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Religion after Secularization in Australia pp 159–175Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Freedom, Democracy, and the Socialist Transformation

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Abstract

The time is well overdue for us to insist once again on the epithet adequate to democracy. Rather than the assumed universal implied by democracy (which in our era really means parliamentary or bourgeois democracy), we have at least three forms of democracy that have been tried: Greek democracy, bourgeois democracy, and socialist democracy. This is a study of socialist democracy, which entails a criticism of the subterfuge and limitations of bourgeois democracy. And in order to explore socialist democracy, I turn to none other than Lenin.1 Further, such a discussion entails the linking of democracy with freedom, for freedom, too, needs constantly to be reclaimed from its thorough besmirching by Western foreign policy. On both counts, democracy and freedom, Lenin provides more theoretical and practical resources than might at first be expected.2

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Authors
  1. Roland Boer
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Newcastle, Australia

    Timothy Stanley (Senior Lecturer) (Senior Lecturer)

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© 2015 Timothy Stanley

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Boer, R. (2015). Freedom, Democracy, and the Socialist Transformation. In: Stanley, T. (eds) Religion after Secularization in Australia. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137551382_8

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