A little Sunday evening Chomsky

[marmar]

"Personally, I'm in favor of democracy, which means that the central institutions of society have to be under popular control. Now, under capitalism, we can't have democracy by definition. Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions of society are in principle under autocratic control. Thus, a corporation or an industry is, if we were to think of it in political terms, fascist; that is, it has tight control at the top and strict obedience has to be establishedat every level--there's little bargaining, a little give and take,but the line of authority is perfectly straightforward. Just as I'm opposed to political fascism, I'm opposed to economic fascism. I think that until the major institutions of society are under the popular control of participants and communities, it's pointless to talk about democracy."

-- Noam Chomsky

[UndertheOcean]

1. Thank you !

[harun]

2. Nice, looking forward to next Sunday's installment.

[Odin2005]

3. And that is why Capitalism is incompatible with true Democracy.

[OHdem10]

4. Unfettered Capitalism is incompatible with Democracy. Regulated

Capitalism can be made to work within Democracy.
FDR showed us how by putting in laws which even
Democrats have permitted to be dismantled.
(Glass-Steagall, for one).

[inna]

6. Increasing numbers of people don't care for Capitalism, either way -

whether it's "unfettered" or regulated.

[txlibdem]

7. CAN be made to work within Democracy

Just as a mini-USSR can be made to work within a Democracy. The question is... why even bother?

[inna]

5. I've been re-reading Chomsky in the last few months....

It's amazing - back in the 90s, he was identifying and describing all the problems that are manifesting today.

I'd LOVE to know what he thinks of the current situation and what his prognosis is...

[safeinOhio]

8. I think Democracy only works in

a balanced system of free markets and government regulation. Too much of either ends Democracy. Screw all of the zealots.

[Stevepol]

9. Don't forget voting: democracy can't exist using unverified secret vote counting

This is just common sense.

The whole voting system in the US, like everything else in the US nowadays, has been turned over to the private corporations.

This would have seemed unimaginable to Jefferson, Hamilton, et al., and not just because they wouldn't have imagined computers and electronic voting. The whole Constitution was written with the idea of insuring that the will of the people thru their duly elected officials could be expressed.

[Radical Activist]

10. A small step was recently taken in that direction.

We can and should use government to limit corporate power. We can also insert more democratic principles directly into the marketplace. A step toward introducing more decentralized control was part of the recent financial reform law. It will likely give unions a stronger say in how companies are run.

http://www.observer.com/2010/wall-street/sec-expands-shareholder-power-nominate-board-members

If you own stock in a company, you may very well have just gotten a lot more powerful. As expected, the Securities and Exchange Commission today used powers granted to it by the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill to change the rules governing how companies elect their directors, increasing shareholders' power to effect change in coporate boardrooms.