Taming the Giant Corporation
This column heralds a pioneering conference next month in Washington, D.C. But first a little background.
Back in the nineteen thirties, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt went on the national radio and declared what the basic necessities were for the American people - a wage that can support a family, decent housing, the right to health care, a good education and future economic security.
Sound familiar today? It certainly would sound familiar to a majority of the American people. The struggle for livelihood, the struggles to escape poverty, calamitous health care bills, mounting debt, gouging rents and failing, crumbling schools continues year after year.
What’s that French saying - “the more things change, the more they remain the same.”
Things have changed for the rich and corporate, though. The rich have gotten richer. The talk now is about the super-rich and the hyper-rich. The richest 1 percent of people in this country has financial wealth equal to the combined financial wealth of the bottom 95 percent.
The big corporations are more avaricious than ever. The past decade’s corporate crime wave, dutifully reported in the major business media-newspapers and magazines-demonstrates how trillions of dollars were looted, or drained away, from tens of millions of small investors, pensioners and workers.
In FDR’s time, the CEOs of the top 300 corporations paid themselves about 12 times the average wage in their company. Now the “top greed” registers 400 to 500 times what the average workers eke out in a full year. WalMart is an example of that sheer self-serving power at the top.
All this is occurring while the big companies deliver comparatively far less to the economic well-being of the American worker. The CEOs are otherwise preoccupied with figuring out how they can outsource more American jobs to China and India, how they can hollow out more communities and ship whole industries to those and other countries, many under authoritarian rule, that promise to keep the CEOs’ operations at costs close to serfdom.
Interesting, isn’t it, that the CEOs say it is necessary to flee our country-where they were nurtured to their size and profits-in order to keep up with global competition. But they never urge outsourcing their own CEO jobs to hardworking, bilingual executives in the Third World willing to work for less than one-tenth of the U.S. CEOs’ pay package.
Besides, who wrote the rules (NAFTA, WTO) that define the global competition? Big Business and its lawyer-lobbyists.
Uncle Sam has bent over to give Big Business what it has demanded in the past 25 years. Huge tax reductions, compared to the prosperous nineteen sixties. Massive deregulation, or the abandonment of law and order against criminal, negligent or defrauding corporations. Your tax dollars were transferred in the form of subsidies, handouts, giveaways and bailouts to demanding, mismanaged or corrupt large businesses.
Still, it was not enough coddling to keep these giant companies from casting aside what allegiance they had to our country, its communities and people. The companies’ standard is to control them or quit them as these CEOs see fit.
When BusinessWeek Magazine answered a resounding YES to its cover story in 2000 “Too Much Corporate Power?” the editors were not kidding. They even wrote an editorial saying that “corporations should get out of politics.” I guess they meant that since corporations do not vote, and are not human beings, that they should not be honing in on what should be the exclusive domain of real people.
More and more conservatives believe that Big Business (Wall Street vs. Main Street) is out of control and stomping on conservative values. They don’t like corporate welfare, corporate eminent domain against the little guys, commercial invasion of privacies, WTO and NAFTA shredding our sovereignty, corporate crimes (Enron, Worldcom, etc.) or Big Government on behalf of Big Business Empires around the world.
They are appalled by corporations directly selling bad things and violent programming to their children, whom these companies teach to nag parents.
It is time for the American people to get off the defense and take the offense against corporate power, the way it was done in the consumer, environmental and worker areas from 1965 to 1975 and beyond to new frontiers of subordinating the big corporations to the rights and necessities of real people.
Toward those objectives, hundreds of leading advocates, scholars and activists will convene on June 8-10 in Washington, D.C. to address how to subordinate raw corporate power to the will of the people.
The title of the conference tells its content: “Taming the Giant Corporation: A National Conference on Corporate Accountability.”
Conference speakers include: U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman; Robert Monks, veteran leader for corporate governance; Mark Green, president, Air America Radio; Robert Greenstein, Director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; Ron Daniels, President of Institute of the Black World in the 21st Century; Dr. Sidney Wolfe and Lori Wallach of Public Citizen and many more distinguished persons.
