by Alcassin » Fri 27 Feb 2009, 08:53:01
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', 'W')hat I have learned from talking to (anti free-marketers)
1) EVERYBODY agrees we do NOT live in a free-market economy.
Therefore if something bad happens, it will be blamed on the free-market.
2) The free-market is a system in which decisions are NOT made by government.
Therefore any decision made by government will be blamed on the free-market.
3) If someone proposes creating another government program to solve a problem created by a government program.
Then such person is called a supporter of the free-market.
4) If somebody is a Communist then they are a supporter of the free-market.
5) If somebody like to practice archery by shooting apples off the top of a people's heads and they accidentally miss,
then they are a supporter of the free-market.
We live in capitalism. Capitalism is a system which is ruled by current bourgeoise class for their own interest which is sometimes bind by democratic functioning society to comprise the interests within society. It's the reality, and it is dominant system.
Libertarian vision of free market is an utopia just like communism. There has never been free market, and there has never been communism. There were only real, functional versions of both - first is capitalism, second is soviet socialism. Libertarian attack on democratic government and society would leave the system of political power in hands of few. Thus, the system may be called oligarchy or plutocracy ruled by winners in the market.
Modern corporations are expression of this process and their political agenda is very well known: socialize losses, privitize profits. Democratic institutions within society is the only functional and pragmatic way to stop this march of private short-sighted greed. Now we observe massive attack on democratic institutions - government, labor unions, and civil movements. Democracy as a system is in peril and this is also because for the last 30 years of massive cultural shift in the West, which leads to privitizing the public sphere, private good over public good, and so on. West has forgotten about long-term goals, and now is an infant burned with immediate desires. Corporate power, manipulation, propaganda (rebranded as PR) is not the only cause, but the strongest within modern western societies.