Neue Debatte - Special Edition - Long Essay on Left Strategy #002 - 04/2017 | Page 26

4 Capitalism vs. democracy
4 Capitalism vs. democracy
4.1 Noam Chomsky: You can’t have capitalist democracy
We have to deal with another serious aspect concerning democracy.
In a lecture Noam Chomsky put it straight forward in 2014: “I started
by saying that one of the relations between capitalism and democ-
racy is contradiction. You can’t have capitalist democracy!” 7 Do you
agree, Yanis? I’m afraid you can’t. Mr. Chomsky lectured about ne-
oliberalism and the classical liberalism of Adam Smith as well as the
difference between democracy and a freedom, which neoliberal
apologists like M. Friedman think of. I would like to make a different
approach hoping it will be valuable for all head-ruled theorists and
well-payed academics.
Imagine you are a common worker (bluer- or white-collar doesn’t
matter) on your way to work. Exactly the moment you enter the
company - either you pass the factory gate or the entrance of the of-
fice building - a metamorphosis takes place every morning: A citizen
gets transformed into an employee. Before entering you are a normal
consumer of mass commodities by spending your salary on essen-
tials. You decide about your and your family’s necessities of life, may
be even about a new car or holiday plans. Inside the company fences
you turn into nothing. For the daily working hours you have to subju-
gate yourself to the will of the company proprietor or a band of
shareholders, their executing board, and minor managing officers
hierarchically above you. You are no longer a fellow human but a
mere investment into “human resources”, an investment into your
skills and proficiencies they have bought off you by agreement of la-
bour. By this contract you are under their absolute control, subject to
capitalist dictatorship, which is called euphemistically ‘executive pre-
rogative’. None of the products you and your colleagues work at be-
long to you. You are a thief and criminal if you take a tiny bit of the
result of your labour.
You have experienced capitalist alienation all day long. Back home
you are informed on TV that Central Banks are making serious deci-
7
2014:”Noam Chomsky”: Why you cannot have a Capitalist Democracy! (youtube, 5.10.2014, 0:08-0:12).
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