Hi Norman,

The entry of "the market" in this discussion is made in the context of
the recent US Presidential election with the voters representing "consumers"
by analogy.

Your point is powerful, in that we of western cultures, with notions of
the primacy of the individual (rather the community) enshrined as the
corner stone of our moral and philosophical inquiry, are very reluctant to
mitigate the principle of "consumer as king". Nearly all of us, I would
venture, agree with your fundamental point that the will of each
*individual*
voter, considered collectively, should decide the Presidency.

BUT

The Presidential market is imperfect. Most crucially, the voter-consumers
do not have "Perfect Information" about many important aspects of their
leaders' political vision - including but not limited to the following

* The USA must oversee and maintain a world order designed to serve US
interests
* Democratic movements must be crushed through use of US-sponsored terrorism
  or direct military intervention whenever they are inicimal to US interests
* Human rights are "a letter from Santa Claus".

Others in this general thread have given a more complete list.

AND

* The media serves and supports this political vision
* The media subverts, ignores, falsifies and slurs alternative political
agenda.

In such a system your voter-consumers are not kings. They're puppets.

Having said that, I can't propose a better system other than the continued
propogation of alternative and more complete reports of what is the
political
vision of Presindential candidates through secondary media outlets.

Regards,

Craig






-----Original Message-----
From: Norman Mikalac [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 26 November 2000 10:16
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [CHOMSKY] who determines who gets what when?


again, my question: if the market is insufficient to determine who gets
what, when, as you say, then who makes these decisions under your
system?

norm