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The article develops normative assumptions about what the political ideologies, democracy and political parties ought to be and advocates a reconsidered version of liberalism, which is perceived as an alternative to the prevailing modern political ideologies. Assumptions of reconsidered liberalism about the role of ideologies in democracy are generalized in the concept of ideological pluralism. The article also presents a concept of comprehensive democracy as an alternative to representative, direct, deliberative, civic and other modern conceptions of democracies. In this perspective democracy is perceived as a mode of collective decision-making process. Normative criteria for the basic elements of a collective decision making process, i.e.: participants of decision-making processes, decisionmaking procedures, content of decisions and implementation of decisions, are formulated. Assumptions about the alternative role of political parties in democracy are derived from the conception of the comprehensive democracy. It is proposed to assign to political parties functions such as civic education, organizing and moderating public deliberations, monitoring policy implementation.

The article develops normative assumptions about what the political ideologies, democracy and political parties ought to be and advocates a reconsidered version of liberalism, which is perceived as an alternative to the prevailing modern political ideologies. Assumptions of reconsidered liberalism about the role of ideologies in democracy are generalized in the concept of ideological pluralism. The article also presents a concept of comprehensive democracy as an alternative to representative, direct, deliberative, civic and other modern conceptions of democracies. In this perspective democracy is perceived as a mode of collective decision-making process. Normative criteria for the basic elements of a collective decision making process, i.e.: participants of decision-making processes, decisionmaking procedures, content of decisions and implementation of decisions, are formulated. Assumptions about the alternative role of political parties in democracy are derived from the conception of the comprehensive democracy. It is proposed to assign to political parties functions such as civic education, organizing and moderating public deliberations, monitoring policy implementation.

The place of the concept of ideology in Karl Marx's thought is examined through a reading of his works. Marx's central concern was the relation between ideology & science, meaning, in particular, economic science. Marx found genuine scientific merit in the physiocrats, Adam Smith & David Ricardo, while dismissing many later economists as seeking to transform economics into a defense of capitalism. Marx further suggests that, as the classical economists present the bourgeois view of economic processes, the socialists & communists present the proletarian view. W. H. Stoddard.