Excellent piece.
It seems to me that finding the most accurate set of parameters to evaluate the degree of “wellness” in a particular society remains the most crucial, and the most elusive, element in trying to strive for an ideal, fair society. Do you have any thoughts on what such a set of parameters would look like? would it be mostly be about economics/affluence?

The logic of this article is a typical instance of technocracy. Technocracy is a logical consequence of the view that certain positions, as defined by experts, are uncontentiously right. It ignores two problems: the social construction of knowledge, and the self-interest of experts. Both becomes very clear if one reads, for instance, Bourdieu on science. Both are rendered vague if one believes the kind of simplifying cookie-cutting which is accepted in neoclassical economics. Neoclassical economics is basically a theological discourse – it takes a certain view of human nature and of the relationship between people and the world (people are rational actors, the world is a set of resources to be extracted) and tries to impose this view everywhere. It leads, of course, to distrust of any kind of contestation that problematises the primacy of this view over others. Well, if, as a theologian, one believes one’s chosen universal comprehensive doctrine to be absolute, then of course everything else should be a means to an end.

In terms of the empirical claim, it’s long been argued in the institutionalist literature (e.g. Barrington Moore) that societies making a transition to large-scale industrial capitalism tend to be undemocratic. The reason for this is that capitalism rests on accumulation-by-dispossession in its earliest phases, to grab enough resources to sink capital into expensive projects. This doesn’t mean dictatorships outperform democracies in general. Dictatorships have big problems maturing into consumer societies, and face high management (repression) and corruption costs. On the other hand, democracies are usually assumed to have lower management costs but higher legitimation costs, i.e. they have to give people rights and/or welfare and/or guarantee high incomes to succeed.

“Regardless of one’s views of the good life, it is difficult to deny that at very low levels of income what is most valuable is more income”
– This is not actually true, for a number of reasons. Measures of monetary value are ultimately arbitrary, expressing the reduction of diverse forms of labour and diverse produced goods with different uses to a single monetary standard. In addition, a lot of effects – in economic terms, “externalities” – are left out of the calculations of what counts as value. And a lot of rather destructive things are included. Causing an oil spill or an epidemic, then spending millions cleaning or treating it, counts as being “richer” than someone who didn’t have the oil spill or epidemic to begin with. In effect, people can be forced into dependencies and it counts as being “richer”. Costs to subsistence economies tend not to be included – if a rural area is dammed for development, the land lost might count as a loss, but the subsistence uses of the land, such as for collecting herbs or hunting wildlife, are not counted as losses. In effect, resources can be redistributed from subsistence to commodified sectors and it counts as enrichment, even if far more is lost than gained. At very low levels of cash income, it is likely that a large proportion of one’s social and economic needs are being met by means other than cash income (e.g. food from subsistence production, homes from self-building or squatting or free state provision, welfare security from the community or family or state), so the effects of processes which raise cash income on these other processes are crucial. In any case, raising per capita GDP does not actually translate into raising individual cash income of the poorest, as average figures do not take account of distribution. Much of China’s GDP boom has gone to the elite and the urban middle-class, and very little has reached the poor. In fact, the poor may well be getting poorer, when land grabs, privatisation and pollution are taken into account.

Capitalist/consumerist ideology is pervasive as a fantasy because it is very widely propagated, though it would not in fact be possible to generalise the western consumerist way of life – itself subsidised by hyperexploitation and ecological destruction elsewhere – to the entire world. The fantasy is thus seductive: of course nearly everyone would rather be a slave-owner than a slave, it doesn’t mean that everybody can be, or that it is just for them to be. It is also the case that people wrongly imagine that being rich will make them a lot happier than they are (actually people in Ireland are happier than people in Britain, despite people in Britain being many times richer). In any case, it is common for poor people, when asked in surveys, to attach greater value to other values (e.g. family, community, subsistence security, dignity) over getting rich (see e.g. the World Bank Voices of the Poor report). The documentary “Paradise with Side Effects” shows how the western way of life becomes less attractive to marginal rural people when it is shown “warts and all” rather than through propaganda.

The same strategy was used in Europe after World War 2, when capitalism flooded Europe with images of a consumer utopia, in an attempt to undermine the power of the communist utopian vision. The point being that, the moment Europe achieved this utopia, it ceased to be utopian. No sooner was it achieved than it passed over into France 1968, autonomia/autonomen, etc. It’s a powerful fantasy but it doesn’t provide a satisfying way of life. One of the problems is that it is packaged in the fantasy as satisfying a whole range of needs and desires which it can’t actually satisfy. Another is that it was packaged as being realised along with all the goods which already existed – the loss of certain existing goods was only realised later, and is the underlying force behind many of the later problems (notice in rightist hysteria the recurring tropes of lost community, out-of-control crime, atomised and anomic people, a past golden age where people lived more simply but more happily… all ideological figures, but covering the traumatic effects of real changes – the loss of unenclosed spaces).

