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Who Will Rule? Citizens Movements Take On Corporate Power
Corporate power lies behind nearly every major problem we face-from stagnant wages and unaffordable health care to overconsumption and global warming. In some cases, it is the cause of the problem; in other cases, corporate power is a barrier to system-wide solutions. This dominance of corporate power is so pervasive, it has come to seem inevitable. We take it so much for granted, we fail to see it. Yet it is preventing solutions to some of the most pressing problems of our time.
With global warming a massive threat to our planet and a majority of U.S. citizens wanting action, why is the U.S. government so slow to address it? In large part because corporations use lobbying and campaign finance to constrain meaningful headway.
Why are jobs moving overseas, depressing wages at home, and leaving growing numbers under- or unemployed? In large part because trade treaties drafted in corporate-dominated back rooms have changed the rules of the global economy, allowing globalization to massively accelerate on corporation-friendly terms, at the expense of workers, communities, and the environment.
Why are unions declining and benefits disappearing? In large part because corporate power vastly overshadows the power of labor and governments, and corporations play one region off against another, busting unions to hold down labor costs while boosting profits, fueling a massive run-up in the stock market.
Why were electricity, the savings and loan industry, and other critical industries deregulated, contributing to major debacles whose costs are borne by the public? In large part because free market theory, enabled by campaign contributions and lobbying, seduced elected officials into trusting the marketplace to regulate itself.
With all this happening, why do we not read more about the pervasiveness of corporate power? In large part because even the "Fourth Estate," our media establishment, is majority owned by a handful of mega-corporations.
Big corporations have become de facto governments, and the ethic that dominates corporations has come to dominate society. Maximizing profits, holding down wages, and externalizing costs onto the environment become the central dynamics for the entire economy and virtually the entire society.
What gets lost is the public good, the sense that life is about more than consumption, and the understanding that markets cannot manage all aspects of the social order.
What gets lost as well is the original purpose of corporations, which was to serve the public good.
A Movement for the Public Good
The solution is to bring corporations back under citizen control and in service to the public good. The main components of such a movement already exist-including organized labor, environmentalists, religious activists, shareholder activists, students, farmers, consumer advocates, health activists, and community-based organizations.We've seen the power of ordinary people working together on the streets of Seattle in 1999, challenging the World Trade Organization. We've seen them achieve impressive results curbing sweatshop abuses, limiting tobacco advertising, challenging predatory lending practices at home and abroad, and protecting millions of acres of forests, to name just a few successes.
We've also seen the growth of community-friendly economic designs like worker-owned enterprises, co-ops, and land trusts that, by design, put human and environmental well-being first.
Focus on Corporate Power Each of these movements advocates for healthy communities, for a moral economy, and for the common good. If they acted together, they would possess enormous collective power. But as yet there is no whole, only disconnected parts. Despite many achievements, the gap in power between corporations and democratic forces has widened enormously in recent decades.
Activists and citizens are beginning to turn this around. We can build on this work. But if we are to close the gap in power, our strategies must evolve. We need to dream bigger, to speak with one voice across issue sectors, and to act more strategically. We need to focus less on symptoms of corporate abuse and more on the underlying cause-excessive corporate power. We must recognize that ultimately our struggle is for power. It is not just to make corporations more responsible, but to make them our servants, in much the same way that elected officials are public servants.
We need what the movement now lacks: a coherent vision of the role we want corporations to play in our society and a strategy for achieving that vision. It's about putting We the People back in charge of our future, rather than the robotic behemoths that set their sights on short-term growth and high profits, regardless of the consequences.
The streams of many small movements must flow together into a single river, creating a global movement to bring corporations back under the control of citizens and their elected governments. The urgent need for unified action impelled a small group of organizations to initiate a long-term Strategic Corporate Initiative (SCI), of which we are a part.
A Way Forward
Over the past 18 months, the SCI team interviewed dozens of colleagues and progressive business executives to develop a coherent, long-term strategy to rein in corporations. Three major strategic tracks emerged:1. We need to restore democracy and rebuild countervailing forces that can control corporate power.
At the community level, this means elevating the rights of local municipalities over corporations. Communities should have the right to determine what companies will do business within their jurisdiction, and to establish requirements like living wage standards and environmental safeguards.
At the national level, restoring democracy means separating corporations and state. Corporations and the wealthy should no longer be allowed to dominate the electoral and legislative processes.
At the international level, the task is to create agreements and institutions that make social, environmental, and human rights an integral part of global economic rules.
2. We need to severely restrain the realms in which for-profit corporations operate. Most extractive industries (fishing, oil, coal, mining, timber) take wealth from the ecological commons while paying only symbolic amounts to governments and leaving behind damaged ecosystems and depleted resources. The solution is to develop strong institutions that have ownership rights over common wealth. When commons are scarce or threatened, we need to limit use, assign property rights to trusts or public authorities, and charge market prices to users. With clear legal boundaries and management systems, the conflict over the commons shifts from a lopsided negotiation between powerful global corporations and an outgunned public sector, to a dispute resolved by deference to the common good.
3. We need to redesign the corporation itself, as well as the market system in which corporations operate. Companies' internal dynamics currently function like a furnace with a dial that can only be turned up. All the internal feedback loops say faster, higher, more short-term profits. And maximizing short-term profits leads to layoffs, fighting unions, demanding government subsidies, and escalating consumerist strains on the ecosystem.
