Putting out fire with gasoline

This is not exactly about food, farming and rural society, but I had to link to it: how the gasoline cartel operates in Lebanon, part 1 of 2. Absolutely fascinating. Please read it to see how warlords and merchants of Lebanon are linked.

Listen to this:

"The net income of the gasoline trade in Lebanon is close to $250 millions. It is politically distributed, among a small lobby second in power only to the banking sector lobby.

The handful of importers also own 80% of the retail trade, which allows them to multiply their benefits and control the whole supply chain."

In arabic

Capitalism and democracy: Just like gin and tonic?

"Now some scholars argue that a free market can actually undermine democracy. "Capitalism doesn't necessarily lead towards democracy at all," Scott said. "The one thing that you can say is that capitalism is going to relentlessly produce inequality of income, and eventually that is going to become incompatible with democracy."

More worrisome is that the widespread assumption that capitalism and democracy are closely linked can backfire, argues Lord Ralf Dahrendorf, a research professor at the Social Science Centre Berlin. In a recent discussion on democracy and capitalism sponsored by the Hansard Society, a nonpartisan charity in London that promotes parliamentary democracy, he argues that when democracy fails to deliver the economic goods, people begin to doubt its value. "Few things seem more difficult and yet few things are more important for sustainable liberty than to separate capitalism and democracy in people's minds," he writes." (thanks Yasmine)