And yet, no one seems to be able to do anything to persuade, force or otherwise influence governments into changing these policies and the associated international structures and institutions that push them. The problem is now an intense one, at both national and international levels – how do people in general gain influence over major policies which affect them dramatically, but seemed designed dominantly to cater to large and often multinational capital?
 
In India, for example, it is quite clear to anyone who cares to see it, that the strategy of neo-liberal economic reform has not found favour with most of the electorate, for the simple reason that they have not gained – and many have even lost – because of it. Yet successive governments who have replaced those thrown out by the electorate, have come in and done more of the same, disregarding all the signals that voters can send out. The causes are obviously complex and depend on the specific political economy context. But it could be argued that in India (as indeed in several other developing countries) a substantial section of the elites and middles classes now see their interests as more closely tied to those of international capital, than with the rest of their own country’s population.
 
The problem is probably evident in its starkest form in Latin America today. Across the region, people have done everything they possibly can to indicate their distress at the effects and their rejection of neoliberal economic policies. They have demonstrated peacefully (if noisily) night after day on the streets in Argentina; gone on massive nationwide strikes in Peru; voted for the man blacklisted by the US for his support for cocaine growers in Bolivia; rioted in Paraguay; indicated their intention of voting in alternative government in Brazil; and so on. Nevertheless, the chronicle of even further neoliberal reform, of budget surpluses to add to the woes of depression, of further cuts in workers wages and pensions, of more job losses as part of "necessary" belt-tightening, continues.
 
Sometimes the blatant disregard of popular will, often due to external pressure, assumes obscene proportions. In Argentina, a law which allowed foreign banks to be charged for illegally transferring large amounts of money out of the country in the midst of the crisis, had to be repealed after the IMF insisted on it. In Bolivia the dissident native candidate who came second in the election, receiving more than one-third of the vote despite the open displeasure of the US government, has been denied any voice in the government and in important policy matters. In Uruguay, the government has frozen bank deposits of local residents for three years, and allowed foreign financiers to take their money out.
 
In Brazil, the popular leftwing candidate Luis da Silva (Lula)  - the frontrunner in the Presidential elections to be held in September - was forced to declare his acceptance of a largely IMF-determined policy stance after persistent speculative attacks and capital flight demolished the value of the real and even threatened his candidature. Now the IMF has come up with a carrot after the stick has played its role. It has just promised the next government $30 billion over 15 months, so long as the new government promises to continue the economic policies of the current one, which have absolutely no popular support.
 
But again, the problem is not confined to developing countries. Across Europe, supposedly left-of-centre governments that found themselves following rightwing economic policies because of supposed economic or financial compulsions, have already been thrown out of power or are on the verge of it. Even so, the chances are that the new government will not offer relief to the people in terms of changed economic strategy; if anything they are likely to enforce even harsher conditions on the economic security of most of the citizens. In the United States, the popular legitimacy of the both political and economic institutions of capitalism has never been weaker; yet the US administration continues to pursue policies that strengthen large capital at the expense of others.
 
So, if we really are concerned about genuine democracy, clearly the most important item on the agenda must be to restore to ordinary people some degree of control over the economic policies which are today causing great instability and potentially wreaking havoc over most of their lives. Of course the other issues pertaining to democracy, as highlighted by the HDR, are critical, and much in need of attention. But the real democratic deficit at present is reflected in the greater power, nationally and internationally, of large capital in various forms. It is curbing that power which must the primary goal of all true democrats today.