To prevent overheating, the system needs consistent input from non-financial stakeholders, so that demands for profit can be balanced with the rights and needs of employees, the community, and the environment.
To end "short-termism," company incentives-including executive pay-should be tied to measurements of how well the company serves the common good. Stock options that inflate executive pay should be outlawed or redesigned. Speculative short-term trading in stock should be taxed at significantly higher rates than long-term investments. Companies should be rated on their labor, environmental, and community records, with governments using their financial power-through taxes, purchasing, investing, and subsidies-to reward the good guys and stigmatize the bad guys.
At the same time, we need to celebrate and encourage alternative corporate designs, such as for-benefit corporations, community-owned cooperatives, trusts, and employee-owned companies.
The paths outlined here do not represent impossibilities. With a citizens' movement, we could turn these musings into reality in 20 years.
Building a Global Citizens' Movement
How can we change laws regulating corporate behavior when corporations dominate the political process? The answer is that change begins with the people, not their government. It always has. Civil society organizations and communities can align their interests to produce a wave that government leaders must either surf upon or drown within.The people control the vital issue of legitimacy, and no system can long stand that loses its legitimacy, as fallen despots of the 20th century have demonstrated. Corporations have already lost much of their moral legitimacy. Business Week in 2002 found that more than four out of five people believed corporations were too powerful. A national poll by Lake, Snell, Perry, and Mermin two years ago concluded that over three-quarters of Americans distrust CEOs and blame them for the loss of jobs. An international poll by Globe Scan recently found corporations far behind NGOs in public trust.
Trigger events lie ahead that will create further openings for change. We can expect to see new global warming catastrophes, unaffordable energy price spikes, and new corporate scandals. We can capitalize on these openings if we can help people connect the dots-making the link, for example, between excessive CEO pay, companies' short-term focus, and the inability of the private sector to manage long-term problems like the energy crisis and global warming.
We also need conceptual frames that link various movements together into a common effort. Currently our economy is dominated by a Market Fundamentalism frame, based on the belief that when self-interest is set free, Adam Smith's "invisible hand" will create prosperity for all. Also dominant is the Private Property frame, which justifies actions by executives and shareholders to exploit workers, communities, and the environment in order to maximize the value of stockholder and executive "property" in share ownership.
We can advance new frames. "Moral Economy," for example, is a frame that puts the firing of thousands of employees and simultaneous awarding of multimillion-dollar bonuses to executives in a moral context. Suggested by Fred Block of the Longview Institute, the Moral Economy frame invites the introduction of new system forces into market dynamics in order to protect the moral order, and to counteract the amoral, short-term, self-interested behavior promoted by Market Fundamentalism.
Within the overarching framework of a Moral Economy, other frameworks like Community and the Commons challenge the supremacy of individualism and self-interest in the Market Fundamentalism frame. Community well-being becomes the standard by which business practices are judged, and communities themselves the arbiters of whether standards are met. The Commons represents our shared property and wealth, which is not to be exploited for the selfish benefit of the few.
New conceptual frames, trigger events, a crisis of legitimacy-elements like these can serve to help build a citizens' movement. But we cannot simply wait for this movement to form spontaneously. At the international level, we need regional organizations to come together to agree on overarching priorities. At the national level, we likewise need discussions that forge strategic priorities. At the community level, we need to create a network of municipalities working together to challenge corporate rights, to promote alternative business forms, and to inventory and claim our common wealth assets. Communities can also take the lead in creating public financing of campaigns, and in tying procurement and investment policies to corporate social ratings.
The idea is not that people will drop their issues and adopt new ones, but that we can learn to do both at once. We can knit ourselves into a single movement by adopting common frames and by integrating strategic common priorities into existing campaigns. For example, campaigns covering any issues from the environment to living wages could demand that targeted companies end all involvement in political campaigns.
As individuals, we can relegate our identities as consumers and investors to secondary status, elevating to first place our identities as citizens and members of families and communities, people with a stewardship responsibility for the natural world and with moral obligations to one another. We can stop buying the story that government is inefficient and wasteful, grasping that the real issue is how corporations and money dominate government. We can stop thinking that the solution is more Democrats in power, and realize it is more democracy.
The transformative changes we need will not be on any party's agenda until a citizens' movement puts them there. It's up to us to build that movement. By joining together-by taking on the common structural impediments that block progress-we can make it possible for all of us to achieve the variety of goals we're currently struggling for.
How would reducing the underlying power of corporations affect today's issue campaigns? Ending corporate campaign contributions and political advertising would benefit a great many public interest causes. How often in recent years have initiatives to protect forests, increase recycling, provide healthcare coverage, and raise minimum wages been defeated by corporations who outspent their civil society opponents by a ratio of over 30 to one? We've all witnessed elected leaders move to the political center once they started receiving a steady flow of corporate contributions.
Likewise, if we could reduce the 13,000 registered corporate lobbyists in Washington, D.C. and end the revolving door between government regulators and corporations, would a handful of companies be allowed to own the lion's share of our media? Would savings and loan, energy, transportation, and tobacco companies still have been de- or unregulated? Would oil and coal companies still drive our national energy policy?
Imagine ...