Now, capitalism deploys this strategy to turn poor countries against one another in a race to the bottom (notice that this strategy, beginning with offerings of opening up western markets, was timed precisely in response to the OPEC crisis and demands for a new international economic order, through which a Southern bloc was being constructed). With poor countries divided and ruled, many have become poorer. China has done well because it conformed to what global capital was demanding at a certain moment: low wages. Capitalist outcomes are produced by actors who reward acts which conform to their beliefs. These are wrongly reified as objective processes in the way they’re portrayed, thus locking-in the power of the ruling-class. As Zizek puts it: because a father threatens a spanking, and then when the child disobeys s/he actually gets a spanking, does not mean that the father’s prohibition has any kind of objective status. Actually capital wanted low wages at this point because of its “flight from insubordination” as Holloway terms it. For an account of wage struggles in China as a force in the world economy, see:
http://www.midnightnotes.org/Promissory%20Notes.pdf
My main point here is: conforming to what an agent who has unjust power wants is often a way to get rewarded by this agent, but is rarely an ethical way to act. If the power of global capital was broken, the poor would be richer still, or at least would not be dispossessed so frequently.

There are questions over the sustainability of China’s economic strategy, on a number of grounds. Firstly, low-wage production for export depends on the existence of high-wage consumption markets for exports elsewhere, which in turn depends on high wages which tend to be depressed by low-wage production. Secondly, in order to produce lasting gains of increased income for the majority, China’s boom would have to be transferred to the majority through wage increases – thereby destroying the comparative advantage on which it is based. Thirdly, low-wage economies such as China’s are produced by cutting ecological, human-rights and labour corners in ways which render the model unsustainable. To take an obvious case, the existence of migrant-labour systems depends on the survival of a healthy subsistence economy which subsidises the capitalist economy by meeting its subsistence costs, but the impacts of large-scale industrial production tends to destroy the basis for the subsistence economy. China is also walking a tightrope with population movement: once mass dispossession in the countryside kicks off, China will undergo the phenomenon of mass urban poverty and slums which so far it has avoided, and will lose the stability which is another crucial component of its attractiveness for sweatshops.

I would add that the differences between India and China are much bigger than this author allows. It isn’t just the electoral system. In China, huge numbers are executed every year. In India, executions are rare, though there is a problem with police extrajudicial murders. I’m not sure of the numbers but it’s nothing like the scale in China. Protests and strikes are usually legal in India, and militant protests and blockades are quite common. In China, independent unions are banned, protests are nearly always illegal, and regular resistance to land grabs and abuse is met with massive force (though also concessions). Adivasis and other minorities have more protection in India than in China. Compare how something like Three Gorges just got steamrollered through in China, whereas in India, Tata were defeated and Narmada Dam and Posco are facing a lot of resistance. There’s a lot of problems in India – some of the restive border regions are subjected to police-state regimes, the development apparatus is out of control, and the far-right BJP has inculcated a ‘national security’ orientation which is threatening to human rights. But India isn’t a human rights black hole like China is. This said, I could name a few countries which are (supposedly) democracies but also human rights black holes (Colombia, Israel, Zimbabwe, Turkey, Sri Lanka… and maybe certain countries closer to home). This is usually because of other problems with democracy which aren’t mentioned here, i.e. they generally involve massive abuse against unpopular minorities or disenfranchised groups. This is the same problem that arises in the various abuses in India.

Thanks for your extensive response Andy. I have these clarifications to make.

On neoclassical economics: these are a set of assumptions that simplify otherwise intractable problems. The assumption of rationality is simply that: a simplifying assumption. There are ideologies that use the conclusions of neoclassical analysis to advance their arguments, but the two are not synonymous.

I agree with you that dictatorships do not outperform democracies in general.

Your objections to ‘it is difficult to deny that at very low levels of income what is most valuable is more income’ are on accounting grounds. Despite the point you raise about the welfare of the rural poor being sustained by non-monetary sources, that more income is desirable remains true. The distribution of income gains is important, however in the case of China, according to the United Nations’ millennium development audit about 500 million Chinese earning below $1 have seen their real incomes rise (perhaps not as much as the urban rich but this is besides the point).

I must admit I was also party to this misconception but in fact Ireland’s per capita income is about $5,000 more than that of the UK. Studies on the relationship between income and happiness regularly show that happiness increases sharpest at low levels of income.

OK, so the Ireland thing is out of date, it comes from about 15 years ago when Ireland was one of the poorest countries in Europe.

