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Comment by pbhjpbhj | Hacker News Reader

>Consumers, on the other hand //

How about just people, the demos, the supposed central element of a democracy.

Thank you! I'm not anti-capitalist, but I find utterly insidious the way that "consumer" has become the standard term used to refer to people.

In Canada, certain demagogues have started to use the word "taxpayers" instead of "citizens".

There is a difference between a taxpayer and a citizen. Taxpayers includes people who are non-citizens, and even non-resident.

And some citizens are not taxpayers...

Neither term is sufficient with respect to the other.

Actually, in most of the countries of the World, less than 50% of the population are taxpayers.

Isn't that what I was saying? Just because someone does not (currently) they should not lose their rights as citizens.

Don't forget the sales tax. Pretty hard to avoid that.

True. But even if one were totally self-sufficient one would still be a citizen with the rights of a citizen.

The people are not important, only owners of Capital are important. It is more important that they have control, then we actually do anything for the people. The people are preferably reduced to third world conditions you know where you have a very rich elite and a bunch of poor peasants that look up to them for guidance. They want to turn their countries into this.

I know it's not a very charitable response, but that's simply ridiculous. The world is not run by mustache twirling villains who get sustenance from the tears of "the people."

> The world is not run by mustache twirling villains who get sustenance from the tears of "the people."

Actually, yes, about half of it is. Cuba, China, North Korea, Viet Nam, almost all the Middle East, two thirds of Africa, Russia, ...

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index for an overview

There are mustache twirling villains and then there are just your garden variety sorts that run the "free" world. They usually direct their violence towards the people of the part of the world run by mustache twirling villains. And use the rest of their power to strip freedom and independence from the people of their own countries... so that the world can be ruled by a single conglomerate of garden variety villains who think that they know what's best for everyone... but if you look at their track record, it's less than spectacular. You know because as the market shows centralization is not a good thing. The world should be a bazaar not a cathedral.

That's not always a good argument to use

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romney-says-corp...

It depends in what context you look at it. If we are talking economics, using "consumers" to talk about an economic agent in a transaction is not demeaning. But in the general case, I agree with you.

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