Imagine what it might be like in 20 years if our efforts are successful and people could once again govern themselves. A line would be carefully drawn between corporations and the state, reducing financial influence over elections and lawmaking, making possible a whole new generation of progressive elected officials committed to social transformation.In 20 years, imagine that the institutions of the global economy are overhauled so that labor and environmental issues are integrated into trade policies, and impoverished nations are freed from unpayable international debts. Trade and investment rules promote fair exchange, and national governments have the policy space to support social and environmental goals at home. Transnational corporations that take destructive action are held accountable in a World Court for Corporate Crimes.
In 20 years, imagine community self-governance has become the new norm. No longer can companies open new stores in communities where they are unwanted, or play communities off one another to extract illegitimate public subsidies. We value and protect our precious common wealth, from ecological commons like air, water, fisheries, and seeds, to cultural commons like music and science.
In 20 years, imagine that it is a violation of fiduciary responsibility for corporations to pay CEOs obscene amounts, or to aggressively fight unions and lobby against environmental safeguards. Responsible companies protect the environment as though there is a tomorrow, and they view worker knowledge and company's reputation in the communities where they operate as their greatest assets. Imagine such companies receive preferential treatment in government purchasing, taxation and investment policies, while irresponsible companies find themselves barred from government contracts.
Imagine we have a new national policy to make employee ownership as widespread as home ownership is today. And alternative company designs-like cooperatives and new, for-benefit companies-grow and flourish.
Imagine, in other words, that We the People are able to reclaim our economy and society from corporate control. Daring to dream that such a turn of events is possible-and charting the path to get there-is a critical challenge of our new century. Michael Marx is director of Corporate Ethics International (CEI) in Portland, Oregon. Marjorie Kelly is with the Tellus Institute in Boston and the author of The Divine Right of Capital. They are part of the Strategic Corporate Initiative, a group unifying efforts to curtail corporate power, and igniting change toward a more humane, sustainable democratic society and economy.
Read more about the SCI and read their full report: "Strategic Corporate Initiative: Toward a Global Citizens' Movement to Bring Corporations Back Under Control."
© 2007 YES! Magazine
100 Comments so far
Show All"Howard Zinn makes the interesting point that only in America do people ask him "what should I do?" We don't seem to know how to come out into the streets and we have purposefully been deprived of leaders."
What, are you a toddler? A robot? Have you no mind? You MAKE leaders, you BE a leader..you don't sit around waiting for them or have blame someone else for 'depriving' you of them. Of all the statements showing the lack of personal responsibility for actions and ideas at the core of most 'progressive' arguments, this
is the singular topper in days.
How can someone else "deprive" you of leaders?
The passivity and lack of initiative displayed here daily is stunning.
I am pleased to see other voices championing cooperative enterprise...and with some nuances I had not thought of. "Value" will always be created by
folks who produce the goods, but it need not be "surplussed" into a boss'
pocket.
Good article but politicians and the "professional class" will not do what is necessary because they are to tied to, and dependent on corporations. It is the vast majority of us who are the moving force in making this happen. As the old but ever relevant slogan goes -- "Workers of All Coutries Unite."
Well, that's one way of doing it, but twenty years is too long against the entrenched corporate/political powers. A swift overthrow of the power structure is needed and an overhaul of the political system is called for. You can thank the Republicans for the slide down the slippery slope to facism, but look at how many lionize Ronnie, far too many for a rather long debating session. Take a page from the second republic of Vermont followers or better yet from the Irish rebels of the post wwI struggle where they ignored the Brits and set up their own courts and civic systems and operated as if the Brits weren't there. Worth a stuggle?
Aux barricades anyone?
"I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." --Thomas Jefferson to George Logan, 1816.
Thank you, Mr. Marx and Ms. Kelly, for your thoughtful expose and critique of a system that's robbed us of our democracies and has ultimately made us subservient to a new aristocracy -- that being one dominated by corporate personhood and monopolistic "capitalism".
I consider myself a progressive constitutionalist who believes, foremost, in "a government by the people and for the people"; where corporate personhood is understood to be totally against the dictates of the individuals who rebelled against, and rejected, the power and dominance prevalent in the late eighteenth century when the British crown and trading companies (i.e., "corporations") conspired against the colonial inhabitants. I believe this to be the root cause of all of our social ills today. Until this paradigm shifts back to the original intents of our founding brothers, we'll continue to suffer the inequities that are systemic to our current culture and way of life.
Thomas Jefferson's vision of America was quite straightforward. In its simplest form, he saw a society where people were first, and institutions were second. In his day, Jefferson saw three agencies that were threats to humans' Natural Rights. They were: (1) Governments (particularly in the form of kingdoms and elites like the Federalists); (2) Organized religions (he re-wrote the New Testament to take out all the "miracles" so that in "The Jefferson Bible" Jesus became a proponent of God-given Natural Rights); and (3) Commercial monopolies and the "pseudo aristoi" (pseudo aristocracy) in the form of extremely wealthy individuals and overly powerful corporations. All institutions, in Jefferson's view, must be subordinate to the humans that created them, including governments, religious institutions, and corporations.
Imagine, in 20 years, a world where shortages run rampant, jobs are stagnant, taxes are incredibly high, and innovation has slowed to a trickle. That's the outcome of this incredibly regressive worldview, the same old same old one more time...control via threat.
First step has to be to take away from corporations the legal status as citizens, see the movie, "The Corporation".
