Skip to main content
The working class is the heart of modern democracy
By looking to the Third World we can see that democracy today is not a liberal institution for the rights and property of the individual, but a natural and organic response to the injustices of capitalism and imperialism, writes VIJAY PRASHAD
THE MASSES AGAINST THE CLASSES: Members of Costau march in Johannesburg, South Africa, 2011

DEMOCRACY has a dream-like character. It sweeps into the world, carried forward by an immense desire by humans to overcome the barriers of indignity and social suffering.

When confronted by hunger or the death of their children, earlier communities might have reflexively blamed nature or divinity — and indeed those explanations remain with us today.

But the ability of human beings to generate massive surpluses through social production, alongside the cruelty of the capitalist class to deny the vast majority of humankind access to that surplus, generates new kinds of ideas and new frustrations. This frustration, spurred by the awareness of plenty amidst a reality of deprivation, is the source of many movements for democracy.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
trump
Independence Day / 5 July 2026
5 July 2026

As the US marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, the People’s World Editorial Collective argues that the real legacy of 1776 lies not in official celebrations but in centuries of popular struggles to make democracy a reality for all

Pic: Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital only hospital in Soweto and the largest in sub Saharan Africa in 2017 / Pic: amanderson2/CC
Features / 22 May 2026
22 May 2026

ROGER MCKENZIE recalls the one-in-a-generation communist leader murdered at the dawn of a new South Africa 33 years ago last April 10

Tom Mooney Company from the Lincoln Battalion, during the Spanish Civil War, Jarama, Spain, 1937
History / 24 February 2026
24 February 2026

CJ ATKINS commemorates one of the most dramatic moments in working-class history

Jeremy Corbyn (second left) and Zarah Sultana, MP for Coventry South (second right) on the picket line outside London Euston train station, August 18, 2022
Features / 20 August 2025
20 August 2025

Corbyn and Sultana’s ‘Your Party’ represents the first attempt at mass socialist organisation since the CPGB’s formation in 1921, argues DYLAN MURPHY