I finally read this article, and it left me flabbergasted. I am not even sure that I understood it correctly. Some assertions seems to drip in sarcasm, like this one
Wow!* Markets undermine democracy!* Now there’s a headline.
and I do not see why. Other than a sloppy use of metaphors, what is the problem?
Allow me to play devil's advocate for a bit.
Modern markets (as opposed to their original face-to-face form in the village "marketplace") are completely heartless, impersonal, and amoral. They allow folks who are otherwise good and moral to profit from actions of companies that they would consider totally immoral and unacceptable and never dream of behaving that way themselves and in person. By keeping such actions at "arm's length" markets absolve us from ugly moral dilemmas.
At the risk of sounding like a wild eyed socialist (I am not), I'll give a hypothetical example. Folks who wouldn't dream of cheating a poor peasant in order to save a few pennies when purchasing a banana in a face-to-face transaction see nothing wrong with loading up on, say, Dole stock.
Please don't take the above as real evidence, I mean it merely as a parable.
It might not make any sense to claim that markets undermine democracies, but companies do, and occasionally with the assistance of the U.S. Military.
So I do think there is cause to be suspicious and uncomfortable with some aspects of "the market". Contrary to what "free market" capitalist seem to believe, they are not unalloyed good.
I apologize for this sounding like a rant. I did not intend it to be, and I hope that it doesn't make anybody angry. I do not mean to cast stones. I am just thinking out loud and bouncing these half-baked thought off the forum.