代议制民主下的权力结构与美国收入不平等及其批判

Power Structure and Income Inequality in the United States in the Representative Democracy and Its Criticism

美国国内长期的收入不平等具有制度上的“合理性”。资本主义代议制民主下的权力结构一方面将政府权力掌握在资产阶级手里,另一方面又限制了政府机构的权力集中。资产阶级利益集团在代议制民主中扮演了所谓的“人民利益”委托人的角色,通过利益游说和政治献金对政策制定和执行产生决定性的影响力,造成了美国国内长期的收入不平等,其影响延续至今。尽管马克思和恩格斯承认代议制民主是人类民主文明的一大进步,但依然对代议制民主进行了猛烈批判。由于资本主义剥削产生了阶级权力不平等,剥削下形成的民主制度将工人阶级系统性地排除在社会治理之外,从而暴露出代议制民主的本质不过是资产阶级对工人阶级持续剥削和维持收入不平等的最佳政治外壳。

The long-term income inequality in the United States has “rationality” in its system. The power structure under the capitalist representative democracy, on the one hand, has the government power in the hands of the capital class, and on the other hand, limits the power in the government agencies. The capital class interest groups played the role of the so-called “people’s interests” trustors in representative democracy, and had a decisive influence on policy formulation and implementation through interest lobbying and political contributions, resulting in long-term income inequality in the United States, and their influence continues nowadays. Although Marx and Engels acknowledged that representative democracy is a great progress of human democratic civilization, they still criticized representative democracy fiercely. As capitalist exploitation produces class power inequality, the democracy formed under exploitation systematically excludes the working class from social governance, thus revealing that the essence of representative democracy is just the best political shell for the capital class to continue exploiting the working class and maintaining income inequality.