Corporations
The corporate world straddles the domestic and foreign affairs realm. Basically corporations are non-democratic by nature. Their purpose is to make profits and protect owners against financial losses as well as externalized costs such as environmental damage, which includes the poisons of resource extraction, the removal of land from public or indigenous jurisdiction, and the creation of an impoverished workforce.
Much of that profit recently has come from the huge amounts of Quantitative Easing supplied by the U.S. government in liaison with the Federal Reserve (a series of private banks supposedly directing the economy). The stock markets and commodities markets are all manipulated and serve mostly the wealthy who benefit most from the tax cuts, low interest rates, and government subsidies.
Corporations can be simply about business, but as seen above, corporations are also well tied into the security apparatus of the country, from the militarized police forces to laws that generally protect the rights of corporations over the rights of citizens, in particular indigenous citizens. Further, many that appear to be superficially benign are highly involved in the production of equipment and materials for various spy agencies and military agencies. Boeing, Kodak, Intel, General Electric, Amazon, Facebook are all well-known domestic names with strong ties to the military and security apparatus of the U.S. Israeli corporations are highly militarized - as is the state - and its "field-tested" security and military equipment is sold around the world to various other governments acting in a non-democratic manner.
Canada's corporations act decidedly in a non-democratic manner in certain situations apart from the externalized costs. Mining, forestry, and energy companies frequently intrude on indigenous land and retain special rights also to public lands. With the ultimate control of all land based on the "sovereign" as per millennia-old racist laws, governments and corporations operate together against the will of the people.
Foreign affairs - economic
Apart from domestic non-democratic actions, actions taken within or against other countries are frequently non-democratic. It is a combination of military and economic actions that are used to deny the sovereignty of other nations even if many are nominally democratic.
"Free trade" is one of the more obvious non-democratic sets of rules globally. Designed in secret without public input, seldom if ever voted on either by referendum or representatives[1], these agreements are designed to give freedom only to the movement of money and profits. Any impedance to that movement is generally fought not in the courts but in private arbitration structures that abide by the decisions of the theoretical "experts" chosen by aggrieved complainant, usually a large international corporation.
The agreements have nothing "free" for the workers and end up weakening workers' rights. There is nothing "free" for the environment and quite the opposite - pretend losses due to environmental laws are liable to lawsuit compensation against governments. Which adds the point that people are not able to sue governments, in some cases governments cannot sue corporations, yet corporations are "free" to sue governments.
The global financial institutions are not democratic by any definition. Mostly controlled by the U.S. - U.S.- or EU-based international corporations (banksters et al) - democracy is not available to those coming under the dictates of the IMF and World Bank [2], nor the larger constraints of the SWIFT settlement system or the rulings of the global oversight Bank of International Settlements (BIS).
Beyond the manipulations of financial institutions is the use of sanctions. Sanctions can be applied on a positive manner as exemplified by the BDS sanctions that worked to eliminate apartheid in South Africa [3] and are currently being used to support Palestinian rights in occupied Palestine (being all of Israel). Both of these uses developed from grass-roots initiatives, truly democratic actions against oppressive non-democratic regimes.
Using sanctions as an economic/military weapon has become the main method of international relations with the U.S. Arguably better than outright war, they cause enormous suffering mostly to the citizens of the countries they are applied to. What is currently working against them is the indigenous resistance against ceding to the demands of the sanctions. Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Syria are all surviving the sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its allies of the 'west', establishing a resistance to empire supported by other countries with more resources.
Russia to a degree has actually benefited from sanctions as it fortunately has a large resource base and has become a strong agricultural center. It has also divested itself of ties to U.S. debt obligations and on a debt-to-GDP ratio is probably one of the strongest economic countries in the world. Counter to desires, sanctions have also pushed Russia and China much closer geopolitically creating a new multipolar world - that does not necessarily make it all democratic, but does put a preventative in place against U.S. military and economic aggressions.
Foreign Affairs - military
There is not much really needed to say about how military interventions and occupations are anti-democratic. Having one's country destroyed by someone else's military on any pretense simply denies democracy. The supposed "right to protect" mantra used by the U.S. and NATO on several occasions has proven to be a total disaster - which arguably is one of the hoped-for outcomes as these "disasters" are profitable for the corporate/militarized world and ideal to shape a "failed" country that need submit to imperial desires.
The U.S./NATO are the primary guilty party for all kinds of military interventions used to serve the purpose of empire. Yugoslavia/Serbia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia are all current examples of either direct western military interference or subsidized military manipulation. There are many other smaller events occurring globally, directed and supported by U.S. and allied (MI6, Mossad, CSIS) covert services. It is tiring to repeat it, but it is significant - with over 800 military bases around the world in over 125 countries, U.S./NATO/EU foreign policy is mainly determined by illegal military interventions.