A state by state voter initiative should do the trick. Who would vote to give corporations the legal status of citizen? The Supreme Court did a long time ago but I don't think voters would. It should be a no-brainer. Can you even imagine what TV ads in favor of citizenship status for corporations would look like? I can't.
Once people become the only citizens referred to in our state constitutions, we can push for legislation on the Hill.
Incorporate We the People.
incorporate it by reference.....
Given the severity of the situation in our country, I'm very heartened by this article and seeing the positive steps being taken. Although, I tend to agree that it's almost too little, too late. The current power structure will never allow the people to roll back the legislation and political culture which has enabled corporate power to run rampant on this planet, using the military and media as their arms of power.
Even if you were able to roll back or dismantle significant legislation, they would enact new legislation hidden deep in the crevaces of a 2" thick piece of legal crap that our congressmen won't bother to read. It's a shell game, and it's been going on for thousands of years. The power elite hide behind lawyers and priests and shifting law, while the people are always trying to play catch-up. If the people start to rise up, war is declared upon them. Plain and simple, and it's been going on forever.
As horrible as it sounds, I have resigned myself to the idea that greed is never going to be eliminated, simply because it is a basic human instinct. And greed is what drives all of this mess. Even the most altruistic among us can be tempted by greed and power, and this happens to many who start a journey of supporting the people, only to end up being a part of the problem (i.e. Obama, who completely caved in on his views once certain power elite groups began supporting him).
We are living in an age now where greed is not only accepted, it's celebrated, revered, and lusted after!! How in the hell can things change in a culture like this? Answer is, they won't, not really. The biggest problem with today's world in this type of situation is that never before has the elite had so much control over the entire globe, nor have they had so many ways in which to keep the populace "in check". As a matter of fact, I felt literally like we were checkmated when the Supreme Court selected our President in 2000. Game over. Nothing since has proven me wrong about this, in fact only re-inforced the idea. The end-game was planned for a long, long time - over 100 years, really - but it's taken this long for the power elite to have sufficient control over media, military, and religious institutions to be able to display their naked aggression against the populace. Now they do what they want, and nobody stops them. Continued lip service goes on and on from the supposed opposition party, but the truth is there is no opposition party now. They are all bought and sold.
Where is it headed? Global corporate control and enslavement, in my opinion. Follow the lines forward and that is where they lead. The biggest world war ever may be between the global populace and the ruling elite and their military arm. They are already preparing for this. They will also have no qualms about killing anyone in their path. Only when their money is exausted from trying to continue a war that is global in scale, fighting against the people who used to work for them and who also helped build their empires, will the people have a chance at winning back true freedom. I know one thing, it ain't gonna be Jesus coming back that saves us, nor Hillary, nor Obama, nor (as much as I'd like to see him elected) Ron Paul. No one figure can lead us out of this, for no one figure can pull the thread that unravels the power elite structure. It's a web that must be blown apart from multiple points, and it's only going to happen when the entire planet's common people rise up, for as long as it takes, to dismantle it. It will be long, horrible, and we will be fighting against the most advanced war technologies ever devised. But it will happen, or else we will always be controlled by these people. Period.
A vision, by my own pragmatic definition, is a view of the future realistic enough to believe in and follow. Early in reading this article, I found myself saying, "Easier said than done." But then as I read on it occurred to me that there are many things in life we often visualize that are more easily said than done. That does not make them impossible, but merely out of our immediate reach and therefore in need of a plan in order to implement.
The Bush Administration and the Religious Right have distorted the meaning of faith to imply blind obedience to authority. For those myriad areas of anomaly between reality and faith-based distortion, the neo-fascists apply what is often termed "magical thinking". But without resorting to religion or nationalism, we can still believe in ourselves as individuals, as communities, and as a planet. We can believe in our ability to adapt as part of our own collective evolution, without having to resort to icons such as Jesus to get us out of the trouble we're currently in.
Is humanity still scratching its collective head, wondering whether or not the corporations are killing the world? Or is mainly Americans sticking their collective heads in the convenient sands of ignorance and awaiting someone else's second coming to make clear what should already be obvious?
As a child of the sixties, I am often highly cynical and pessimistic. Then again, a heavy daily dose of our current reality convinces me that "...it's far to late to be pessimistic."
When I Googled the quote directly above, I found the following link, which I highly encourage you to follow: http://www.linezine.com/6.4/aboutus/elfall01.htm.
Below is a short, relevant excerpt from that link, re-printed in accordance with the Fair Use Act:
It's far too late to be pessimistic, resort to simplistic thinking, or avoid thinking at all. Every one of us has to go beyond just facing our demons, putting on a brave face, or weathering through. We must create space for ourselves and those around us—around our dinner tables and around our world—where we can be supportive compassionate, insightful, and brave people who will be able to look at our challenges—economic uncertainty, travel distress, technology malevolence—and respond with our whole selves. To find what we are to do now, in spite of and because of our fears, we must be strong, we must be reflective, and we must be truthful.
www.raycarlson.com
billjv and key89 I hear your frustration.
if you can not join efforts to make little things happen, one at a time, you still have a powerfull tool: educate people around you
Corporations created the public school system to create a compiant work force. Ending it is the first step.
along these same lines, after watching "America: Freedom to Fascism" it is hard to imagine that overcoming the power of the Federal Reserve Bank and the World Banks is even possible.
what is the hope for the next generation?