If you wish to attend the entire conference, including the Saturday evening dinner, go to www.tamethecorporation.org for details or call 202-387-8030. Hurry up. Space is available but seating is limited.
© 2007 Ralph Nader
test
“Correcting” Ralph Nader:
I agree with Ralph Nader. But, I think he is missing an
important point. Today’s most criminal corporations are
finding their origins INSIDE the government, not influencing
the government from outside. The government itself is becoming
a corrupt corporation, run by the secret service bureaucrats
for power and profit.
And there is no way to reign in their activities, since they
virtually control the police, the congress, the judiciary and
the military.
This is not old-style business corruption and bribery influence
in government. The huge difference is that that kind of
corruption moved from outside the government to gain influence
inside the government.
Today’s corruption comes from inside the secret classified
areas of the military industrial parts of the government to
influence the society and the businesses that remain private
outside of the government.
This is not corporate corruption. It is crime. It is
government corruption. The fox is guarding the chicken coop
here.
When I was in business school, professors often lamented that government should be run more like a business. At that time, I never really thought much past the concept of fiscal responsibility and management practices of businesses.
Well, to add to what einstein said, the rampant unchecked criminality in corporate boardrooms is now how our government is run. I can only wish for a fitting solution like that meted out in the movie Dogma.
the government has always been the lapdog for businesses. howard zinn fronted the idea that ‘we the people’ of the constitution has been a myth that we the people have bought into. he said that business controls and not the people. the white business men that wrote the constitution did a good job of protecting their interests then and corporate interests of today.
Good luck Ralph.
Corporations should not be allowed to contribute to political parties or campaigns.
Corporations should have representation by the communities in which they work, their employees, their shareholders (share owners) and management on the board of directors.
There’s also a fallacy out their that a corporation’s sole purpose is to make money. That’s simply not true. The purpose of corporation should be mandated by law.
I have long maintained that the corporation, being a “power pyramid”, is a perfect model for Darwinian selection. The overriding goal is profit. Anyone whose ethics might interfere with that goal cannot make it through the “middle management” maze to the top. Therefore the Jack Welchs (”The smartest boss I ever had, and he signs my paychecks.” -Tom Brokaw) the Ken Lays, etc. are guaranteed.
I have long maintained that the corporation, being a “power pyramid”, is a perfect model for Darwinian selection. The overriding goal is profit. Anyone whose ethics might interfere with that goal cannot make it through the “middle management” maze to the top. Therefore the Jack Welchs (”The smartest boss I ever had, and he signs my paychecks.” -Tom Brokaw) the Ken Lays, etc. are guaranteed.
I agree with Ralph Nader about corporations. I agree that big business is or tends towards unscrupulous practices. But, let’s face it: there is nothing inherently good nor bad about “business.” Business is something we all do.
The problem is uniform codes of law and democracy. And the problem today is about the very existence of uniform codes and laws that are the same for ALL people.
The government is simply not following the law. And it is rewriting or reinterpreting, or ignoring law wherever it is convenient. The government is the law, and as such is finding it convenient to apply law to those outside the government in a way not conforming to its own practices.
This is especially evident on the international scale.
The US government is not only involved in illegal practices, but is actually totally “A-legal” (coining new term here).
At the heart of the problem is government secrecy. This works under the cloak of invisibility called “national security.” This is actually a euphemism for non-uniform codes of law inside the government.
Look, all of you have at one time seen a city government that is perhaps renting property break the city codes in its rental practices. No one does anything about because “you can’t fight city hall.”
This is now happenning on a massive scale inside the US government. That is why there are so many dead people in Iraq. And you know what: It’s been very good business for the corporations that function under the umbrella of our “national security” apparatus as “private contractors” (all with origins inside the government), who have never even had to compete in truly open bidding for the billions and billions of tax dollars sent their way.
They don’t play by the same rules as other corporations, let alone you or I.
Incidentally, I would not classify Bush’s corporatism as fascistic either. Fascism, however heinous, is still nationalistic and in some way seeks to benefit a majority segment of the population that supports it, in its military industrial practices.
What we have today is piracy inside the government. The ship of state has been hijacked, and the treasury budget, and the military, and all of the communications systems and real estate and capital investment belonging to the US government. There is no point other than profit for those pirates who have taken it over.
