Circularity (Lindblom)

Circularity is the second structural argument in Politics and Markets — the companion to the privileged position of business. It describes how corporate interests shape not only policy outcomes but the preferences citizens form, through control of media platforms, funding of research, employment of former regulators and academics, and the cultural production that shapes public understanding. Democratic theory assumes that citizens form preferences independently and express them through political channels. Lindblom argued that in market democracies, the preferences themselves are substantially shaped by the corporate interests that democratic processes are supposed to check. The check is compromised because the preferences being aggregated are already biased toward the interests the check is meant to constrain.