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130 | THe Puttosopuy or Eco-Potitics the above, however, one could also hold the view that selfish growth that destroys its natural and social environment is but one of the possible alternatives. It does not arise from the essence of market economy, but is rather due to a newer development: the concentration of capital that puts civil society and democracy under strain; the impenetrable and uncontrollable system of global corporate empires and financial networks. Globalisation means that the negative feedback limiting the business interests related to unconditional growth has effectively vanished from the system. Hitherto the state represented natural, social and cultural interests (“cost factors”), on the basis of a mandate from its citizens. Now the roles have changed. The disintegration of communities and the increased control exercised by the mass media over publicity leads to the citizens’ inability to influence or control the actions of the state. The political enterprises (the so-called parties) that specialised in the appropriation and mining of the instruments of public power fall under the control of the multinational corporate interests that finance them or they themselves build up their own economic empire. But the success or failure of the latter, the anticapitalist regimes that took control in the post-communist countries, also depends, like any other enterprise, on the results of the competition (economic in name, but concerning power in reality) in the global sphere. Thus, the roles are reversed: the corporate world dictates to the states and the states ensure that the majority of their subjects cooperate and even approve of the social, cultural, environmental and security policy measures in line with “economic” interests. However, as previously indicated, these developments liquidate the market economy itself, in the strict sense of the word — if the market is taken to mean the spontaneous competition and negotiations of independent participants with an equal chance in theory, acting according to rules transparent for all of them. The corporate empires masquerading as companies behave much more like political organisations and wield political power. They do not levy tax, but instead rake in the spoils in the form of profit. In the majority of cases, they do not take care of the destruction of their opponents themselves, but instead use the assistance of the state to do so. Unfortunately, the political left and right have both failed to provide a faithful description of the changes that have occurred in late modern industrial society. The left was perhaps hindered in doing so by its irresistible attraction towards simple answers and the right by its