This seems too little and too complicated to have any real mass appeal. I'm no expert but wouldn't it be easier to start a national campaign for publicly funded elections?
This ONE POLICY could reduce corporate power right now. It would greatly reduce reps' motives for pandering to corporations and make them more directly responsive to regular voters.
Then you ban lobbying.
Then you revoke corporate personhood.
And then go from there.
Toiling away at the local level won't solve any big problems.
THIS, without a doubt, is THE challenge of our time! Over 14 years ago I addressed this subject along with some possible solutions on my website: http://www.sonic.net/~taryfast/us.html
If we don't go for the "head of this beast," and do it SOON, the whole world will perish!
The biggest problem I see with a campaign for publicly financed elections is that the media still controls the gate. The media could simply raise prices to the point where candidates still have no choice but to go outside of public financing for airtime.
One alternative that could help is legislation that would make all political ads free on any FCC-regulated airwaves. This would have two main effects. First would be a dwindling of political ads on television, since they are never inclined to give away airtime and these ads would be pushed to the worst possible timeslots. Second would be a surge in alternatives to getting the message out, such as more town halls, more public appearances, and more direct advertising approaches.
Regardless, unless the media is constrained in it's ability to control the political landscape (and our election totals!) there cannot be transparency in our electorial process.
Two comments...
People interested in fighting back against corporations will probably be interested in the Rainforest Action Network (they don't just work to preserve rainforests). According to The Secret History of the American Empire, they have lobbied and successfully changed policies of companies like Kinko's, Staples, Boise Cascade, Citigroup, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, McDonald's, Goldman Sachs, and Home Depot.
I'm no expert but wouldn't it be easier to start a national campaign for publicly funded elections?
Publicly financed elections have been in effect in Arizona and some New England states. From what I've heard, the type of candidates which win the elections and the type of laws they pass aren't much different than before!! I wonder what they're doing wrong.
Who will rule?
On one side you have a steamroller, and on the other side you have some ants in the road...
let's affirm the value of good company, good music, good food, good sex, good drink, good sleep and a creative life and give them the priority they deserve; they are not even that expensive. money is to the good life as viagra is to sex. woe to societies erected on its value alone!
Women's International League for Peace and Justice has a campaign to ABOLISH CORPORATE PERSONHOOD which may be the first step in taking back our rights stolen from us by coporations. Contact:
wilpf@wilpf.org
I will be organizing in New Rochelle NY to begin this campaign and will be in contact with your plan.
EveryONE should study the explanation of corporate personhood and how it has undermined all our rights. Get the info from wilpf.org on line or e-mail. There is HOPE -we need the will and unity.
Thank you, Louise Waterston
What rights have been stolen from you by corporations?
Which corporation is not composed of people within their rights to use their rights as people for the corporation?
We don't have 20 years!
form what I have read on the Internet the infection of western thinking has gone deep into other cultures. A Palestinian woman's new born died because she was not permitted by the Israeli boarder guard passage to go to the hospital...although the child was born live the grandmother attending the birth didn't know how to cut the cord and the child bleed to death. Anyone who has watched an animal being born would have known the cord is not cut! Western logic, is teaching stupidity to make dependence.
This is what comes of separating people from their understanding of their true nature and our connection to our planet.
I have watched my neighbors panic when the electricity went off even for a few hours!
We don't know how to feed ourselves, put food by, heal ourselves, build our own shelters, we don't even know how to entertain ourselves!
I do not agree that human nature is to be naturally greedy...In fact I have not witnessed that in my interactions with most people...It is however part of the self hating propaganda that is fed into us by the media, the Jedeo-Christian religions the schools and the government.
We are born bad therefor we must be controlled....
We have been carefully taught to desire and desire and desire. (for those interested read the book "Land of Desire).
This insatiable lust for things is what feeds the beast! The Beast is a parasite. It worships one god, PROFIT
Profit is manufactured by taking more than what you give. It creates imbalance. Someone must have less so that another can take more. It is stealing. It is an exploitive system. It demands that their must always be growth to sustain it. Since that is not possible it survives by growing like a cancer on one host elevating its ability to feed it, then destroying that host and embedding itself into another of low estate to begin the illusion of gain again. When that host is exhausted it will shift to a new host....look at the patterns of war this government has followed in the last so many years.
The basic foundations of cooperate-capitalism must breed greed into it's host, (you and me) in order to feed on us...greed is a corruption of nature...we have been seduced into supporting a sub-culture that sells dreams to produce their own power base. The customer becomes the slave and never gets delivery of the promised product. "Happiness" Credit wraps the noose you will put on your future.
This sub culture creates illusions that are the national narcotic while they also create the diseases that infect us and then sell the snake oil that is supposed to cure...but never will. and the circle of stupidity is sealed.
I think no other possible outcome but that countries that would keep their freedom and integrity close their doors to corporations.... Refuse the seductions of global markets and support and maintain themselves within their borders.
A corporation is considered an "entity". It has the same rights and license as a living person, except that because it has no feelings it is immune to morality, conscience, regret, love, in short it is without a soul.
It thinks of course but like a mob or a gang. no one within the entity is conditioned to take responsibility for its overall actions...each cell is no more than a numb function, to the master PROFIT. Even to the highest seat Profit demands and the whores obey! I could say slaves but a slave is forced and chained to their labor...a whore chooses to forgo propriety for gains.
