We had a lunch lecture where this environmental scientist gave a talk about critical materials and how big of a problem our reliance on these are. He links the whole thing up with politics pretty well, explaining how various political actors are involved and benefit from this or that.
At some point, he even mentions how in the netherlands, policy doesn't get passed without a buy-in from industry. It means quite a lot, cause this guy is government hired in recommending policies.
Then he contradicts himself in the next paragraph by saying that this is the curse of democracy that people make stupid decisions.
I ask this guy about the contradiction. How you simultaneously harp about profits over needs, the evils of consultancy firms, and the inability of the Dutch government to do anything but pursue corporate interests, while also talking about the problems of "democracy"?
He just tells me "we are a democracy that's why the Dutch government listens to industry". Well not exactly that, but at least that's the message I get when he talks about all the corporate controlled parties winning the elections and how that's what the people chose.
Dude is this close to realising that the definition of liberal democracy is "legitimised rule by corporations" .
Of course, the lecture ends with a book recommendation for a book about the collapse of human civilisation. And a recommendation to go vote and participate in political parties.
Unlimited death upon elections.
In anglophone media now, I almost exclusively see “democracy” used to mean “liberal democracy”, i.e. “bad country’s government provides a service to their population instead of privatizing it, this means they’re not a democracy.” Increasingly it’s even to the level of “who cares if bad country’s people have a greater and more direct say in choosing their leadership, that’s not democratic. Bad country’s critical assets aren’t available for ownership by US investors which makes bad country an authoritarian dictatorship.”
I expect the wholesale redefinition of this word to keep getting more explicit just like “antisemitism” today has been almost totally redefined away from having anything to do with West Asian language families or even Judaism as a religious practice to basically just mean “the condition of being opposed by the IOF”.