There’s very little interest in most social theory in what is practically (physically) possible in terms of social organization. What little exists (social network theory, sociophysics, etc) generally depends on unrealistic psychological models.
Look at democracy. Does it actually make sense to say that practically realizable democratic systems (like multiparty elections) represent the interests of ‘the people’? Does it even make sense to ascribe relevant opinions of ‘the people’ or to even speak of ‘the people‘?
There are theories of democracy that take part of the problem into account, but nobody looks at the whole system, and, again, wherever there is modelling there are wholly inadequate assumptions about individual psychology that undermine the model.
The relevant facts here are that people are material bodies, we exist in time and space, we have certain physical abilities, we must be in proximity to interact (or else using a mediating technology), and we interact predominantly through conventionalized symbols.
There’s a lot of work that has been done on what the electorate knows (not much at all, it happens) but what CAN the electorate know? Is it even POSSIBLE for the electorate to know what they need to know to make informed decisions? There are a huge number of issues here.
If liberal democracy is not actually practically realizable in any real sense, then it is de facto propaganda. A misleading set of claims about how our society works (or even can work) that leads us to misinterpret and incorrectly value what is happening in our society.
It seems to me that this could be proved, that with a physically realistic social theory you could demonstrate that ‘liberal democratic’ categories can only be a contribution to the interpretation of events in discourse rather than the actual organization of society.
How would proof of the impossibility of liberal democracy be received? How would proof that liberal democracy is actually a system of propaganda be received? How would a state that embraced and promoted these insights be treated by the liberal democracies?
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