I would like to think that their are enough human beings left on this planet that have the courage and the inspiration to shift the times from this darkness.
I meet many but they all think of themselves as alone and outnumbered, too old, too young, too busy, to unimportant, to poor...A strange army of warriors grows independent to suck the sand from under the feet of the elite. As yet they do not know themselves, their purpose or their power. Contrary to the author of this article, unification of all creates an easy target. When dealing with The They's of this world we must not think in hierarchal terms. We must think as individuals, keep autonomous. It is only the will and spirit of the goal that is the source of our success.
The answer is as simple as it is difficult. Stop buying their shit! Learn to live without them. Starve them and if you must...eat them! Be advised they are toxic.
They will try to punish us, watch us, starve us, frighten us, make us sick, they will tell lies upon lies to confuse and divide us, they will attempt to make walls around you with razer wire, and will work to set your own children against you like mad dogs. They are a living thing with a mind...But they have not one soul in all their legions.
MtnGoat, I've heard this argument before, and it's a straw man argument. Yes, corporations are made of people... duh! It's what the corporations are chartered to do that is the problem. Corporations do not hold the best interests of humanity, or people at large. They are chartered to make money for their shareholders, period. This bottom line mentality is the cause of all of the problems we see with corporations. It ruins cities. I can tell you first-hand how my hometown was built and then destroyed by one specific corporation, opting to pull out for cheaper labor overseas. Corporations pollute, and don't stop unless they are caught. Corporations buy our politicians, influencing laws that are supposed to protect US, but instead favor the corporation.
And lastly, corporations NEVER DIE (unless they go bankrupt, which is another story). They continue to amass huge amounts of cash and securities, while the average human lives only 70+ years. This gives them a HUGE unfair advantage when talking about the rights of "citizens".
Anyway, don't talk to me about corporations being "people". People may run corporations, and people may work for corporations, but CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PEOPLE. They are only motivated by profit and only interested in their best interests, people, lives, cities, even COUNTRIES be damned.
The needs of 3000 corporations destroyed Chile for a generation when on September 11, 1973, they began the war against the democracy of Salvador Allende's government. Families lost 30,000-40,000 killed and torture ruled the day.
The needs of 3000 corporations are biting the hands that feed them by destroying the American worker and the American family.
This September 11th, let us come together to denounce again the actions of American exploitation at home and abroad. Let's end poverty in the USA by supporting workers and worker's rights
"Corporations do not hold the best interests of humanity, or people at large. They are chartered to make money for their shareholders, period."
When was it decided that someone elses buisness must serve someone else's social goals? Why in the heck do you expect people running a buisness to serve what you value instead of what they value?
"This bottom line mentality is the cause of all of the problems we see with corporations."
Do you actually expect buisnesses to run without a bottom line mentality? THEY ARE NOT SOCIAL PROGRAMS NOR INTENDED TO BE.
"It ruins cities. I can tell you first-hand how my hometown was built and then destroyed by one specific corporation, opting to pull out for cheaper labor overseas."
Are you now telling us that they should have had their rights violated by some external entity taking control of their corporation and forbidding them to pursue what they choose?
"Corporations pollute, and don't stop unless they are caught. Corporations buy our politicians, influencing laws that are supposed to protect US, but instead favor the corporation."
Corporations could not buy politicians if you did not place the power for sale with them. I argue against doing so every day. Taking power from each of us and placing it with the State instead is the fundamental problem, because then it can be purchased.
"And lastly, corporations NEVER DIE (unless they go bankrupt, which is another story). They continue to amass huge amounts of cash and securities, while the average human lives only 70+ years. This gives them a HUGE unfair advantage when talking about the rights of "citizens". "
What's unfair about it? Are you telling us that somehow we have a right to expect organizations to 'die'?
"Anyway, don't talk to me about corporations being "people". People may run corporations, and people may work for corporations, but CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PEOPLE."
No, they're just filled with people, all of whom have rights. It never ceases to amaze me how incensed you folks get over 'corporate personhood'. So what? What rights of yours does it violate?
"They are only motivated by profit and only interested in their best interests, people, lives, cities, even COUNTRIES be damned."
Someone motived by profit can be dealt with very easily as long as they are constrained by the rights I espouse and you oppose. After all, when I hold the money and they want it, there is not one thing they can do but offer me something I want more than my money. How awful. They are *toothless* in their supposed power to coerce me....except when they've coopted power you probably support giving to the State in the first place.
I would far prefer dealing with someone who wants profit and can't do diddly to me, than dealing with someone with a vision of what 'society' should be, and the power to put people in jail over it for what are not crimes to begin with. THAT, is fundamental injustice, disrespect, and power mongering.
God, I mean seriously...what does the average company do to me that violates my rights? Why should I sign on to support ever more control over other people and their buisnesses, and threaten to harm them if they don't 'cooperate', which is as we know most favorite way to couch your threats?
It all leads to fascism!!!!!!!!
A corporation, as a legal entity, is a so-called "fictitious individual." Supposedly, they were clamoring to enjoy all the protected rights that people enjoy.
But the flip-side is that they don't seem to encounter the same sorts of obligations, legal liabilities, etc. that ordinarily deter most people from committing crimes. A corporate crime is a sort diluted group effort, lots of finger-pointing, blaming it on bad accounting practices, the intern, a sub-contractor, a fall-guy, anyone and everyone. Our legal system is for the most part aimed at prosecuting individuals, not fictitious individuals or entire boards of directorship.
