Summary

[redwoodpecker]

There's a BBC documentary called the Trap, about how representative Democracy was replaced with something supposedly far superior, which I'll call consumer democracy.  The idea is this.  You don't need to vote, and you don't need real representation, because your real freedom lies in the mall.  It doesn't matter who your representative is, because

Comments

[crooked7]

Market allocation is by no means democratic. It is true that there is a limited form of representation through consumer demand but how much representation depends on the consumer’s level of income

[redwoodpecker]

power to the STATE as in the federal government. Not the states. I don't think you even read what I wrote. The whole argument was that these supposedly free market principles that are implemented are not free market at all, since the government is not separate from corporate interests, but rather serving them, which is fascism.

[crooked7]

No, I read what you wrote. I am also using the term state to mean federal government. Globalization has indeed taken power away from the federal governments in developing countries. You are right that these policies have served the interests of corporations in wealthy nations but at the expense of poorer developing nations. Nations that actually do adopt the neo-liberal free market reforms have their ability to intervene in economic affairs significantly diminished. This is the point. It is market dogmatism, an absolute faith in the market. The result of Globalization has not been Fascism, but instead a form of economic imperialism, where institutions such as the IMF and World Bank that serve the interests of wealthy nations determine the economic policy in developing nations in exchange for badly needed loans. The US on the other hand is definitely heading down the path towards Fascism

[redwoodpecker]

I understand what you're saying, and you're dead on. But it's not absolute faith in the market is what I'm arguing. If that were the case the markets would be left to fend for themselves for better or worse, which they're not. The whole point was to try and extricate the free market principles, from what has been labeled the free market by neo liberalism.

I think we hit fascism a while ago, and what little illusion we have that it's anything else will be stripped away pretty quickly now.