“Your objections… are on accounting grounds. Despite the point you raise about the welfare of the rural poor being sustained by non-monetary sources, that more income is desirable remains true” – I think they also relate to what can and can’t be counted. Many of the things most vital to the welfare of the rural poor, such as security of land tenure, soil quality, abundance of ‘free’ natural resources (herbs, water, wildlife) and availability of kinship/village welfare ‘insurance’, are impossible to quantify as monetary values and often quite difficult to even measure at all. Now, it may well be true that a rural person would prefer greater monetary income + the same nonmonetary welfare over less monetary income + the same nonmonetary welfare; and would prefer greater monetary income + degraded nonmonetary welfare over less monetary income + degraded nonmonetary welfare (though I’ve come across a few countercases where the rural poor don’t seem to want greater monetary income at all). But the important question is whether the rural poor would (or even should) prefer greater monetary income + degraded nonmonetary welfare over less monetary income + the same/greater nonmonetary welfare. And there are a number of issues involved in the calculation: not only the fact that in the first case the poor may lose more in nonmonetary welfare than they gain in welfare from monetary income, but also the impact of risk calculations (stable customary land tenure and kinship-based welfare provides greater stability than dependence on rapidly moving cash-based labour demands), of nonmonetary ethical values (e.g. the preservation of existing forms of community), and of long-term power-effects of swapping means of production (land, social networks, tools) for waged income. It’s not a calculation, it’s a comparison of incommensurables.

“these are a set of assumptions that simplify otherwise intractable problems” – of course, and this is why I don’t agree with neoclassical economics – I think it simplifies most of the things which matter in life out of the theoretical frame, and makes judgements which, while rational if all but a few things are bracketed, become reductive and simplifying impositions when they are applied to the real social world in all its complexity. There’s an old Cree saying: “only when the last fish has been eaten, the last tree felled and the last river poisoned will we realise that we cannot eat money”. Worth remembering in light of the Three Gorges Dam, the wave of extinctions in China (white-handed gibbons, river dolphins, finless porpoises…) and the recurring rural struggles around land pollution.

Ultimately we all choose (or are fated to) our own path, our own way of being, and trying to reduce us to interchangeable units does a terrible violence to the real density and complexity of social life. To bring this back to the question of democracy: a lot of these other things which have been bracketed out by the technocrats, return as matters of contestation in the political process (in India for instance, they return as demands for equality by marginal groups, as the defence of subsistence farming, as concerns about food sovereignty, as issues of cultural preservation and so on). It only seems irrational if the initial decision to reduce reality to a few aspects is accepted. It might be called a “return of the Real” in the Lacanian sense – economics has repressed awareness of large fields of social reality, and these return as irruptions. They return as irruptions in China too, but the irruptions are even less managed than in India – the perennial Xinjiang and Tibet revolts, the periodic rural and migrant-worker uprisings, the spread of ‘irrational’ movements such as Falun Gong. (My own objection to democracy is actually from the opposite angle: it makes it too easy for majorities to override particularities).

As to how to do ‘rational’ research without these simplifications – there’s a wide range of qualitative, ethnographic and participatory methodologies available, which get inside the concrete questions of what local people value and why, what has meaning for particular people and why. It’s a longer way around than the reductionist shortcut of quantification, but it’s ultimately more helpful

Thanks for the flattery Hicham. The question you pose is a momentous one. I would hate to pretend that I know how to answer it but i’ll entertain you with an attempt: before one could start addressing it, you would have to define ‘wellness’ and this is highly contentious. Each has their own idea of the good life and I think this is where affluence has to come in. Ideally, you would want everyone to be sufficiently wealthy in order for them to pursue happiness to their own satisfaction. Because this borders on the impossible, trade-offs have to be made. Different societies will then choose to sacrifice different things (in the US, equality is sacrificed; in Singapore, political freedoms are sacrificed etc.). However, a certain level of economic security would be paramount in any package. Here you will find a much better attempt than my own: http://www.stiglitz-sen-fitoussi.fr/en/index.htm.

Thanks again for your comment Andy. The question of whether or not ‘…the rural poor would (or even should) prefer greater monetary income + degraded nonmonetary welfare over less monetary income + the same/greater nonmonetary welfare’ is ultimately a question about means. The end in this case is a certain quality of life or standard of living. In my opinion the means are irrelevant. Whether through monetary income or social institutions, i believe that what should be judged is the resulting quality of life. Raising incomes is simply an easier way than constructing social institutions that achieve the same end. I would also like to point out that higher incomes do not alter preferences. If, for example, a particular group of people valued their local environment, their growing richer does not affect that preference. It only makes them more capable of acting on it.

