Lindblom - The Market System - Afghan Journalists' Committee

17Enterprise Obstructions toDemocracyWhether market elites did or did not historically make acontribution to minimal democracy and do or do not continueto do so, they blight a fuller democracy through theirassault on the mind. The market system holds democracydown to a low level in other ways too, obstructing a moregenuine yet feasible democracy.If genuine democracy requires, by definition, at least arough equality of political influence or power among citizensin their attempts to control elites, then any significanteconomic inequality among citizens is an obstruction todemocracy. Inequalities in income and wealth create inequalitiesin opportunity to run for office, in launching candidates,in capacities to use the mass media to influencevoters, in lobbying, and in social interchange with party andgovernment officials. Because market systems produce inequalityof income and wealth, they obstruct democracy.Q.E.D. That communist or other nonmarket systems alsoproduce inequalities of income and wealth does not refutethis conclusion.Beyond that fundamental market-system obstruction todemocracy are several others that hinge on the position ofthe enterprise, especially the corporation, in the politicalsystem. They provide the agenda for this chapter.