Leadership has been replaced by “demand and supply”. Laudable and “democratic” as this sounds, true democracy has been rechanneled into creating a “sweet shop society”, where our every want, (not need), is met by business and government.
Both are utilising the marketing doctrine – “find out what people want and give it to them at a profit”, (or political point to maintain power) – without recourse to any ranking in importance of the products or services being provided, and their impact upon our fundamental quality of life - Processed food and personal debt – to name but only two, and without even thinking!
The unrest and violence in other parts of the world comes from those who can see what the West cannot – that we are touting capitalism in the guise of democracy, and the resultant, and some would say decadent secular society created through the financial doctrines used to “manage” people.
Some 500 years ago in the UK “true” power was wrested away from the monarchy by parliament, and now it is being removed once again.
Originally it made good sense to take the power away from a single individual and place it in the hands of elected representatives of the people, thus broadening the application and influence of that power for the greater benefit of all. However we are now beginning to return to this restricted process again as we bow, not to the whims of a single monarch, but the demands of a single doctrine – profit.
Any application of power by a single source is neither democratic nor healthy, by the very nature of the narrowness of the criteria that need to be satisfied – be that human ego, or financial goals.
Life is not about narrow confines, but balances and checks against a broad spectrum of aspects of the human condition, which also have to take into account our ability to cohabit with the natural world – a far mightier force than all the governments and multinationals put together, or anything else we might evolve.
By the very nature of the human condition there will always be abuses of power, and true democracy provides the means with which to manage that abuse through the demand of proper accountability by those exercising the power.
“The will of the people” may sadly be sniggered at in this current environment but there is no other way of effectively managing society. We have tried communism and dictatorship, both of which have failed the test of time.
The advent of Globalisation has heralded in a fundamental change in the way we interact as a species. We can now communicate directly with each other through the internet in a manner never before possible. Perhaps this will have a positive affect upon democracy.
The political and religious boundaries that previously contained our actions and directed what we thought hold less sway, liberating us to a realization that democracy should be more personally empowering than that which wehavepreviouslyexperienced.
We are not just “consumers”, nor are we “profit centre’s”, “units of cost”, “workers”, “punters”, “modules”, “subjects”, “the great unwashed” or any other of the myriad of pigeon holes used to define, target and label us.
Globalisation is offering business untold opportunities for growth, and good luck to them all for seizing those opportunities, that is what they are there to do. However within this environment we are seeing multinationals growing larger and more influential than governments.
This begs a fundamental question for us all – is it now the shareholder who holds the reins in dictating our quality of life? And if it is, we are already aware that it doesn’t work so why pursue it to its painful conclusion?
After all we have seen traditional school text books “edited” to fall in line with corporate policy, and private health fail the very people who need it - because they can’t afford it.
So let’s stay with fundamentals and define what democracy needs to manage.
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