Now, my next point is unrelated to the article but is related to the issue you address in the first paragraph of your second comment. I’m of the opinion that social institutions such as kinship networks are simply a means to an end. The end being insurance against adverse shocks. In rural societies, these shocks are more frequent (rains failing, an outbreak of pests etc.) and more severe hence these institutions are more important. In developed societies however, where individuals are more self-sufficient and have other means of insuring against similar shocks, kinship networks are less important. So I don’t see them as necessarily desirable – if what they’re meant to furnish can be provided by other means then I would not mourn their disappearance. This is my view and you’re welcome to disagree with it.

On your distaste for neo-classical economics: I think that it is a powerful set of tools capable of illuminating many issues. However, the conclusions that studies reach are dependent on the underlying assumptions. When interpreting these conclusions therefore it is wise to be mindful of these assumptions. Blindly applying the prescriptions of any model is unlikely to prove successful. I agree that other methodologies of research are important. The most recent Nobel prize in economics went to an academic whose main innovation was the introduction of qualitative analysis into the economics literature. But in the same way that these methodologies uncover some aspects of an issue, quantitative analysis also sheds light on some of its facets. A holistic approach is therefore best. This is onerous and hence rarely done.

Considering the statement
while Singapore is still under the control of a non-democratic regime with citizens enjoying high levels of income.

I would suggest you actually come to Singapore and see who really has the high levels of income . If you do your homework and not listen to government propoganda you will see from the Gini Index the real state of things .
And where does its so called success come from , well cheap foreign labour , no minimum wage or max working hours , little respect for ecology , no freedom of speech or expression , misuse of the legal system , and a very laxists approach to the financial system and money stored there ,
I have yet to find a good example of governance in SE Asia , most are authoritarian governments , run my political families or clans , this is no alternative to democracy .
And as far as democracy goes in Europe , have a real look at the EU commission and the commissioners , this is no longer a democratic system as the commissioners are not elected and have more power than the parliament and MP’s. But at least we have the right to oppose the system and make noise .
Asia does not respect its populations or believe that they run the country for the citizens , only for their own well being . Also local government in Asia is in a mess , inefficient , corrupt , and basically run by local mafia . Most SE Asian countries have authoritarian regimes , and in the case of Malaysia a racist government with a racist constitution . India as well , its is racist , and toally disorganised , and one of the worlds biggest polluters.

I think Democracy in the West has to change and improve , Asia has yet to become even slightly democratic .

Well, I am from Singapore, just finished watching a nice world war 2 show on my 40 inch Samsung flatscreen TV, now happily sitting in my study in front of my US$2,000 laptop in my airconditioned room (man, it’s hot in Singapore!) reading this, and then considering going to play a game before going to sleep.

My biggest thoughts through the weekend is where to go and have good food, and what to my my wife for valentine’s day tomorrow. Should it be a Miu Miu wallet, or Ferragamo shoes. all these after I came back from my cousin’s condo for a nice dinner and get together. And I am just an average singaporean, certainly not a rich man!

Sure, many people think we are less democratic than Philippines, or India, or East Europe, but looking at the standard of life my countrymen are enjoying, who cares about that!

Ask any Singaporean if they would rather be Filipino or Indian or East European, and I’d be interested to hear the response.

Cheers!

