: As for Gee, in his way he is Utopian, however its a backwards looking Utopia, back to teh days when capitalism was an individual affair, when it was a force, in its own twisted way, for freedom and liberty- mass industry and socialised production have put paid to such days- Gee's utopia would be the ADam Smith petit-bourgeois small trader capitalism pointed out in Qx's post- that we find Gee looking back to a future Utopia suggests some of the crisis ideologically in Modern Capitalism.The 'crisis' in in the usurpation of the individual by the collective, whether that collective is a quasi democracy influenced by competition for favor between interest groups (including businesses) or an outright totalitarianism.
Big business is not, by definition, the problem. The fact that some multinationals are interacting with governments in a way which has nothing to do with free association and free trade is indicative of the crisis of the reliance on force in place of reasoning.
The majority of political arguments are about which form of collectivity to reside under, which tyranny to tolerate, which democracy gives which people the most power over otehrs. the alternatice is to erode the power of one person over another. If I am and idealist it is not in the idyllic scenario (people working for pride n pleasure etc) that you, Red, describe - but in such a manner that is sustainable, that acknowledges the nature of man as specific.
The socialism you describe sounds very pleasant, except I dont know who will populate it. An expectation for 'mass consciousness' is a hopeful one, the unengineered trend of mankind has been away from tribalism and collectivism toward individuation. Individuality does not mean *having* to go around being nasty. It *has* to mean being free of others, and that freedom, to mean anything, requires rights to life, natural property (body & mind) and material property. Other utopias, which require massive changes in the way humans interact with themselves and others are, as you have said, an abstract utopia, not a concrete one, drawn from the possibilities of our current society.
