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malaise

(267,823 posts)
Tue Dec 6, 2016, 08:31 PM Dec 2016

No country with a McDonalds can remain a democracy -Nice read

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/06/mcdonalds-democracy-corporate-globalisation-trump-le-pen-farage
<snip>
A wave of revulsion rolls around the world. Approval ratings for incumbent leaders are everywhere collapsing. Symbols, slogans and sensation trump facts and nuanced argument. One in six Americans now believe that military rule would be a good idea. From all this I draw the following, peculiar conclusion: no country with a McDonald’s can remain a democracy.

Twenty years ago, the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman proposed his “golden arches theory of conflict prevention”. This holds that “no two countries that both have McDonald’s have ever fought a war against each other since they each got their McDonald’s”.

In using McDonald’s as shorthand for the forces tearing democracy apart, I am, like him, writing figuratively. I do not mean that the presence of the burger chain itself is the cause of the decline of open, democratic societies (though it has played its part in Britain, using our defamation laws against its critics). Nor do I mean that countries hosting McDonald’s will necessarily mutate into dictatorships.

The old forms and forums still exist, but their power seeps away, re-emerging where we can no longer reach it

What I mean is that, under the onslaught of the placeless, transnational capital that McDonald’s exemplifies, democracy as a living system withers and dies. The old forms and forums still exist – parliaments and congresses remain standing – but the power they once contained seeps away, re-emerging where we can no longer reach it.

The political power that should belong to us has flitted into confidential meetings with the lobbyists and donors who establish the limits of debate and action. It has slipped into the diktats of the IMF and the European Central Bank, which respond not to the people but to the financial sector. It has been transported, under armed guard, into the icy fastness of Davos, where Friedman finds so warm a welcome (even when he’s talking cobblers).
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No country with a McDonalds can remain a democracy -Nice read (Original Post) malaise Dec 2016 OP
Thanks for sharing - that's a really interesting read el_bryanto Dec 2016 #1
Same here malaise Dec 2016 #2
LOL...when I was in Australia in 2001 they had a nickname for Mickey D's. roamer65 Dec 2016 #3
People in Barbados simply ignored them until malaise Dec 2016 #5
K&R Solly Mack Dec 2016 #4
But... "Did you know that no country with a McDonald's has ever attacked the US?" discntnt_irny_srcsm Dec 2016 #6

el_bryanto

(11,804 posts)
1. Thanks for sharing - that's a really interesting read
Tue Dec 6, 2016, 08:42 PM
Dec 2016

I don't entirely agree with it but in may points its very compelling.

Bryant

malaise

(267,823 posts)
5. People in Barbados simply ignored them until
Tue Dec 6, 2016, 09:35 PM
Dec 2016

they packed up and left. I never understood it - KFC and Burger King are still there but they do support their fast food giant Cheffette.

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