Real democracy is still an unattainable ideal, and even then, there is no system in the world as a basis, rule or sense of comparison for evaluation of full and genuine democracy, and neither can exist, because we have to get on their essence and see who benefits. For the ancient Greek aristocracy existed broader “democracy”, but for the slaves, the oppressed, the downtrodden, the destitute, the disenfranchised and excluded (which were the absolute majority), democracy was only an empty word.
The political organization, or government of the people, by the people and for the people, which is founded on popular sovereignty, and the balanced distribution of power, that to strengthen the process of democracy, has to act on a continuous and diligent in order to achieve an outcome that benefits or take into account the real interests of the majority. And again, can not be safeguarded in the first place, preserving, securing or guaranteeing all costs the political domain of a privileged minority.
And besides, the political organization of all the people can not endure as a regime unsympathetic to the evolution of social institutions, and neither must serve as the fulcrum for the salvation of the political regime hostile political and social innovations, which does not is committed to the changes that aspire to the improvements or renovations to receiving the absolute majority of the population.
The political organization, or government of the people, by the people and for the people, can not only serve as a ruse, or relied on by the choice of ordinary elections venal and deceitful agents representing professional sly with that jockey would read, and that nothing to express concern or to protect the interests of the majority.
The doctrine or political regime founded on the principles of popular sovereignty and equitable distribution of power can not only serve as a hoax, justifying unfair lawsuits that assert the political domination of the interests of the institutions that defend the economic structure that favors the lesser part of society , Which uses economic power to effect or hyping their professional representatives venal agents sly cronies and populist.
The political organization of all the people or government of the people, by the people and for the people, must always work to defend the real interests of the majority of the population, aiming to perform a sensible application of rational activity in the production of material goods and spiritual, so that the absolute majority to win or achieve the necessary benefits and opportunities they need.
And yet, the thieves and untrustworthy agents representing professional sly carrying politically stimulating the popular passions in pursuit of personal political advantage, or who cling to the traditions and reject all kinds of political and social innovations, and who are always misleading to pretend to an absolute majority with false pieties and fraudulent collusion, collusion and bargaining, policies or attitudes that are to make promises of wonderful achievements, creating a situation of expectation and hope for evading the majority of people.
The absolute majority, made up of people of modest circumstances with few resources and only the living stipend of his work, so the same way as all other subjugated, exploited, oppressed, destitute, deprived and excluded people – to strengthen the process democracy for the majority of people, or gain political power in conjunction with his real and true representatives unselfish, affectionate, renewals political, moral or social, must constantly raged against those who are striving to conserve the current political and social status.
And to gain the essential benefits they need, the absolute majority of popular power has to avoid that the system of exploitation and economic power, which serves the interests of the privileged minority, fail to induce the masses to error when powerful tricks to dominate and oppress the poor.
And further, the absolute majority it has to be organized, informed and knowledgeable, to strengthen the democratic process, and have the power or the right to decide and act for the conquest of political power.
And, likewise, never leaving or staying believing everything in the hands of attorneys representing professional madrasas corrupt demagogues, opportunists and swindlers, the hostile political and social innovations, which use the sorrelfa or any other expedient, just to achieve promotions and rewards Personal tricking or deceiving and controlling the life of an absolute majority, without even providing services designed to deliver improvements in social conditions to really change the lives of those less fortunate.
The absolute majority must always realize the importance in participating in public affairs and social skills, constantly striving to achieve goals, objectives and opportunities for the reason that, the value is actually the means of achieving a dignified human existence with better quality of life.
And therefore the majority should not be resigned to live the suffering and death for the owners of the food situation, ie, accepting everything that a machine designed to keep the field of minority bourgeois be determined in time, or when the privileges of the powerful feel threatened, will serve up every time the army, the “justice” of arrests and the organs of repression in order to stay in power at any cost, shifting to subjugate the majority, or leave it far , submissive and away from the direction and management of public affairs and social issues.
All nations of the free world must find its own form of expression, to win their own freedom and blaze his own path. The people are sovereign to decide their own destiny and build the process of democracy and freedom in accordance with its ideals of development, or social, cultural, political and economic.
And, at any time, the nations of the free world, should allow interference in its internal affairs by any force or imperial power.
The people of each country has every right to fight for its social and national liberation, and choose the best path of development.
All nations must be free, sovereign and independent of any imperialist interference, to design and build the process of democracy and freedom, as their ideals of development or social, cultural, political and economic, claim always to ensure the sovereignty and independence national.
Therefore, the will of an absolute majority of people in change and to defend an ideal that meets the interests or wishes of the majority of the population, can also constitute itself as a process of freedom and democracy when it happens, when tens of million people come to the conclusion that one can not keep living like this and thus chose the path of social revolution for national liberation.
