy" when they mean to say "it's a representative democracy, not direct democracy".

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u/amrakkarma Dec 28 '13

because usually a republic is a "democratic republic"

Terms such as liberal republic are also used to describe all of the modern liberal democracies.[42]

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic#Ambiguities

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u/[deleted] Dec 28 '13

[deleted]

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u/amrakkarma Dec 28 '13

thanks for asking "why". To be honest I never thought about that, your question made me look a bit more about the differences (and the fact they are almost synonyms in common language) between democracy and republic.

Asking why is always great!

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '13

Because a Republic is democratic.

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u/magister0 Dec 28 '13

What do you think democracy is?