Capitalism and Democracy

One of the great confusions in contemporary American life is the purported equivalence of Capitalism and Democracy. To begin with, one is an Economic system, the other a Political system. That Fascism is a form of Capitalism, and that a Democracy can be Socialist, proves that they are not identical. At its inception, as Smith explicitly conceived it, Capitalism was a great Democratizer, a leveller of Feudalism in its various manifestations, especially British Nobilism. But its non-coincidence with Democracy became evident within a few decades, as British Capitalistic Industrialism reverted to Feudal inequality. In contemporary America, it is difficult to appreciate, under the knee-jerk hysteria, that Marxism was initially devised as an exposure of the Democratic short-comings of Capitalism, an analysis that, regardless of that doctrine's own flaws, remains unconfronted by American Capitalist thought. Consequently, for example, the rebuilding of Iraq entails both an electoral process, and the fight for economic control of the country by transnational corporations. The Democratization of Feudalism was, and still can be, a great Evolvemental step in human civilization, but the globalization of Capitalism is not necessarily a continuation of any Evolvemental process.