Amazingly, they may not even be that heavily interested in power. These people are interested in might, and brutality, but power is too much of a responsibility for them to bother with. They just want profit and advantage over their fellows. They want to “win” in the 1950s macho sense of the word. An example of this is Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. A fascist government under a “Mousilini” would have done a better job rescuing the city, and even been more prepared in advance. (I do not support fascism. I am just trying to descript America’s “piratocracy.”)
This is a vastly immature group.
My prediction is that like Adolph Hitler, who didn’t have the staying power of a Stalin, these people will lead America from one fiasco to another, until the country is vastly chastised by their juvenile irrationality.
einstein: what are nations, if they are not economic cartels or hegemons?
What are huge globalized corporations if they don’t seek the same status?
It is time for a Clean Election movement. Campaign financing is at the root of coporate corruption. There is not a greater way for the wealthy elite to aquire more than by picking our politicians and their issues.
Einstein has a good theory, which we can’t prove because our national budget has been redacted. Many, many billions are blacked out. It would be an interesting if time consuming and aggravating exercise to determine the total black budget. No one in Congress knows this number, no one even objects to this daylight robbery. It could be over 100 billions.
If we do not know where our money goes, we have no essential information about what our government is doing. It falls to the pollyanna politricks-as-usual crowd to prove that there is no “shadow government” controlling proprietary secret technology and engaging in manipulation of this republic for its own purposes. Reason and common sense suggest that the existence of hidden cabals of power is a certainty.
That said, Ralph Nader is a saintly soul and I voted for him. He toils manfully year after year. If he were president, he’d be done away with before his first year was out.
Ralph needs to speak about the coup d’etat of 911 and the criminals in government and the criminals who manage the two-party faction that prevents any meaningful political change, and the criminals and fools who endorse this bogus two-party system. Like Ralph, other fundamentally honest individuals such as Mike Gravel or Ron Paul, are dismissed as “spoilers”. Ralph’s critique of corporatocracy is apropos and deserves careful attention. It is the basic model for the new world order of BushCo, a Wal-Mart stockholder’s gathering, which kind of reseembles a republic, kind of.
Since 911 we have crossed a threshold, a Rubicon, into a fantasy political reality. Politricks-as-usual is now built on the Big Lie. The people’s business is a matter of bread and circuses, while the actual goings on are concealed behind a facade of bullshit and the black budget in the domain of “national security”. The two-party system will not support any candidate who cannot demonstrate themselves to be charismatic liars.
The US Government is now controlled by an internationalist criminial cabal, a new global corporatist aristocracy, that seized power with the coup of 911. The proliferation of the new ground rules continues to spew forth from the Big Lie.
There is still daylight. One can still convince oneself that the Republic is durable and the “pendulum” still swings back and forth, from left to right.
If you want to believe this bullshit, Virginia, then, yes, there is a Santa Claus.
But the darkness is gathering.
Sail on, Ralph. Godspeed.
i see where China is executing a government official for taking bribes and other crimes that cost people their life..they also executed another one a couple of years ago…the capitalist system can work..but you have to have regulations and have them enforced..you can not deny peoples evil side(greed..covetness…selfishness..etc)the handwriting is on the wall…
If a corporation is a “legal person” and slavery is illegal, why is it that one corporation is able to own another corperation. That is, if a corporation as a legal person can claim the right to free speach under the Constitution then why cannot its right to be free from slavery be recognized. That is the right to be owned only by real persons and not by by other corporations or holding companies. It is time to consider that as a real person must not be allowed to own another real person, a “legal person” must not be allowed to own another “legal person”.
It may be a strange concept to consider, “freeing the corporations” but it brings with it the question of what are the consequences of allowing corporations to own other corporations? How does this affect our lives? Would the elite’s current power and hubris have ripened to the current state without their system of corporations enslaving corporations. And might “freeing the corporations” be a useful step on the path towards regaining control of the country by its citizens.
Thank you Ralph Nader for your analysis, writing and advocacy.
