Weber accounts to this the reification of the money unit of account, and the ultimate disconnection between the deeper susbstantive world that we live in and the formal world through which we understand the experience.

For me, the danger is less one of total collapse, than the double movement and repeating the same damn things we did in the last century again.

I was having a conversation with a friend from Africa, and we were talkinga about the transformation of Africa.  And how the use of wage arbitrage has eased the redistrutive conflict inherent to democracy by allowing the wealthy an out that makes democracy acceptable to them.  So in the end democracy is essentially equality.

Wage arbitrage eases the reaction of elites to democracy, because it allows them to prevent income equality.  So what happens when elites are no longer to evade the consequences of democracy by skipping out on the country?  Faced with redistributive conflict do the wealthy decide to kill democracy? Or was Marx essentially right about the march of history, just too optimistic about the time frame?

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg