Neoliberal Injustice Through Undemocratic Ways

One of the fundamental reasons for opposing neoliberal globalization is the absolute absence of a democratic process in its implementation. It is evident that the paradigm is inherently unjust and is generating tremendous inequalities everywhere, for it is a self-serving paradigm for the centres of economic and political power. Thus, neither the people of the nations in the North nor those who live in the South were asked to approve this particular kind of market economy. Instead, the centres of power and their partners in the periphery have imposed neoliberal globalization without the slightest trace of democracy in the process. Globalization, indeed, is intrinsically antidemocratic, for its meaning opposes the concepts of diversity of choice and of collective decision making. And the governments of most so-called "developing" economies have accepted and, in many cases, embraced Neoliberalism because they seek to remain in power, obtaining their legitimacy by supporting the global economic agenda of the G7 rather than drawing their legitimacy from their constituents.

Globalizing the Mockery of Democracy
In this way, the exploitation of the South occurs because the original principles of democracy have been completely corrupted everywhere. The little democracy that still exists is limited to the electoral process, and, even this, is increasingly rigged even in the so-called matured democracies, as the world witnessed in the last federal election in the U.S. The old Greek agora, that place where society is supposed to settle the conflicts between the public interests and the private interests, no longer exists because most interests have been privatized and governments now discuss them in private with the owners of economic power.

What we are experiencing instead is a "corpocracy" or "oligocracy". Indeed, not even taking into account all the constant violations of the most basic human rights, the peoples in the South are suffering from a complete betrayal of its governments on the economic side, a behaviour that constitutes an outright theft and an enormous crime against their civil societies. In order to secure net inflows of capital to service their debt loads, keep the economy running and remain in power, governments have enthusiastically accepted the conditions for complete neoliberalization of their economies demanded by the so-called institutions of the Washington Consensus: the IMF and the World Bank, in exchange for so-called monetary and development assistance. In this way, the governments of these nations have very enthusiastically promoted, amongst multinationals in the North, the exploitation of their labour force as a commodity readily available. They have strategically positioned their countries as suppliers of cheap "efficient" labour by systematically depressing their labour endowments and, thus, they have consciously and systematically impoverished their populations in order to remain in power. This constitutes, in effect, the restitution of the old centre-periphery relationship between the local oligarchies in the South and the centres of economic power in the North, which has made possible the occurrence of recurrent colonial and neo-colonial eras since the times of Mercantilism.

Nonetheless, the centres of power and their partners in the South like to call this oligocracy a democratic process, but this is nothing more than the complete globalization of the mockery of democracy. The most basic obligation of every democratic government, to procure the welfare of all ranks of society, has been absolutely betrayed, for the zero-sum game where global corporations obtain from governments the most competitive environment for them to thrive, in exchange for monetary contributions, goes directly against the basic principle of democracy of procuring welfare for all. Even worse, neoliberal globalization has exposed the United States, its leading proponent, as a rugged empire that will take extreme unilateral actions to impose on the world its national interest, ergo, the economic interest of its global corporations. In this way, the confidence in representative democracy has reached its demise on a global scale, for we live in a global corpocracy with new rules dictated by global corporations.

Inequality is Never a Choice While Coexistence is
We should bear in mind that a central principle of democratic life is that capitalistic values cannot prevail over democratic values and the moral value of human solidarity, because people do not have the same opportunities and do not compete on equal terms. People do not choose the socio-economic and political conditions where they are born. Thus, if we aspire to a peaceful coexistence of all cultures, we cannot allow a kind of Capitalism where the economic survival of the fittest prevails, for if we reject human solidarity and peaceful coexistence, we can only expect unrelenting conflict and human destruction. To be sure, we are increasingly witnessing an explosion in conflict, not just between the world's regions and cultures, but also within nations, which are experiencing high levels of social dissolution because their governments have mocked democracy and are looking out only to protect their very private self-interests.

Direct Participatory Democracy
Nevertheless, despite its many imperfections, a market economy, under a genuinely democratic framework, allows individuals the opportunity to freely develop their talents and earn a living in sync with human nature. Thus, through our collective thinking, taking the best ideas of social justice and market economy will provide a balanced conception of the right path to a sustained economic and democratic development. This naturally points out towards the direct and permanent involvement of organized civil society in the governance of all public matter through the development of direct and participatory democracy, as we will increasingly see in all aspects of life for many years to come.