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Title: It’s Fantasy Economy! Author: Noam Chomsky Date: October 19, 2008 Language: en Topics: financial crisis Source: Retrieved on 19th February 2022 from https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/17/AR2008101702148_2.html
What happens next should be up to the public.
It’s striking to note that this is not even an option here. We saw that
with the financial bailout. It was immensely unpopular, and a huge cry
of outrage compelled the House to vote it down (at first).
In a functioning democratic society, the reaction wouldn’t have been
just shouting “no” as loudly as possible. Labor unions and other groups
would put forward their own proposals.
The minimal answer to the problem of an uninvolved public is to
accompany pouring liquidity into the market with voting rights.
Organized public pressure has worked before — for example, during the
1940s or the ‘60s, when many policies were adopted for the benefit of
the general population as a result of mass popular mobilization.
Today, there’s been such success in depoliticizing society, in atomizing
people, in breaking down popular organizations, that we’re just not in a
position to carry out the steps that would be taken in a functioning
democratic society. But they are not unimaginable.