That's an interesting perspective, ndavies. So it isn't the individual who is important, but the system that must be protected from the individual? That point of view corresponds neatly with "economic fascism."
http://www.banned-books.com/truth-se..._3/ts213l.html
Which values are ethereal, ndavies? Are they the numbers, the blots of ink on paper or the bits of data in a hard drive? Or do we base our values upon the people who hunger and are not fed, the people who are not sheltered and die of exposure? Which values are ethereal and which are undeniably real?
I was reading some Lewis Mumford the other night and he was talking about this economic view of society that shuts out all other values and focuses on the balance sheets. He argues that the economic notion of value tends to be purely abstract and quantitative, with little attention to the factors that sustain and enhance life. Instead, money and finance [[which are, after all, little more than sophisticated fictions that rely upon our belief for their value) are society's "hard facts," while the actual lives of the people under an economic system -- whether they are homeless, malnourished, unable to work their way out of poverty -- are regarded as highly subjective barometers of our success as a society.
This is a serious, fundamental political disagreement, ndavies. You believe the system is what's important, and the bottom line is all that matters. Whether you like it or not, this is not how a democratic government works.