So in practice, the modern corporation has become another element for keeping the law at bay.
MtnGoat August 29th, 2007 5:49 pm
"Which corporation is not composed of people within their rights to use their rights as people for the corporation?"
Answer: None. Every person who is registered to vote and works for a corporation has every opportunity to cast their votes as an individual for candidates who would advance the protection of these quasi-legal organisms a/k/a "natural persons", according to the 1886 the U.S. Supreme Court decision which held that, under the Constitution, "a private corporation was a 'natural person', entitled to all the rights and privileges of a human being."
I have yet to witness a corporation lift itself off its foundation and walk its ass to a voting booth. In fact, none of them would be able to get through the doors to vote. How "natural" is that? It may be entitled to all the rights and privileges of a human being, but is sure as hell can't physically or mentally function like one.
And in fact, unlike a human being or natural born person who would be prosecuted for criminal behavior, corporations are not considered human or natural persons under these circumstances but are seen as "legal fictions", incapable of thinking.
"What rights have been stolen from you by corporations?"
Answer: Power! Once these money-making phantoms were given "all the Constitutional rights and privileges of a human being", but were discharged from criminal liability because a "legal fiction" on paper is incapable of thinking, these money-making entitities with huge financial resources were able to exploit those rights by hiring high-paid lobbyists (which average citizens can't afford) to defend the bogus "natural person" constitutional rights that were given to them by none other than the U.S. Supreme Court.
In essence, what has been stolen is the ability of average citizens to compete with an entity that can contribute more money to political campaigns and therefore have a greater voice in public debates which undermines equality.
To MtnGoat...
You asked, "…what does the average company do to me that violates my rights?"
I'm not sure what you mean by "average company", but it's a known and sordid fact that large corporations (multinational corporations, etc.) have inherited rights that only "We the People" were intended, when the framers originally crafted The Constitution and the Bill of Rights. (Please review my earlier post from 12:00 p.m.) Without going into a long, detailed, and complex discussion with you regarding "corporate personhood" and the meaning of democracy, let it suffice to say that over the last 130 years, or so, corporations have gained unequal protection through a multitude of court decisions and legislation. These include, but are certainly not limited to: (1) unequal uses for several amendments; (2) unequal regulation; (3) unequal protection from risk; (4) unequal taxes; (5) unequal responsibility for crime; (6) unequal privacy; (7) unequal citizenship and access to the commons; (8) unequal wealth; (9) unequal trade, and of course the most apparent one of all; (10) unequal media and influence.
To properly familiarize yourself with the subject, I suggest reading Unequal Protection - The Rise of Corporate Dominance and The Theft of Human Rights, by Thom Hartmann. Also, a good website to examine is: www.reclaimdemocracy.org/ . There are several publications, periodicals, websites, and other sources that relate to this subject in great detail. It's all a matter of how much you want to educate yourself.
As I've said in previous postings, I personally feel that corporate personhood is the crux of all of the societal ills that we experience nationally, and internationally, each day. Corporate personhood is the disease; the problems we endure as a society, and a community, are only the symptoms.
One problem in the article is that they think the government is something up above society, separate from the people and the corporations, etc.. The corporations and the government are both part of the ruling class. The corporations rule with their money, and their allies the government rule with their police and military. They both rule together, because they are from the same economic class of people. Under a lot of pressure, the ruling class will give some concessions to the people, like the New Deal in the 1930's or the civil rights gains in the 1960's, but as soon as they can, they'll take them back. The only real solution to this problem is to get rid of the whole capitalist ruling class, including their government. And set up a democratic society where the people own and run both the political system and the economic system.
Can this be done by elections or other peaceful means? The Germans tried to in 1932, and more recently they found out in Indonesia, Chile, Guatemala, Argentina, Iran, etc. etc. that it doesn't work.
The alternative we face is either socialism or fascism. The capitalists know which one they want. Do we?
You said a lot and made a lot of claims and referenced other people, but you didn't address my question, which was...what do these companies do that violate my rights?
Not what they do you don't like for your own reasons. Not how they violate what you consider to be social goals. Not theories on how power is 'unequal' in cases where I would never presume it *should* be equal to begin with. "Access to the 'commons', ha... As people, don't they have the right to deal with other people who they cannot force to deal with them?
By the way, not agreeing with these ideas is not the standard for not being 'educated', Jefferson's guardian.
I could read all of them, and should they not contain cases exemplifying the violation of other people's negative rights, every argument for doing so to them on a false basis, is innately flawed.
Deer Mountain Goat, since you mentioned jails! Jails run by the government have an interest in rehabilitating prisoners so that they don't come back to prison. Prisoners are a drain on society whereas productive people add to society. Some prisons want to have prisoners to fill their chain gangs so that roads can be built for less and profits can be larger for those corporations in cahoots with the prison. When profit motive seeps into the prison system prisoners become a needed item for wardens and guards prisoners don't become rehabilitated and the whole system is corrupt.