Our family is frustrated about the corporate powers that rule this country so here is what we have decided to do:
- only buy new what we absolutely have to have from places like Walmart or Kroger, etc. (basic foods, no junk or excess)
-buy fresh produce from local markets in our community.
- purchase clothing and other needs from garage sales, flea markets, ebay, auctions, etc. where we have the choice to put our money in the average American’s hands.
-sell items, that we no longer need, to other Americans.
-cut out all unnecessary vehicle usage.
-recycle what we can for our own use.
It is our opinion that if less than half the American buying public would follow suit, we could create an American market that benefits the true American community. Now, we realize that people who earn more than $100,000 per year will see no need for this. However, the families whose income is in the bottom 95 percent range may find a way to survive this raping of our ability to survive (especially since those of us in this 95 percent range will not be able to afford to attend the conference.)
Make sure to add prayer to the above strategy.
Of course, Nader knows he helps empower the giant corporations by splitting the vote against Bush. Good job, Ralph. Please stop trying to rehab your reputation by saying things like “corporations are bad.” It just isn’t dignified.
To annac21, well you’d been waiting for a labor issue, guess you went all out.
Dear Mr. Nader, This piece was so great, concise, and easy to read for us normal folks. Your right up there with the greats, Chomsky comes to my mind. I voted for you twice for President as you are the only truly quailfied, honest person with vision to bring about the change needed for this country.
It’s true the trade agreements, which the People didn’t agree to, are bringing this country down. It’s about time this is brought up front and center. There are many good people working for a positive change and your leadership has been instrumental in keeping this issue burning. Please hurry, some of us don’t have much hope or time. or money to hold out much longer.
Not only are the corporations on the take, US congress stamp of approval, this whole immigration situation will divide the people again in the up coming election. I know that’s most likely what the parties plan, another manipulation. It’s vital to present the factors that brought on this problem as well as in general overall for the people of this country.
concerned citizen,
Can I suggest you add reading to your activities, namely some books on how societies actually work.
If I understand it correctly, you are very proud of your CEOs who are so talented at making money - everywhere, and you want to help everyone else, deprive by your beloved CEOs of work, health care etc. to survive. I can assure there are better ways than most of your recommendations, including prayers, and if you hit some books you might find out.
Don’t be surprised if you see an advice to hit the streets instead of garage sales and prayers.
In 1999 I wrote a screenplay (Hollywood didn’t especially like) based on a surreptitious order of global scientists who gather together (like The Manhattan Project, only this goal serving the greater good without violence) to clone the first human being before the for-profit genetic corporations can or do. One of the young clones attends NYU Law School and argues the case against “free trade.” The story sets up (via these clones) a global force to stand up against corporate capitalism without conscience. I like saying, I cloned Ralph Nader… as a fiction author, of all the persons I might have chosen (of living available “tissue samples”) he seemed humanity’s best shot as per sustainability (ecosystems) and justice! if only…
Alter the limited liability laws so that they do not apply to corporations that own stock in other corporations. This will remove the main means that huge corporations use to protect themselves - setting up fully-owned shell companies.
You are truly awesome Ralph! Thank you.
It seems that the horse is long out of the barn. I have long admired Ralph Nader’s legal work on behalf of the consumer and against corporate piracy. But I fail to see what one more conference is going to do when the transnationals own the three branches of the federal government and foist their rule on American citizens down to the level of the smallest hamlet. It seems that the top heavy, unsustainable system of neoliberal corporate globalization will have to melt down and die of its own internal contradictions and dead weight before there is a ghost of a chance to “tame the corporation.”
Government doesn’t do anything that big business doesn’t want it to do.
First thing to do is to get rid of political appointees in the government who are only beholden to their corporate (money driven) aspirations and not protecting the public trust. Government needs to stop being a pawn of business (goes back to Native American days when government’s main purpose was to economically exploit the land and its resources).
Nader was one of the few people speaking against the war, corrupt corporations, and sellout government.
And if he runs again, I will again vote for him not because of a protest vote, but because he examplifies core values that I support.
As Eugene Debs stated years ago (slight paraphrase) , ‘I’d rather vote for what I want and not get it then vote for what I don’t want and get it.’
