- Capitalism and Alternatives -

'Free Market' Fascism? No Thanks!

Posted by: Barry Stoller on October 21, 1999 at 22:19:28:

In Reply to: Minority rule is just as bad as majority rule. posted by David Sturgeon on October 21, 1999 at 12:03:02:


: The only type of rule I am advocating is the rule of objective law. Minority rule is just as bad as majority rule.

At least you are out in open about disavowing democracy!

Your claim that minority rule is 'just as bad' as majority rule might have some merit if you were proposing consensus. But as a disciple of that supremacist Ayn Rand, it's obvious that you are proposing the medieval idea that aristocrats should rule the masses. And I'm sure an aristocratic minority would have a rule of 'objective law'---the 'law' that they decree 'objective,' that is.

You, sir, are no friend of democracy!

Perhaps you favor Stuart Gort's occult idea of democracy:


Is that the moral position you are taking - that I should turn my company over to the employees in a magnanimous gesture of democratic principle? Fine! They will all get one vote for every $10,000 they invest. I get 12 votes for my $120,000 and another 16 votes for the years I spent researching and developing when I could have made money in my former trade instead.


Which, logically enough, leads to this sort of democracy:


Elizabeth Dole, the first woman to be taken seriously as a candidate for her party's Presidential nomination, dropped out of the race today, saying she could not raise enough cash to compete with the fortune raised by one Republican rival [Bush] and inherited by another [Forbes].(1)


Here is minority rule by the rich!

: Ration education? Since when was using your earned money to buy a service rationing? When you go to the store to buy some milk is it being rationed to you?

As things stand now, everything is rationed to the working class. Do not wages ultimately determine what is purchased? Do not wages ultimately determine what priorities are achievable---and which ones are not? And what determines wages is the labor market---which is controlled (collectively) by the capitalist minority.

Or would you have me believe the befogging mendacity of the 'concept' of 'effective demand'?

: No. You can go live on a self-sustaining farm and not have to trade with the outside world or participate in the global economy.

After I buy that 'self-sustaining farm,' you failed to mention! In order to get the dough for that farm, I will 'only' have submit to the interconnected labor market. Some omission!

: I choose not to enslave anyone. I will not advocate enslavement of the minority by the majority nor vice versa.

As if the 'free market' is really impartial? Who are you trying to fool? Read that headline about Elizabeth Dole again and say that with a straight face.
_______________


Note:
1. New York Times, 21 October 1999, sec. A, p. 1, emphasis added.



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