The corporate world straddles the domestic and foreign affairs realm. Basically corporations are non-democratic by nature. Their purpose is to make profits and protect owners against financial losses as well as externalized costs such as environmental damage, which includes the poisons of resource extraction, the removal of land from public or indigenous jurisdiction, and the creation of an impoverished workforce.
Much of that profit recently has come from the huge amounts of Quantitative Easing supplied by the U.S. government in liaison with the Federal Reserve (a series of private banks supposedly directing the economy). The stock markets and commodities markets are all manipulated and serve mostly the wealthy who benefit most from the tax cuts, low interest rates, and government subsidies.
Corporations can be simply about business, but as seen above, corporations are also well tied into the security apparatus of the country, from the militarized police forces to laws that generally protect the rights of corporations over the rights of citizens, in particular indigenous citizens. Further, many that appear to be superficially benign are highly involved in the production of equipment and materials for various spy agencies and military agencies. Boeing, Kodak, Intel, General Electric, Amazon, Facebook are all well-known domestic names with strong ties to the military and security apparatus of the U.S. Israeli corporations are highly militarized - as is the state - and its "field-tested" security and military equipment is sold around the world to various other governments acting in a non-democratic manner.
Foreign affairs - economic
Apart from domestic non-democratic actions, actions taken within or against other countries are frequently non-democratic. It is a combination of military and economic actions that are used to deny the sovereignty of other nations even if many are nominally democratic.
"Free trade" is one of the more obvious non-democratic sets of rules globally. Designed in secret without public input, seldom if ever voted on either by referendum or representatives[1], these agreements are designed to give freedom only to the movement of money and profits. Any impedance to that movement is generally fought not in the courts but in private arbitration structures that abide by the decisions of the theoretical "experts" chosen by aggrieved complainant, usually a large international corporation.
The agreements have nothing "free" for the workers and end up weakening workers' rights. There is nothing "free" for the environment and quite the opposite - pretend losses due to environmental laws are liable to lawsuit compensation against governments. Which adds the point that people are not able to sue governments, in some cases governments cannot sue corporations, yet corporations are "free" to sue governments.
The global financial institutions are not democratic by any definition. Mostly controlled by the U.S. - U.S.- or EU-based international corporations (banksters et al) - democracy is not available to those coming under the dictates of the IMF and World Bank [2], nor the larger constraints of the SWIFT settlement system or the rulings of the global oversight Bank of International Settlements (BIS).
Beyond the manipulations of financial institutions is the use of sanctions. Sanctions can be applied on a positive manner as exemplified by the BDS sanctions that worked to eliminate apartheid in South Africa [3] and are currently being used to support Palestinian rights in occupied Palestine (being all of Israel). Both of these uses developed from grass-roots initiatives, truly democratic actions against oppressive non-democratic regimes.
Using sanctions as an economic/military weapon has become the main method of international relations with the U.S. Arguably better than outright war, they cause enormous suffering mostly to the citizens of the countries they are applied to. What is currently working against them is the indigenous resistance against ceding to the demands of the sanctions. Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Syria are all surviving the sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its allies of the 'west', establishing a resistance to empire supported by other countries with more resources.
Russia to a degree has actually benefited from sanctions as it fortunately has a large resource base and has become a strong agricultural center. It has also divested itself of ties to U.S. debt obligations and on a debt-to-GDP ratio is probably one of the strongest economic countries in the world. Counter to desires, sanctions have also pushed Russia and China much closer geopolitically creating a new multipolar world - that does not necessarily make it all democratic, but does put a preventative in place against U.S. military and economic aggressions.
Foreign Affairs - military
There is not much really needed to say about how military interventions and occupations are anti-democratic. Having one's country destroyed by someone else's military on any pretense simply denies democracy. The supposed "right to protect" mantra used by the U.S. and NATO on several occasions has proven to be a total disaster - which arguably is one of the hoped-for outcomes as these "disasters" are profitable for the corporate/militarized world and ideal to shape a "failed" country that need submit to imperial desires.
The U.S./NATO are the primary guilty party for all kinds of military interventions used to serve the purpose of empire. Yugoslavia/Serbia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia are all current examples of either direct western military interference or subsidized military manipulation. There are many other smaller events occurring globally, directed and supported by U.S. and allied (MI6, Mossad, CSIS) covert services. It is tiring to repeat it, but it is significant - with over 800 military bases around the world in over 125 countries, U.S./NATO/EU foreign policy is mainly determined by illegal military interventions.
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