IMPEACH BUSH
peace and justice,
AG
Yes, I will vote for Ralph Nader next also.
This is a good discussion. The main point is not business, but the philosophy of law.
The question society has to ask itself is if it wishes to live by decree, or by law. It has to ask itself ( and that means every single one of us) what is the difference between cooperative lawfulness (based of course on useful, easy to follow guidelines for safety, peace and efficiency) and coercive efforts at enforcing law by decree.
We have to ask ourselves: “What is the law?” “How does it benefit us?” “Is it a policeman, a judge and courtroom, and an electric chair?”
Or, “Is the law a set of rules that help us live together without continually crashing into one another.”
If you look at society, you see that people have an innate ability to cooperate. They don’t do it by being forced to follow laws or rules…People understand how to cooperate in the use of for instance road systems, online business and auction sites, cultural activities such as concerts and sports matches. They do this because our brain is wired to work in coordinated group activities. Codified laws and a justice system should be higher expressions of our innate desire to successfully coordinate, avoiding mechanical conflict, especially unneccessary and wasteful conflict.
It is a form of societal intelligence.
Bush’s version of the law functions this way: There is one set of laws for you, and another set of laws (and they are not published, they are secret) for Bush and friends.
Imagine trying to coordinate on a freeway, or working in a nuclear submarine with this situation: where one set of people is totally out of sync with the larger group.
And the larger group has no way of knowing what rules it should follow in order to coordinate with the smaller clandestine group, since their rules are unpublished.
It’s impossible.
And, guess what, the clandestine group could very well be planning harm for the other “rubes” who are trapped by their system of rules.
Unfortunately, their abandonment of the rules (Bush group) destroys the entire coordinating pattern of the larger group. Now, the group is lawless, without a system of creative cooperation.
This is a society that is “Unsafe at any speed.”
Ralph, their are no seat belts in Doctor Strangelove’s nuclear juggernaut, and an albino has got his shakey finger on the button.
I think the people need to go down their and get these people out of office.
I would strongly recommend that everyone, including Mr. Nader, go to Google and watch “The Money Masters” parts 1 and 2. It was only after several viewings (including taking notes!) that a clear picture began to emerge as to what is REALLY going on here.
Until we take a serious look at the financial history of the world and realize it is the world-wide banking interests who are controlling EVERYTHING!, we won’t be able to solve the current dilemma in which we are finding ourselves.
We all need to understand that The Federal Reserve is a PRIVATE CORPORATION listed in the telephone book under Federal Express! It is NOT, I repeat, NOT a part of our government!
I’m not sure who coined this phrase, but probably most of you have heard it before: “The fish stinks from the head.” Our tax dollars are feeding this monster. We need to solve our current “democratic crisis” with our minds and the power of our purses/wallets. It’s too late for demonstrations, yelling, screaming and sign waving. If we can figure out a way to stop feeding the fish, it will die. Sad to think that our hard, collective labors have paid for our potential undoing. We have bought every war, every act of criminality, every rigged voting machine, all of it. When we’re doing the “Goolag shuffle” toward the internment camps “we’ve” built, with Blackwater “private” security goons holding M-16’s in our backs, we will have funded our own demise. Now that’s a sad ironic thought. And to think, when the SS come knocking at the door, what will the majority be doing? Watching a bunch of morons on “American Idol”!
If I wrote all this in a screenplay the producers would say, “We can’t do this movie. It’s just not PLAUSIBLE!”….
I’ve come to the conclusion that we must fight fire with fire. The U.S. government claims to be an institution of “laws”. Okay then, we need legal suits to help fight the good fight. Indictments are in order according to the law. We need the best prosecutorial team in this country to work with Ralph Nader, David Ray Griffin (The 9-11 Truth Movement) etc. to fight these criminals with the full force of the courts. Investigations funded and overseen by THE PEOPLE (taxpayers) must be instituted.
The TRUTH about The Federal Reserve System, what REALLY happened on September 11th, 2001, any and all government criminality that screams for indictments must be discovered by the best, brightest investigators who would be working for The People, not the criminals currently in charge. For until we find the truth, we will all be living in a lie. And that’s not the way ANY of us, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians etc. want to live. Oddly enough, I believe the motto of the C.I.A. is (to quote J.C. himself): “Seek ye the truth and the truth shall set ye free.”
