frankly, what I think we're doing here, is documenting the last gasps of democracy. Updated

[hifiguy]

108. Democracy and neoliberal capitalism are not at all compatible.

Neoliberal capitalism requires the commodification of everything, including information, and accepts no limits on itself. The inevitable tendency of capital to accumulate over time in the hands of a few, discussed at length by Thomas Piketty in his brilliant book Capital In the 21st Century, is a strong opposition force to democratic impulses. That kind of capital will always seek to bend and corrupt the political processes by whatever means it can invent. Viz, the Kochtopus. And it will win unless only saints run for public office, which is hardly a possibility. Neoliberal capitalism cannot abide the existence of any countervailing power structure and will do whatever is necessary to destroy any other agglomeration of power that can resist it.

The problem now is that the neoliberal capitalist project is based on a completely insane foundation - that infinite growth is possible on a finite planet. That is not a philosophy, that is a suicide pact.