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Consumption is not a Vote...

....a thought running since a question posed by a friend 

- corporates are dependent on control over consumption, consumption is not a vote, people who consume are not voting the corporate to power over themselves, their lives, leave alone their consumption pattern. however, the need to 'control' consumption to 'sustain' their 'market position' often gets justified with the 'consumption' of their products as the data, raising consumption to almost 'vote' status.

voting in a 'democratic' set-up includes control to make policy through majority acceptance, though often it is acquiescence. yet, it does provide policy making its power, the vote of the individual, a privilege granted to the citizen of a nation state for being citizen enough. granted  it has its flaws, but, it does provide the power.

consumption is not a vote of confidence.

consumerism is not democracy.

corporate houses providing infinite options to satisfy the finite human needs need to adopt various tactics
- they need to foment certain form of values in the humans to 'sustain' their markets - greed, hoard, abuse, violence, violate...
- they need to sustain the myth of 'need' through falsehood, exaggerations, repudiation (of the competition), constant 'legitimate' sounding validation (through 'academic' and 'scientific' sounding biased knowledge production)
- they need to make their 'solution' or 'product' unique - this is done to 'sustain' their control over atleast a section of the market through sophistry that cannot be easily copied, complicated mechanisms to perform simple tasks using technology, denial of technique to other, control and regulation of the upstream knowledge that may result in others offering similar products / services and modify / influence / control policy making to ensure their position
- eventually, they will have to perpetuate the idea of linear 'growth' of 'consumption' in a finite resource world, and, seek to grow in capacity to produce at scales that furthers the need to 'control'

a government / state that permits the corporate to acquire control over policy making is a very weak one.

a state that permits corporate executives with the power to make policy and infiltrate policy making body, even when the person continues to profit from the corporate or its ventures, compromises democracy.  

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