Robert Morgenthau of New York City, Dan Stormer and Virginia Keeny in Los Angeles would be good places to start a search for attorneys who are respected and conscientous individuals. We could raise the money on-line and hire these individuals (and/or others like them) to “represent” us. Just a thought…
Thanks to the Internet and Commondreams we have this forum to discuss these articles and related issues.
The Democratic party should have done the honorable thing in the last two elections and withdrawn from the race ceding their political ambitions to Ralph Nader. Bush would have lost (could you imagine Bush having no choice but to debate Nader on National T.V?) and the very first government that would have actually represented ‘the people’, would have been put in office. Nader would have chosen both Republicans (albeit a few) and Democrats to form his government, but he would have meticulously selected the ones who were pro-democracy rather than corporate sycophants. Nader wasn’t responsible for Bush getting in, it was the Democratic party by insisting to field only candidates that had the corporate seal of approval.
The conference is a great idea. It is what is needed to produce concrete ideas on how to limit the power of corporations. Once these ideas are enunciated, they will hopefully find their way into the national discussion and replace the bald and ever less useful generalizations which we bandy about like so many tennis balls. We all know what is wrong, we simply don’t know precisely how to fix things. How does one, for example, actually interrupt the symbiosis between giant corporations and politicians? Clearly the laws restricting political contributions are ineffectively porous. Does the constitutionally protected right to petition our elected representatives really protect EVERYTHING that the L Street mafiosi do without limitation? How do we reduce the non-stop domestic propagandizing on the part of (the Pentagon and) the corporate media? (It has been illegal for the Pentagon to direct it’s propaganda against the American public for over sixty years. It proceeds daily unabated). Everyone knows that the corporate media deliberately participated in the manufacture of artificial justifications and rationalizations for attacking Iraq, influenced by nothing more than financial/political considerations. Could this flagrantly amoral and anti-American conduct be criminalized without further derogation of legitimate First Amendment protections? Could war profiteering, in general, be outlawed as it has been in other times and places? Imagine the magnitude of the reduction in incentives to slaughter innocent civilians all over the globe if there was nothing to be gained financially by it! How different the world would look.
Corporations are behind most of our global trials and difficulties, either as prime movers or as tireless boosters and salivating opportunists. Capital, capitalists, and capitalism all need to be brought to heel before the world can begin to heal.
Wars are big business and they interfere with the business of humanity. We need to trade out of the one and into the other. Controlling the out-of-control corporations is the key. As usual, Ralph Nader scores a bullseye.
In answer to Paul Bramscher: “einstein: what are nations, if they are not economic cartels or hegemons?
What are huge globalized corporations if they don’t seek the same status?”
Nations are organisms made up of human organisms. Societies are organisms. Tribes and families are organisms.
Nations are made up originally of individuals, families, clans, ethnic groups…to form larger organisms.
The laws that govern the human body and mind eventually govern the nation, one way or another.
Law is a liberal science akin to medicine. It is related to medicine and to mathematics. Its business is to create a common feedback mechanism for the larger organism and to protect the individual organisms within it from destruction.
Incidentally, the US medical establishment is also corrupt and useless: a business, not a science, not a service.
Nations are not economic hegemons. They are groups of people working in cooperation.
Unfortunately, the leaders of the larger nations, and especially of the USA are hell bent on plunging us into warfare at all cost.
This is a sickness. It needs to be cured.
The operation procedure is called: IMPEACHMENT.
But, our “Doctor Wellby’s” such as Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton are proceeding with their political malpractice.
Giant corporations control the worlds’ resources, control continents, the empire protects its elite class with a massive military corporate complex including over 730 some bases across the world.
Our military has always developed resources through invasion, just like now in the Middle East.
einstein: I agree that’s what nations could/should be, but in practice they are economic cartels manipuled by elites, who play games with trade, labor, and resource differentials. The elite enjoy more movement than the underlings. It’s basically been little more than a scaling-up of serfdom from the middle-ages, but we get a modest wage to keep us pacified. Check out some of the stuff by the venerable beat poet/writer Gary Snyder.
