âThe great challenge of this age -- to rethink how we as citizens create change, how the economy really works, and what government is fundamentally for"
Do we even notice when precious values that define 'liberty and equality' or a 'government of the people, for the people and by the people' are getting eroded by a Trojan Horse - the systematic collusions of power, wealth, greed and arrogance - that are more appropriately described by the term 'plutocracy'?
And if plutocracy has been creeping in and dismantling democracy for decades, why have alarm bells not been sounding?
How many of us who live in the free world ever pause to think for a moment about the meaning of democracy?
Liu & Hanauer invite us to re-imagine democracy - as a precious garden that needs constant tending such as weeding out bad ideas and cultivating good ones.
As opposed to the "machinebrain" system that is controlled and manipulated by plutocrats who have created the present economic 'machine' based on predictability, stability, and (a false) efficiency.
It's time we learned how to see - and shatter - the Trojan Horse of plutocracy sitting bang in the middle of the illusion of democracy.
To see the dots between radical inequality and radical economic dislocation we need much more than provocative and radical rethinking. The metaphor of the garden is one way to get the ball rolling. |