In Australia, political dogma is alive, well and thriving. But, the dogma involved is close to "exclusively" far right wing dogma expressed through far right wing political correctness.

Both major political parties are well and truly far right wing. Labor knows that if it wasn't, then these days it would utterly NEVER get elected. Australia is an entrenched right wing nation, just like our masters the USA. The Greens vote is about 80% a "protest" vote only; most Greens votes ate not based on dogma/ideology, just protest. This protest vote will eventually desert the Greens and flow elsewhere, and currently the most likely recipient is the Palmer party, but that will change over time as new alternative parties emerge.

The left is dead in Australia. It always struggled, but it's close to finished now. Why? Right wing corruption, big business, world domination by far right wing corrupt capitalism, capitalist financing of weapons of destruction (close to the biggest business in the world), right wing banking corruption. All this has delivered a MUCH higher standard of living for the average Australian. And the average Australian is extremely self centered, and can easily see that capitalism has delivered them wealth and comfort, and that basically is ALL they care about.

Is there a price to pay for this high standard of living? Yep, but not right "now", and because these consequences won't affect "our" generation we'll continue to believe in, and vote for, far right wing political correctness.

What will eventually happen? Growth will stop. That's it. That's all that needs to happen. Growth is not a bottomless pit. It is not infinite. It must stop eventually, that's a mathematical certainty. And when the growth stops, capitalism collapses.

Dear Foxy,

<<I'd be interested to hear your views on the subject.>>

<<Trade, travel, and telecommunications have made the nations of the modern world more interdependent than ever before.>>

I am totally unconcerned about what happens to nations - my only concern is what happens to ordinary people as a result, so I'm afraid that I don't have a solid view on the subject.

<<You may not like living in a "marketplace" but we may possibly not have much choice in that direction.>>

The comforts of modernism come with a heavy toll - consumerism is one such cost. It may not be possible to completely eliminate consumerism at this time, but there are certain things one can do in that direction and certain things politicians could do... if they wanted...

One should decide for themselves what they need rather than be influenced by others, including the media.

One should actively go out to seek for those goods and services they need rather than allow commercial activity to invade one's private space. Unsolicited junk-mail, SPAM, door-knocking and commercial phone-calls should be regarded as criminal trespassing and be punished accordingly. Advertising should be banned in public places and short of making advertising illegal altogether, advertising expenses should not be allowed as a tax deduction.

To summarise, I have not given much thought to the question of the worlds' markets becoming one single market - but should that one single market be the cause of more aggressive marketing and invasion of privacy and individual autonomy, as per your statement that "The world is becoming a single marketplace", also should it make ordinary people face more faceless corporations with rigid rules rather than other real and understanding people, then I oppose it. Whether this is the case, you probably know better than I do.

Dear Yuyutsu,

Thank You for your thoughts.

It is a complex issue and I'm not sure how much the
average person can influence the general scheme of things.
Take something like advertising. Most of us take advertising
for granted. However advertising does have social effects.
The manifest function of advertising, of course, is to encourage
sales. But advertising has other latent functions. For example,
it creates markets where there were no markets before.
By arousing consumer desires for items or services that
were previously non-existent. The implications is that the
economy is not merely satisfying human "needs, " but it
is endlessly creating more of them.

The further implication is also that modern consumers are
learning always to want "more." And that each increment of
"more" may leave them just as unsatisfied as before, yet
seeking still "more" in the hope of achieving greater
satisfaction.

cont'd ...

I'd better quit and not ramble on.
There's so many thoughts floating
around in my head and I certainly
don't have the answers. I think I'd
better wait and see what you and others
have to say on the subject dear Yuyutsu.
This subject is far too complex and
trying to sift through it no easy task.
Too many questions - no easy answers.
At least for me.

Great thread, Dick Dastardly. It is pretty clear that the US is an oligarchy, run by and for the very rich.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/04/08/rich-people-rule/

Australia isn't far behind. I suspect that just voting the bastards out won't work because the Labor and Liberal wings of the Property Party will simply join together to change the rules of the game if there is the slightest hint of a threat to their power, as they are planning to do in the case of the microparties.

It is really only the threat of revolution that forces the rich to disgorge. There was an earlier age of globalization before WWI and the American people shut it down. The elite also kept wages low through a program of mass migration, but WWI shut down the trade and immigration. For the first time, many people, especially black Americans, were getting decent wages and working conditions. After the war ended, the elite wanted to return to business as usual. Prof. Peter Turchin explains what happened next:

"These were the years of extreme insecurity. There were race riots (the ‘Red Summer of 1919’), worker insurrections, and an Italian anarchist terrorist campaign aimed directly at the elites. The worst incident in US labour history was the West Virginia Mine War of 1920—21, culminating in the Battle of Blair Mountain. Although it started as a workers’ dispute, the Mine War eventually turned into the largest armed insurrection that the US has ever seen, the Civil War excepted. Between 10,000 and 15,000 miners armed with rifles battled against thousands of strikebreakers and sheriff deputies. The federal government eventually called in the Air Force, the only time it has ever done so against its own people. Add to all this the rise of the Soviet Union and the wave of socialist revolutions that swept Europe after the First World War, triggering the Red Scare of 1921, and you get a sense of the atmosphere. Quantitative data indicate that this period was the most violent in US history, second only to the Civil War. It was much, much worse than the 1960s."

cont'd

cont'd

"The US, in short, was in a revolutionary situation, and many among the political and business elites realised it. They began to push through a remarkable series of reforms. In 1921 and 1924, Congress passed legislation that effectively shut down immigration into the US. Although much of the motivation behind these laws was to exclude ‘dangerous aliens’ such as Italian anarchists and Eastern European socialists, the broader effect was to reduce the labour surplus. Worker wages grew rapidly. At around the same time, federal income tax came in and the rate at which top incomes were taxed began to increase. Somewhat later, provoked by the Great Depression, other laws legalised collective bargaining through unions, introduced a minimum wage, and established Social Security.

"The US elites entered into an unwritten compact with the working classes. This implicit contract included the promise that the fruits of economic growth would be distributed more equitably among both workers and owners. In return, the fundamentals of the political-economic system would not be challenged (no revolution)..."

"But by the late 1970s, a new generation of political and business leaders had come to power. To them the revolutionary situation of 1919-21 was just history. In this they were similar to the French aristocrats on the eve of the French Revolution, who did not see that their actions could bring down the Ancien Régime — the last great social breakdown, the Fronde, being so far in the past."

http://aeon.co/magazine/living-together/peter-turchin-wealth-poverty

Until conditions become bad enough for this sort of thing, I see little hope.