I’ve got little doubt that Nader, Chomsky, Zinn, and others would be able to write a volume on this topic. But they’re all getting old, so that job may fall to us.
There are two different ways to approach history and anthropology. One is more biographical and journalistic: by leaning more on pronunciations, speeches, words, etc. Let’s call it the Platonic Historical Method or the “Done as I said.” history The other is more forensic: leaning on statistics, physical evidence, historical archaeology, etc. Let’s call that the Aristotelian Historical Method, or the “Done as I did.” approach.
Class dismissed, mid-term essays expected on one of these topics…
Intriguing points Abbybwood, fd32 and Einstein.
The imbalance of wealth in this nation will eventually lead to an explosive backlash, not unlike that of the French Revolution. Our corporate taskmasters would do well to study such history and, more importantly, contemplate just who will be swinging from a light post by the neck when our own moment of rebalancing arrives.
All the money on earth cannot stop a hungry and destitute mob when it comes knocking at the doors of the grand gated communities and gilded corporate boardrooms.
Nadir attacks the effects of capitalism, not the system itself. Corporations are compelled to obey “markt” demands…, frodits however gotten, to satisfy investors…, or…, they become insolvent. That’s the way the system works.
Want to abolish corporate power? Change this autocratic capitalist control of our political system… to an economic democracy…, as presented here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NewSystem/
Until Ralph addresses the SYSTEM, and not play around with reforms…, our last 90 years of tolerating capitalism will be repeated.
“Social” ownership of our necessary industries and services operated democraticly by ourselves within our respective industries…, coordinated by a cdmocratically constructed national coordinate …, an Industrial Congrss, if you will…, is ONE answer to establishing a society of peace and prosperity.
Ralph wants the capitalist corporations to be “nice” when they perform their robbery of our electorate majority’s social production…, which the capitalist economists refer to as “value added. That’s 1/4th of labor’s production set aside for the cost of labor (wages) and 3/4ths is kept by the corporate entity…,( which is used to maintain its operation…) which means that labor is deprived of its total socially produced values… Were society to own our necessary industries, it would enable us to use this “value added” for society’s meeds and our wants.
Capitalism is autocratic. We are supposed to be a democracy! An economic democracy is consistent with our understandings of a “Peoples Democracy.”
Lincoln had it right when he said: “Labaor is prior to and independent of capital. Labor can exist without capital, but capital cannot exist without laabor.”
In addition…a piece of paper making an investor the owner of wage laabor’s total product, has no intrinsic social value.
As Ben Franklin said” “All social values are the product of human labor…”
So, let’s understand Nader’s true role…, a pied p[iper in the service of the continued existence of capitalism. We need a new and better system. An economic democracy is on the table for a national discussion for capitalism’s replacement..
Answering Paul Bramscher and others:
Nader is NOT getting old. He is the state of the art. He is an expert and great lawyer. My question is whether his method, his concept is not perhaps slightly outdated, needing a bit of updating.
Where I believe he is absolutely correct is in his concept of fomenting lawsuits against abusive corporate practices.
This is because, even though the judiciary is corrupted, the courts (from the concept of open discussion between four walls), are still a fine place for the airing of res publicae - i.e. truth gets a hearing in a respectable format).
Where I doubt him is in the idea that the authority inside of and behind courts in the USA can be counted on to represent truth, and I also doubt the concept of authority itself in terms of punishment as a real motivator towards public morality. Nader is rousing us to punish wrongdoers, be they corporate or otherwise. This smacks of America’s puritanical heritage. He’s right, of course. But will his approach work? Americans distrust and hate authority. This is why America loves rebels, gangsters, criminals, and is supporting George Bush. He’s bucking the system (responsibility - a greater non-acheiver in scholastic, business, and military activity has never been seen in the Presidency), using the biggest lie America has ever seen.
I think someone has got to show Americans that decency can be profitable and advantages. Nader advocates punishment.
I don’t know if Americans will become “good” out of fear. They need choose good, not to be coerced to goodness.