The processes of democracy are diverse and reflect the political, social and cultural development of each nation. Democracies are based on fundamental principles and practices not in uniform because there is no real model, perfect shape, or full copy of Democracy in the world, and there is no single model that fits all regions and all countries.
The system by which governs the self-centered, arrogant, extremist imperial regime of the United States of America, which to judge the champion of “democracy” for example, is nothing but a tyrannical power of the bourgeoisie and monopoly capital. Since, in the organization of American political power, all powers are united in the hands of the ruling class, which does not allow any threat to its rule, and that can not be contradicted, criticized or have organized opposition unfavorable prerogatives, ideals or bourgeois principles, for the capital and the interests of the bourgeoisie in the first place and has to be defended at any cost.
And, as a result, the U.S. imperial tyrannical regime, is always compressed in the narrow confines of the farm, and therefore always remains in essence a scheme for the minority bourgeois exploiter, uniquely for the propertied classes, only for the rich.
All noisy propaganda of “Democracy” in the United States of America, is but a thin layer, behind which it becomes increasingly difficult not to hide or disguise the big bourgeoisie and the dictatorship of monopoly capital.
Therefore, the disastrous U.S. imperial regime, is the exercise of a privileged minority and owner on the exploited majority, indigent, destitute and excluded. It is therefore the dominant minority bourgeois class dictatorship that exercises to strengthen, maintain or strengthen their positions.
The covert political regime and illusory national-imperialist “democratic” United States of America, is nothing but a circus, a sham, a fraud, a charade, a make-believe with marked cards, just to say it and deluding deals with “democracy” for the majority.
Therefore, the functions of political institutions of democracy “is to ensure the bourgeois class rule (dictatorship) of the bourgeoisie and their privileges.
The greedy imperial regime of the USA, is a form of nationalist government in which all powers to amass in the hands of groups linked to parties representing the interests of the bourgeoisie.
Therefore, the United States of America, only two major parties of the bourgeoisie alternate in power for decades and, in that consensus, cheat and deceive the majority, when representing and defending the interests of capital and social layer that holds privileges.
The Democratic and Republican parties are colluding with the commitments it has privileged minority, that is, each is supported by limited groups of the bourgeoisie and monopoly capital, which seek only to enrich and serve its own interests.
The two parties do not add anything to the majority, and even disguise the existence of simulating the position of ideological opposition to one another. But the essence is ever the same, ie in a broader sense, the bourgeoisie is always in charge, controlling or conducting quiet power with any form of administration (with its two or more parties similar) and, without objection on his dictatorship.
And the sight of this, both parties are representatives of the ruling class, and whose difference does not go much beyond the name. And this does not mean that the absolute majority of the people, or just want to just merely the existence of these two parties.
In the U.S., the Democratic and Republican parties are colluding, that consensus, deceive voters always delegate the representatives of the bourgeoisie and the Great Monopoly Capital: the power to decide all the time laws in favor of the ruling class. And, under these conditions the key positions in the organs of power in the world of capital, are always occupied by representatives of the bourgeoisie.
By the way, both parties have large space on the media in the Media and Advertising Agencies, which represents a powerful means of ideological influence and be exactly those which are under the domination of the ruling class that, while being privileged minority, however it is all powerful.
Voters are induced to error effectively, to think that deciding for either of the two parties will be changes, but nothing changes and the nature is always immutable.
Before that, no different character oppressive, hostile, aggressive and expansionist policy of obsessive imperial U.S., and, just to observe the way the nefarious American Empire, leads a negotiation in which gangster do diplomacy, in which bluff, bully Threaten and lie to the international community.
Well, it’s like changing six per half dozen, as in the U.S., the two parties deceive the masses, and contribute greatly to reduce the influence of other parties and thus help to keep people trapped in bourgeois ideology.
It is true that there are other parties in the U.S., but that does not have a chance to compete with the economic power of these two parties of the bourgeoisie, in addition, U.S. law hinders maximum participation of other parties in elections inventing numerous subterfuges and legal obstacles, including for example, the need to collect thousands of signatures in a very short time held in the presence of witnesses and recorded notoriously obtaining licenses for the collectors of signatures, etc. And even if the other parties manage to overcome all barriers, electoral commissions often deprive us of the possibility of participating in elections under the pretext of the signatures were illegible or any other pretext invented.
Manipulation of consciousness of the population applies widely in the U.S., in order that the people always elect politicians who represent the interests of the bourgeoisie and monopoly capital – at all times to decide the laws to favor the privileged ruling class of income .
And, to manipulate the consciousness of the masses, the bourgeois propaganda extensively uses a special political language, which distorts and obscures the real meaning of events.
The pretense of legislating projects or social and political reforms, but mainly in order to safeguard, preserve, ensure and guarantee the power at any cost, or policy area the privileged minority, or the interests of the wealthy class of society – the venal, mendacious and wicked political representatives as elected representatives of the bourgeoisie, hinder, or always get the achievements by the people, which is benefiting the vast majority of the population.
And this cunning scheme of deceptions, the word “democracy” is just a slogan used by the bourgeoisie to keep themselves in power, or achieve goals and objectives, tricking or deceiving the vast majority of the people.
Though only palliative make concessions to the popular masses, or even political maneuvers, face the danger of revolutionary crisis, or even argue that the people live in a society whose “democracy” reflects the will and interests of the majority, the which all have opportunities to achieve goals and objectives, without prejudice or distinction, and where everyone can reach.
