Do students have to choose their own "leaders"?

Democracy is a system in which the main decisions are made by all members of a community or society, in accordance with procedures and rules. It is divided into direct and indirect, in the indirect, decisions are transferred to the delegates elected by all members in the elections.

Democracy is not the standard of the human race. It's actually rare. In European societies, all citizens received the right to vote - to elect representatives - only in the course of the 20th century. In all earlier centuries, this right either did not exist or was limited to a narrow, richer class.

Students have introduced a strong emphasis on immediate or direct democracy into this story. It functioned in the faculties like this:

First, all students have the right to attend the plenum, discuss and vote. Every vote counts the same, the majority decides.

Second, plenums of several faculties vote on the same topic and the decision on it, as a rule, becomes enforceable if they all agree.

Thirdly, there are frequent and many votes, in this way the student representatives who will speak in the media and everything else are decided - there is no leader.

Is it possible without a "leader"?

The rest of society watched from the side what the students were doing without any reaction. No one said that they are successful exactly because direct democracy they adopted, but there were more comments that it slows them down, or that it is impossible to do without a "leader".

All other spheres of society continued to function as before.

The point of direct democracy, however, is not that everything should and can function in that way, nor that it can always be done without representatives, but that it should be applied where possible.

And it turned out to be possible in informal plenums of students at faculties and teachers in schools. Thus, direct democracy can become more prevalent in society.

We know about frequent referendums in the Swiss cantons, perhaps also about local referendums in the SFRY on the so-called self-contributions for infrastructure construction. But today we don't have that.

In the last 35 years, we have had several referendums, almost always on constitutional issues, and people's initiatives have magically disappeared in the assembly without any consequences.

Equality and togetherness

It is not God-given nor is it mandatory to practice democracy exclusively in the form of elections every four years, through which the so-called the government gets the opportunity for four years.

Here are illustrations on the example of a trade union. Practically all of them have statutes in which it is written that the membership elects union bodies for four years. In between, almost nothing is asked, although you have heard of polls being conducted on some issues, but those polls are neither binding nor precisely regulated.

It is even possible that the membership has no way to initiate the holding of an extraordinary assembly. You elected a small leadership and president and for four years you can't do anything, even though you regularly pay membership fees. All this leads to the fact that the leadership and the president of the union do not change for decades.

The students turned it all around, I believe guided by the idea of ​​equality and community, so that the plenum of students - all students without any elected representatives to delegate decision-making - decides on all issues.

One does not change the other.

Today, there are no obstacles for the organizational units of trade unions, associations, student parliaments, and organizational units of parties to decide in a similar way.

And, if we used social networks in a better way, it would be possible for the membership of organizations that number in the thousands or tens of thousands, to also decide in this way.

Until now, the students could be without a leader, and maybe in the next period they will have to choose representatives for their list.

However, those two things are not in opposition, they are only two sides of democracy, two pillars, of which they strengthened and strengthened this pillar of direct or immediate democracy.

Only excuses stand in the way of others doing it. In Marx's words, there are the productive forces of democracy - enlightened citizens, students, teachers and everyone else. But production relations are galloping.

For now, only champions apply them.

*the author is a philosopher and editor of the portal binoculars.rs