If democracy today enjoys the support of the friends of commerce, it is not because big capital is democratic, but because democracy offers them more consumers than any other political system. For now.
It is a matter of quantity. The day a totalitarianism offers them more consumers than democracy, the friends of commerce will support that—or any other—totalitarianism. It is not a matter of principles, but of consequences. The market wants consumers, not democrats. And the consequence is money, not democracy, much less principles.
Today, most consumers want to be democrats. Fine. The friends of commerce are fine with that.
When the majority of consumers identify with totalitarianism and are largely in favor of a totalitarian regime, the friends of commerce will be equally fine with that.
The friends of commerce have no prejudices, unlike the people who hate or detest them while simultaneously pursuing and feeding them. The friends of commerce have no prejudices or ideology: they have money. Ideology, like prejudices, is designed for you. For your usual diet and consumption. And for you to behave properly, playing at changing the world and all those little things.
Besides having money, the friends of commerce tend to reason much more and better than you. They possess a rationalism that their enemies too often and recklessly ignore.
The majority always wins. Reason comes, returns, and transforms afterward, again and again, adapting easily to whatever is needed. That's what the press and advertising, the law, philosophy, religion, and politics are for. Science is better off behind the scenes, circulating as a more or less well-kept secret. Literature... Literature is better called "creative writing," and like in today's United States, it should be one of those—naturally commercial—genres of self-help and self-deception. And everyone is happy, that is, content. It is better that Don Quixote remains an incomprehensible book for idealists.
The friends of commerce are not idealists. An idealist is someone who ignores how reality works.
