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The Power Question by rohmoohyun at 2/9/2015 8:25:18 AM Free market capitalism has demonstrated that the market controls the economic and hence political agenda. Who and what constitutes the market? What is the market's purpose? Who elected any of the participants in the market? What are the political affiliations of these participants? How wealthy are they? In what way do they express the General Will of the People? Is the market designed to operate in the public good? Do our political leaders have any control over the market? Do they know exactly how the market functions and how it contributes (or not) to the public good? Do they know the identities of all the market participants and their respective agendas? Are they able to inform the People exactly what role the market plays? We all know the answer. Our leaders are clueless. They don't control the market; the market controls them. The market constitutes an unelected, unaccountable, extra-political entity that nevertheless dominates the political space and can bring down presidents, prime ministers and entire national economies. It can provoke global economic crises and yet governments have ZERO control over it. Don't you find that somewhat odd? How can anyone talk of the people being in charge of the political process if the market dictates government policy? Free markets and democracy are INCOMPATIBLE. You cannot have a democracy if you have a market-controlled economy external to the political process and unaccountable to the electorate. Democracy likes to trumpet the fact that you can remove unpopular politicians and governments, implying that you get the government you choose, yet there is no mechanism whatever for removing the controllers of the marketplace, the people who run free market capitalism hence the people who actually run democracy. If you can't remove them then you have no power at all and you are at their mercy. The rich aren't stupid. They gave people democracy because they knew it changed nothing. The market retains all of the real power and THEY are the market. If the rich can't be removed from the market for corruption, greed, the pursuit of naked self-interest and actively acting against the public good then the people have no power. Democracy is a sham. The truth is that the market and its controllers are beyond the reach of the electorate while completely controlling the fate of the electorate. They are outside democracy and yet they run the democratic system. Is that not genius? The legions of dumbed down, manipulated and brainwashed masses who will fight to the death for democracy haven't noticed that their political system is a farce and gives them no power at all. Democracy is simply a disguised plutocracy - rule by the rich - operating via the "sacrosanct", unregulated market where the rich hold all of the cards and the poor have no say.