In the U.S. the “freedom of speech and expression” and the exercise of rights of association and assembly, including participation in nongovernmental organizations and unions, yet remain; since, are not affecting the interests of the bourgeoisie and monopoly capital; but at any time when the authorities that constitute the bourgeois political organization, consider that the interests of the bourgeoisie and capital are being undermined by public acts and collective feelings and opinions taken by the exploited, oppressed, destitute, deprived and excluded – then these events will be considered “illegal ” and “abusive” and can be prevented, prosecuted, scattered or repressed by the police. Therefore, the bourgeoisie when it feels uncomfortable, always uses the state machinery for compelling the social repression of his opponents.
The insidious and brazen with its political bourgeoisie; safeguards are always defending their interests by making private use of the strategy to muster the people who labor, and living on modest means, or who are deprived and needs, bringing up against each other, aiming thereby disjungir and weaken the unit. And thus forcing those who work conformed to accept the lives they lead, because the bourgeoisie inzoneira places society against all dismissed that claim and fight for improvements in their lives; with invective by saying that the workers with their claims or diligent Hamper the work of the whole society.
Democracies understand that one of its main functions is to protect basic human rights such as freedom of expression, the right to equal legal protection, and the opportunity to organize and participate fully in political, economic and cultural society.
The U.S. imperialists who think themselves the “guardians ” of human rights, legalize torture, invade and destroy sovereign nations; finance bizarre attacks using weapons of more advanced weapons technologies, which sacrifice themselves to lives of thousands of people.
Moreover, the imperialists devastate entire countries, playing their populations in poverty by promoting bloody occupation and destruction. Similarly, establishing puppet dictatorships that murdered hundreds of thousands of men, women and innocent children, besides the economic and social devastation, and all this simply to satisfy the interests of monopoly capital.
“Democracy is for the American empire, as the U.S. rule, dictate the rules, and subjugate the people undergoing the condition and position of servitude, exploitation, passivity, dependence, obedience, submission, subservience and control, but when people surged and try to put themselves or to oppose against the interference, greed, domination, tyranny or will U.S. interests – then this will be considered a dictatorship to the U.S. Empire. ”
People who really yearn to be free, sovereign and independent, and for this, come join a consistent way to build the development of democratic processes, as their social, cultural, political, economics, and thus advocate to not be in hands, knees, submissive, obedient, subservient, under control, or serving the interests and purposes of American imperialism.
And so, failing to pray in the booklet of the United States of America, these people are persecuted, and their free and fair elections are considered by the empire of illegal or fraudulent, because the U.S. imperialists will only accept elections regimes harmless, helpless, puppets Subservient, supportive and minions of the Empire. Moreover, the government elected by those free peoples who do not accept being subject to the whims of the United States of America, are always labeled or buffeted of totalitarian tyranny, dictatorship and its enemies.
The Imperious oppressive regime of the U.S., which always argues with the international community, to make economic sanctions, embargoes or restrictive measures designed to obstruct the commerce and communications of free nations, sovereign and independent, contrary to policy of imperial expansion and domination.
And, with these measures, the catchy, powerful, arrogant, dangerous, brutal and threatening U.S. empire, which is considered above the law, aimed mainly harm the economy of the free territories, so that thereby makes them power and thus , and overthrow it impossible to execute or further the development with freedom, independence and sovereignty of free nations, which positions the foundling’s imperial domination and tyranny of the U.S..
The Americans who consider themselves the masters of power and status, scholars haughty, superior and better than the whole human race – with its system of government founded on the power of unbridled domination, and with provocative stance, the empire install military bases all regions of the world to prevail or show of force to intimidate and threaten the free world, with military exercises constant and large scale.
For the imperialists try to evade all forms of human nature, by placing the truth upside down, when they present themselves as champions of “freedom” and “Democracy”; even make use of these principles with dogged cavil that are unique real “representatives” or “defenders” of those ideals.
However, all this is pure trickery in an attempt to justify, convince or impress the mind of the international community, that the interventions that are fair in free countries, sovereign and independent, which are repugnant to subject themselves, or to submit to imperial domination .
And, as a result, these free countries, struggling incessantly against imperial aggression and oppression, not to their knees, passive, mild, submissive, quiet, behaved, obedient, under the command, control, or absolute dominion of the empire.
The U.S. imperialists, with its expansion, influence, or even territorial domination, cultural and economic world, with use audacity, cunning and strategy of domination, the two magic words that are considered key, or “Freedom”and “Democracy, ” which are used with subtlety just sophistry to conceal their real purposes of possession of the free world.
However, contrary to enunciate on “Freedom”and “Democracy,” and National farsistas the U.S. imperialists, intent on keeping the free world under the domination, control and authority.
And for that, so cunning plot on the pretense to deceive or mislead the people, by making use of maneuvers using violence or harm perpetrated; aiming to deprive the people free, sovereign and independent, the use of treachery or hypocritical that the causes that are just defend and fight for “Freedom”and “Democracy.”
The U.S. empire, with purpose to intimidate the masses and take the reins at the internal politics of nations free, sovereign and independent; maintain a policy of oppression to achieve their goal of dominating the free world.
