> I see democracy as doing the polar opposite: It works to homogenize a
> diverse society, only allowing the ideas of the majority to be put into
> action; while suppressing the minority. It’s a system based on
> intolerance.

There are certainly problems with democracy, but I think you'll agree it's better than the dictatorship in the Soviet Union. If government dictorship is bad, then so is the dictatorship seen in the structure of corporations. What led me to anarchism is the idea of localized democracy. Keep shrinking the number of people who have a say in something to those most affected by it. That may come all the way down to one individual, thus anarchism.

> > I have no problem with a market economy, provided everyone has relatively
> > equal amounts of spending power.
> I’m not sure how you would achieve this – or, rather, how you would sustain it.

Quite simply democracy in the workplace. It's no guarantee that everyone will be paid the same, but if the CEO's salary is determined by the employees instead of the other way around, you're much more likely to have more even pay scales.

> mean, that doesn’t even make sense in a free-market model: Supply of “luxury-type”
> goods would be so high, that prices would plummet!

The fact that there are people even producing "luxury-type" goods (islands, huge mansions, butlers, teams of lawyers and investment strategists) while others can't afford even basic health care or find a home points to the fatal weakness of the capitalist market economy. It simply means this type of economy is unable to meet the needs of its participants. A market economy where people have similar spending power is the only type of market economy that works. Again, there are many ways to achieve the redistribution of paper wealth - progressive taxation is one of them - I just prefer the anarcho-syndicalist model.

> Nothing prevents you from running a democratic workplace within a
> free-market capitalist system. The only thing you wouldn’t have is the
> ability to coerce people to participate…and, if you think that’s what’s
> necessary, then you’re talking about something other than anarchism –
> you’re talking about government.

Ah, but what if the current employees of a corporation want to make it a democratic one? Who prevents that from happening? The government. I'm not going to force democracy on you, but if the majority of the employees in your company want democracy, then the government should not be allowed to prevent them.

I know you're going to say, "Whoa man, this violates the capitalist's Rand-given property rights!" Well, there are no rights but the rights a society deems necessary for the well-being of its people. If uneven distributions of wealth is seen as harmful to the general public, then the people can take whatever actions to prevent the harm.