We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Monday, June 14, 2010

Is there a Global War between Financial Theocracy and Democracy?

from Alternet. 
Senate and House conferees are about to reconcile a financial reform bill that is virtually designed to institutionalize “too big to fail.” And when they do we’ll lose another battle in the ongoing war between global financial markets and democratic nation-states.
Well, I would argue that there has never been real democracy since the ancient Greeks practiced it on a limited basis. There has been a lot of rhetoric about it, but it is mostly a facade behind which the elites rule as always. As an idea it remains a dream which all ordinary people hunger for. It is a dream that is part of a carefully managed program of indoctrination in which citizens are induced to believe that the concept means the holding of elections. Of course, the elites also manage the elections by controlling the candidates that ordinary people to vote for.

Here, in this article, is another example where intellectuals cannot name the system. Here he uses the term "financial theocracy" in place of capitalism. But I like the implication that the system is essentially a religion, a religion which does not tolerate unbelievers. And it has numerous taboos such as naming the system "capitalism". 
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