O "mercado livre" é uma coleção de ditaduras

The ‘free market’ is a collection of dictatorships. Here’s how we create a genuinely free economy, por Dylan Paauwe, no Open Democracy:

Whether climate change or (have you already forgotten?) austerity, underlying both positions is a great sense of powerlessness in the face of ‘the economy.’ But there is an alternative which is neither pipe dream nor utopian theory. It enables us to go beyond mere value extraction and work according to values like solidarity and sustainability. This alternative is workplace democracy, creating an actually free market and making an economy of values possible.

The current so-called ‘free’ market is a collection of dictatorships. Big or small, benevolent or often otherwise, a handful of people decide how and to what end we spend most of the energy we have. Small entrepreneurs are often considered the hardworking backbone of our economies, and not without cause. And individuals in the upper echelons of the corporate world can (try to) do a lot of good. But overall our economies are run in the narrow and often short-term financial interest oflarge shareholders who regularly own parts of multiple, even ‘competing’ companies. People who are far from the work being done and its impact make all the important decisions. Meanwhile, we have little to no control over our work and what it produces. We feel something needs to change but that nothing will. Or that everything is constantly changing around us, and we can only hope to adapt.

Thankfully, not all is quiet on the economic front. Currently, there are over 11 million people working worldwide in democratic companies. Whether founded as worker cooperatives, handed over by the original owner or the result of years of conflict between an organized workforce and large corporations, they have one thing in common: those that keep the company running decide how and to what end it is done. Through general assemblies and/or elections of company leaders, they are able to introduce other values into our economy than mere value extraction. Whether supporting free healthcare and education through environmentally friendly production, fighting for gender equality one ecologically farmed bag of coffee at a time, or reinvigorating local and sustainable agriculture, the track record is already impressive.

Diga-se que duvido muito que a susbstituição do capitalismo pela "democracia empresarial", por si só faça grande diferença no que diz respeito a questões como o aquecimento global.