ABSTRACT
The spirit of contemporary democracy has, roughly speaking, two distinctive characteristics. The first is that opposition to the capitalist trust is the point of departure for contemporary democracy; labor centralism is thus its backbone, and it seeks true freedom, true equality, and true liberation. Second, it recognizes that capitalists not only monopolize industrial hegemony, but also control every single realm of human activity, from political to industrial to social. Contemporary democracy does not simply aim at competing with the capitalists for some positions and some power in the political realm. The fundamental principle of the French Revolution is completely contained in the Declaration of the Rights of Man; the spirit of the Declaration is completely expressed in its advocacy of human equality. Human lives do indeed have an aspect with its origins in our natural desires to benefit ourselves.
