| | As much as I admire the ideas in this article, I think it identifies the means by which they are attacked and condemned:
"In capitalism, however, the individual – e.g., as the sovereign citizen or the consumer – is king."
I know what is intended by that, but there is another interpretation: "In capitalism, however, individuals are peers living in freedom, and there is no king."
When a king strolls across the public commons, his subjects get out of his way. If he decides to sprint, then his subjects must get out of his way faster. If he decides to abruptly change directions, then his subjects must be agile, and be prepared to dive out of his way. Make way for the king. The nature of kings is, there can effectively be only one of them. A nation of them would be anarchy, not monarchy.
When peers stroll across the public commons, each to their own destinations, they have a right to navigate to those destinations, mindful of the trajectories of other peers also navigating to their destinations. Peers don't tell each other where to go, what destinations to choose, but peers don't run roughshod over peers, either. Peers choose, peers ask, and peers don't demand. A king demands, a king commands, that is what makes a king a king.
If there must be a king, then let that king have a single command: free association only. No forced association -- including, the forced association of the impact of other's commerce(dirty air and water not 'owned.') Commerce governed by the rule of peers limited to free association, not accompanied by garbage freely and willy nilly strewn behind them after the accountants have tallied the score for others not associated with their commerce to deal with.
No need of any king save one, the one who commands that there shall be no kings, and enforces that rule strongly.
When we accept that the political conflict is only a battle to choose a dictator king, freedom has already lost. Freedom is also freedom from kings.
'The' consumer is not king; we all consume, it is part of our lives, every one of us. Without creation/effort/production, consumption is just the easy part of our lives,the downhill running effort part of our lives. Otherwise, that goofy belief that 'consumers are king', let loose in our economic machinery, yields goofy theories about 'primed' pumps that act more like siphons, and lead weak human nature to the fantasy of running entire economies by focusing only on running downhill -- spending -- as the way to 'drive' them uphill. And that, as we see, is total nonsense.
regards,
Fred
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