And for that, as a truism perspicuity of his intentions, the empire installs and maintains military bases on every continent and, likewise, promote invasion to overthrow legitimate governments of nations free, sovereign and independent, opposing the policy of expansion and domination Imperial.
And the villain in this manner with its policy rapacious empire, is spreading hostility extorting concessions through the use of threat of weapons and brute force, raw materials and other assets they need.
For that, rule genocides around the world free, free nations into debt, buy their politicians and governments puppets, marionettes also support states to undertake destabilizing policies, regional discord and misunderstanding or subversive acts violent and intimidating, the service system of the insidious U.S. Imperial.
The all powerful and wealthy U.S. Empire, packaging for the masses and dominate the free world, use it as a strategy to bypass, the constant application of the words that are pleasing and are a decisive element, or “Freedom” and “Democracy”; for thus deceiving and trying to justify to the international community, that the acts of aggression and domination that perform throughout the free world, are sublime and fair, and thus falsely claiming that they are the real defenders of these ideals.
However, when the nation really decide or act according to its own determinations, aspiring to be free, sovereign and independent, organizing the development of democratic processes, depending on their realities, social, cultural, political, economics, and thus contrary to the interests of USA; immediately comes to hostile reaction of the empire.
And conflict with U.S. interests, so ready, comes from the U.S. empire, open treatment, hostile and unfair, animosity inflicted with the free nations – disappeared in this way, the much vaunted and touted extensively words “Liberty” and “Democracy “who hypocritically used by the empire as a strategy, the masses of people to undergo a terrible brainwashed, mesmerized and conditioned to believe or accept the U.S.; by mistake and so false, as the sole, legitimate, true real or “representative”and”defender” of these ideals.
But the truth always appears, ie the real and true intentions of the Almighty, menacing, possessive, brutal, aggressive, arrogant and terrorist American empire, take by storm the world are free to impose their designs with violence through brute force, with total and absolute disregard the resolutions of the international community, when they take out invasive interventions in areas free, sovereign and independent, thus violating the human rights, with blows, truculence, robberies, harassment, repression, torture, massacres, looting and war .
All nations must be free, sovereign and independent of any imperial power, for so the process of building democracy and freedom in accordance with its ideals of development, or social, cultural, political and economic.
And, indeed, to gain autonomy and freedom, fearless people of free nations must constantly fight the direct or indirect interference in its internal affairs.
For it is only applicable to the native peoples of a nation or territory, form an opinion critical of the exercise or performance of his government, and whatever form of government established.
And so is only applicable to the native peoples of a free nation, the overthrow of political power drivers side, they deem to be stewards despots, demagogues, corrupt, crooks, opportunists and profiteers, and all this must be done without interference of any foreign imperial power.
People really free, sovereign and independent of any force or imperial power, should always lay the foundations and goals to constantly strive for the construction of the process of democracy and freedom, as their development ideals that bring them benefits.
The imperialists use as a strategy of domination both beautiful, magnificent, spectacular, fantastic and wonderful words that are decisive element, namely, “Liberty ” and “Democracy”, so as to seduce and deceive the masses, sure to guarantee power on unrestricted free nations, sovereign and independent, and thereby impose their system of domination that abuses of the ingenuity, superstition, false belief, ignorance or misunderstanding of an absolute majority.
Only a people conscious, wise, free, sovereign and independent of any force or imperial power, can build the process of democracy and freedom, as their ideals of development, with their social, political, economics, and all without imperialist interference.
Therefore, the reality of a free people with his political organization has to be referenced or binding in all respects, because, before that, what actually exists in life, cultural, social, political and economic one people is not like the constitution of the organization other people with their customs and traditions.
The powerful own the means of production and not wanting to lose their privileges, they do everything to defend them at any cost, even if it is through the use of violence and bloodshed.
Therefore, do not want to ever allow any time, that the power and benefits are extended to the majority coming from oppression, for that way, the vast majority will not get out of control or policy area of bourgeois political organization.
But when a powerful nation or territory lost control of the political, and not wanting to be without the domain of power, then turn to Coups often with the help of U.S. imperialism.
And to ensure your domain and privileges of the bourgeoisie uses will, authoritarianism and an iron hand, always to remain in power at any cost.
And, to obstruct the democratic process of the formation popular revolutionary bourgeoisie to defend its interests whenever those proponents in providing the necessary strength in the defense or support the interests of the majority.
The bourgeois class and privileged ruling minority, always uses brute force to have guarantees to prevent any cost, that the vast majority consists of people from modest circumstances with few resources, and the only living stipend of his work, so the same manner as all other subjugated, exploited, oppressed, destitute, deprived and excluded, will organize themselves to form the development of democratic processes or people’s revolutionary regime of democracy and real freedom to reach the absolute majority of the people.

Wah Anonymous (who posted on 28 Feb), you so free ah, got time to write such a long letter. I going to play my DOTA now… have fun hating “American imperialism” and flaming each other! I personally find quarrels too bothersome. Life is too short and there is too many things to enjoy here in singapore to indulge in such stuff.

Btw, I thought imperial means emperor… i think you got your facts wrong. Last I checked, there’s no emperor in america!

cheers!
Andrew