The Great Illusion of Freedom. Surely This Must Be a Democracy?

We are paying a hefty price for having confused capitalism with democracy. This is most typically true in the West, where unregulated markets and an infinite choice of products have created this perfect optical illusion of freedom. But free markets and an infinity of products facilitate neither free speech nor free ideas. Free ideas are increasingly seen as a risk to the system. They must be quashed, or the monthly financial update will be jeopardised and shareholders will put us all on profit alert. In a world whose only intention is to shape us into shopping missiles flying from one store to the next, any freedom which tries to transcend or challenge this disgusting theme park of consumption is suppressed and flagged by the system as an abominable terrorist act against “the economy”.

The great illusion of freedom manufactured by this cleptocratic democracy was forced upon us like a sham marriage. We were blackmailed into a counterfeit version of freedom through consumerism by an economic necrosystem constantly threatening to have a recession, much like a nagging mother-in-law threatens to die every five minutes. This is not freedom, when the plantation owner’s needs are constantly put above the slaves. But by now, we have invested so much of ourselves into the “work, consume, repeat“ illusion that we can’t see through it, let alone allow ourselves to even question it.

So how did we get here? As it grew, this profit-obsessed system had no choice but to keep on selling. To do so, it kept inventing new ways of mind control over its consumers. It exercised this control not through fascism, but through a massive distraction: a consumeristic version of make-believe democracy which was too good to be true, yet none of us could resist: a colourful theme park of lights, music and bubble gum flavours that were enticing enough to lure our eyes away from what goes on underneath the amusement rides: the garbage, the mud mixed in with the grease, the exploited undocumented refugees working in the darkness to keep the rides safe for us. If anyone ever dared to look under the joyrides of this theme park or fight for the rights of the weak and the exploited, or the planet for that matter, it would “spoil everyone else’s fun”.

Bribed by sugary popcorn and kept on a leash by salaries, we never dared to look under the hood of this ugly system, precisely because we knew we would bear witness to an atrocious reality. We were taught to ignore, and even accept, all that is barbaric, ecocidal and destructive about this economy. Worse even, we accepted this capitalistic world because we failed to think of, or let ourselves even dare to imagine, a better version of it. This dystopia is in fact, the only version of “democracy” we have ever known.

But the theme park must go on. Anything that dares to expose the rust, the filth and corruption is marked as the enemy. Climate activism, justice and the entirety of the environmental struggle are increasingly treated as terrorist threats by our algorithmocracy. They are ignored, drowned into the endless chatter of the Unhappiness Machine that churns out consumer goods, needs, wants and desires. If this doesn’t work, activists are turned into villains by the “Don’t Look Up” police who unleashes an army of consumatronic zombies, out in force to protect “the economy”. In a time when consumer convenience and economic growth are God, blocking traffic as a form of protest earns harsher punishment than physical violence. The consumatrons of our corrupt dystopia care neither about workers’ rights nor the environment. They paid their ticket to enter the theme park, and they just want to have a good time. They, in turn, had to work hard in this exploitative system to afford their place. Now it’s their turn to abuse someone else.

This failing civilisation has chosen consumerism over freedom, and convenience over the inconvenience of fighting for its future. Truth and justice are neither easy nor convenient, but they are the foundations of any society that wishes to consider itself a society.

Although over time the theme park of this virtual democracy may be updated and refurbished, one thing remains consistent: the global capital propping it up. It is easy to blame capitalism for everything, but it is also justified, given that capitalism owns everything. The problem with capitalism is that it never blames itself. It is by definition a self-destructive system that is unable to look at itself in the mirror, learn from its mistakes and the traumas these have inflicted. Today, we are trying to solve the disasters of capitalism with more capitalism. This has never worked, and it never will. Profit feeds inequality, inequality feeds totalitarianism, and totalitarianism feeds profit. This closed loop can only be broken if we reject profit as the sole driver of society. Until then, anything that threatens profit – whether it is human rights, the climate crisis, or any other inconvenient truth, will sooner or later be paved over and replaced with yet another amusement park. This is how global capital today continues to break both real democracy and social movements.

George is an author, scientist and researcher covering the polycrisis

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