Empire's Religion: Arundhati Roy Confronts the Tyranny of the Free Market

We need to remember that the US and all its imperialist allies are dedicated to the so called "free market." That is the system that allows upper class, wealthy elites (the 1 percent) to dominate the entire political system. The US political system really does resemble an actual democracy, on the surface, if it actually consisted of "one man- one vote." Instead it is "one dollar- one vote." profeteers and pirates use their money to buy their political decisions- as the system has been designed to do. And a non "free market' system is not tollerated. Any person or group that promotes anything else is first demonized and then attempts are made to liquidate them or it.

- សតិវ​អតុ 

This is from Common Dreams:

Perhaps the most revealing words on the topic of globalization in recent years came not from the pen of Thomas Piketty, nor were they written by Robert Reich or Joseph Stiglitz or Paul Krugman — rather, they can be found in the pages of The Lexus and the Olive Tree, written by the notorious New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.

"The hidden hand of the market," Friedman notes in a particularly telling fragment, "will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglass, the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies to flourish is called the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps."

Friedman isn't known for his subtlety or sincerity, but the above passage strikes at a crucial truth. So much so, in fact, that Arundhati Roy christened it "the most succinct, accurate description of the project of corporate globalization that I have read."

Roy first made waves internationally with her novel The God of Small Things, published in 1997 — it was an instant hit, selling millions of copies and propelling the relatively obscure writer into stardom. The fame, as she would later recount, was overwhelming; her picture appeared in prominent magazines and she was sought out by mainstream outlets as an established literary voice.

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