This goes down to the line of the philosophical questions surrounding the definitions of crime and punishment.
I don’t know the answer the question of what punishments would actually be deterrents to specific crimes, especially white collar and government crime, which are crimes of choice, of luxury.
I am asking Ralph Nader to go out to Americans and try to show the dumbest among them, not that “crime doesn’t pay;” but, that “virtue is its own reward.”
Answer II for Paul Bramscher:
“einstein: I agree that’s what nations could/should be, but in practice they are economic cartels manipuled by elites, who play games with trade, labor, and resource differentials.”
Let’s not waste time winning arguments. There is a catastrophe before us. What I said is an attempt at a materialistically “scientific” description of human society.
It is not one thing in reality, and another in practice.
You have got it backwards. It may be one thing, “economics” (as you see it), in practice, but it is definitely closer to the concept of “biology”, in reality.
I am describing human society as an extended organism, a corpus. Your body is made up of cells. In nature single celled life forms become multicellular organisms. Beehives, wolfpacks, herds of cattle, these are similar to human society, but the individuals have different brains, and the aggregate of those brains achieves a different result.
Our society is a body, and that body is a function not of thought (in my opinion) but of evolution, of nature.
I believe that we need to understand and work with the forces that constitute that body to bring it health, not to enforce economic, political or other intellectual solutions upon it. We live in an age of science. And we need to apply good science and medicine, including enlightened law to our social evolution and survival.
Yes, Ralph Nader is the first among equals in American dissident politics:
Yeah, Ralph Nader is right. This article is perfect. I tried to offer some more ideas. He is the Beethoven and Mozart of reform politics at present.
I still think I had a few good points, and I hope they break through into mainstream discussion.
Here’s another quip of his to which I’d like to add a refrain:
“Interesting, isn’t it, that the CEOs say it is necessary to flee our country-where they were nurtured to their size and profits-in order to keep up with global competition. But they never urge outsourcing their own CEO jobs to hardworking, bilingual executives in the Third World willing to work for less than one-tenth of the U.S. CEOs’ pay package.”
Well Ralph, that’s exactly what is going to happen. The Chinese and the Russians and the Europeans are going to give these lazy s.o.b.s are run for their money, and they might just come out on top.
Are we so blind that we have lost hope in God Almighty and what his word says about the endtimes. Take a look at the holy scriptures and you will see that modern day parralells to Ancient-Babylon are prevalent today. Would’nt you agree that it is time to stop putting your “trust in Nobles or to the sons of earthly men, whom no salvation belongs.” It is apparent that no matter what form of government man tries, people and their imperfect will will dominate others because of selfish strife, competition and greed. Almighty God, in his infinite wisdom said, at Daniel 2:44 that he would set up a Kingdom that would destroy all other kingdoms and stand until time indefinite. That time has come! How much more can satan and his demons dish out? He has fooled most of you with lies continually and you hold on to your false hopes! Renew your faith! Seek Jehovah, while still yet, he allows you to run to cover. For his anger is soon to be displayed earthwide!
Flee to God’s Kingdom!
His spirit moved me to tell you all this, out of love! God Bless!
I learned from Noam Chomsky that many costs i.e. research & development incurred by “private enterprise” are actually publicized via the federal government: whereas, the profits are enjoyed by a small elite( a private club,if you will ) . My point is that it’s impossible to unravel corruption into neat little spools of corporate .vs. governmental. It’s as rhetorical a question as, “What came first—the chicken or the egg?” Power and greed exist in a symbiotic relationship.
It seems to me that most commenters here are ignoring the obvious: Corporations have only as much power as governments allow them to have. And in our particular case that power is virtually unlimited.
As for Nader’s supposition that we citizens will be able to seek redress through the court system, the legislation passed a couple of years ago regarding gun manufacturers should be instructive. Threatened with lawsuits that would effectively put them out of business, gun manufacturers (along with their NRA lackeys)persuaded congress to prohibit all lawsuits that might establish liability. Gun manufacturers are now completely free to produce and market a dangerous, potentially defective piece of equipment with complete impunity.
This, no doubt, will be seen as a model by other industries and corporations to follow.