: This general idea can be played out against MOST of the problems we have. The thing about a capitalist society is the fact that the people, not the government, make the choices.This last sentence presents a logical dilemma. What distinguishes "the people" from "the government"? Is not the government made up of people? If the government is not made of people, then what is the government? Is the government nonhuman?
In my discussion within this Debating Room, I would like to avoid any facile dodging of this matter of how "the people" make choices. I haven't seen any comprehensive proof of the idea of representation, or more specifically the idea that our government representatives actually represent us.
I know there's this common way of talking about the government as "them," but doesn't this label overlook the notion that "we" were given the opportunity to vote for "them," or for "someone else"? So when "they" make choices, isn't that really as a byproduct of "our" CHOICE to put "them" in office?
The other question is one of how "the people make choices." In a capitalist society, choices are made according to a money system, and the ins and outs of the money system need to be discussed in some detail here. "The laws of supply and demand" are a set of choices -- some people choose to regulate the supply of any particular commodity, and other people desire and demand it, and you have a struggle between those two sets of people to move the PRICE of the commodity up or down. So there isn't just one "the people" there, there are buyers and sellers.
The idea of "economic democracy," i.e. "one dollar, one vote," comes into question in terms of it is "the people mak(ing) choices." If the super-rich have so many more dollars than you or I, don't they make the great majority of the choices?
And then, of course, there are other ways in which "the people make choices." What about the initiative system? What about decentralized decisionmaking, where smaller amounts of power are distributed among more people? What about consensus democracy, where everyone must agree for there to be a decision? What about democracy with proportional representation, where a wider variety of interests are expressed in "government" than in democracy under a "two-party system"? What about power-struggles, where different groups fight for the claim to represent "the people"?
In short, "how the people make choices" is a rich topic, not reducible to the word "capitalism."
None.