When the prison itself is a corporation, run for profit, things become exponentially worse. The prisoner is no longer looked upon as a human being but as a thing used to make more money. Empty beds in government run prisons could mean that people are getting better and society is better. Programs to keep prisoners from returning to prison could be working. In corporate jails empty beds means lost profits, So, you have to keep the beds filled to maximize profits. So, you have a vested interest in keeping prisoners in there as long as possible and having them return to prison as quickly as possible. Some prisons charged prisoners for their food, baloney sandwiches, $.99 a day. When the prisoners are released they are given a bill. When they don't pay the bill because they have no job they go right back to prison. That way the prison beds are kept filled. Also, prisoners are used to make products, like garments for Victoria's Secret. Prisoners are taught to be productive they are taught skills that can't be used outside because those jobs with those skills go to prisons. Outside the prisons there are less jobs available to the community. So there are more jobless people and more crime and more people being sent to jails. Hooray for corporations like Wachovia.
What do you mean by "rights"? When the capitalists define what the rights are, by their control over the whole society, then of course they're not going to violate their own rights. We differ fundamentally on what rights are, and what rights people have (or should have). When United Fruit Company got the CIA to overthrow the government of Guatemala, and thereby caused the death of 200,000 people, do you think anybody's rights were violated? When somebody in this country dies because they cannot afford some medication because it is being sold at many times what it costs to produce, is that person's right to life being violated? Or is the only real right involved the right the right to make as much profit as the market will bear? Incidentally, corporations are required by law to make the maximum profit they can for their shareholders.
The ruling class in any society makes the laws and decides what rights people are to have. The capitalists are naturally going to do that to favor themselves.
I am in total agreement with the formation of a citizen's movement. However, the movement, in order to achieve all those beautiful goals listed in the article, must aquire political and legislative power at the federal and the local levels. Therefore, the citizen's movement can become the new indipensable political force, which objectively is a majority and which can score electoral victories for CHANGE. However the corporate capitalist establishment will react violently to such a prospect. The curtain of the play of bourgois democracy will be dropped, and the citizen's movement will have to face the pitiless aggression of fascism. That will be the critical point of the struggle. The people, being a majority, electorally legitimized, will have no other recourse but to liberate humanity from the scourge of corporate fascism by smashing it.
Let us learn from the evolution of people's movements in countries of Latin America.
MtnGoat August 29th, 2007 8:30 pm
"You said a lot and made a lot of claims and referenced other people, but you didn't address my question, which was…what do these companies do that violate my rights?"
In essence, what has been stolen is the ability of average citizens to compete with an entity that can contribute more money to political campaigns and therefore have a greater voice in public debates which undermines and therefore violates equality or equal rights.
You may not care about your rights being violated but some of us do.
i was wondering if anyone could help me understand this whole corporate thing? i don't understand the difference between a giant company owned by one single person, and a corporation owned by a revolving door of chief executives. if malfeasances are committed, aren't those individuals responsible prosecuted? when i hear of white collar criminals, it's people who go to jail, not corporations. this whole idea of a corporation as an entity, and what that implies is confusing. can anyone put it into straight forward terms?
(Same log corrected for errors)
I am in total agreement with the formation of a citizens' movement. However, the movement, in order to achieve all those beautiful goals listed in the article, must aquire political and legislative power at the federal and the local levels. Therefore, the citizens' movement can become the new indipensable political force, which objectively is a majority and which can score electoral victories for CHANGE. However the corporate capitalist establishment will react violently to such a prospect. The curtain of the play of bourgois democracy will be dropped, and the citizens' movement will have to face the pitiless aggression of fascism. That will be the critical point of the struggle. The people, being a majority, electorally legitimized, will have no other recourse but to liberate humanity from the scourge of corporate fascism by smashing it.
Let us learn from the evolution of people's movements in countries of Latin America.
Corporations are not people and sometimes they do not even contain people. Enron and several other creatively accounted corporations made shell corporations and uninhabited frameworks that were assigned all kinds of liabilities or assets at various times to create the illusion of solvency.
Corporations should have no rights at all especially speech and the right to petition the government. The executives of these companies already have too much influence.
IF AS THEY SAY, THE ONLY PURPOSE OF A CORPORATION IS TO MAKE A PROFIT FOR THE SHAREHOLDERS THEN:
A) The shareholders should actually have complete power over the corporation.
B) No charitable, political, or religious contributions should be allowed. Corporations target and buy influence they do not deserve.
The basic problem is that the corporation has usurped the individual as the primary focus of federal legal protection.
We are no longer a country of sovreign individuals but sovreign corporations.
The big corporations (as opposed to small business)effect my life in everyway by attempting to dictate what my choices will be, and in this I do feel my rights are infringed. ie: I have the right to buy and consume non-genetically engineered foods. But big ag and the government disagree, so whose rights are being protected and why? It's this way across the board.
Grassroots education and mobilization through conscious purchasing is probably the most efficient way to change the current paradigm.
Corporations go away when no one buys their stuff.
Jacob Freeze___ you ask "Who will rule"? Your scenario is a steamroller on one side and ants in the road on the other.
Let`s change the ants into killer bees and see who rules then. What can a steamroller do without a driver?
Imagine, for the last 20 years and more, a world where shortages run rampant, jobs are stagnant, taxes are incredibly high, and innovation has slowed to a trickle. That's the reality of this incredibly aware worldview, the same old same old one more time; control via threats and bribes and fear.
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Google "Santa Clara County vs. Union Pacific Railroad" to see where this Corporate Hood comes from. Anytime an entity creates itself as omnipotent and eternal God's own creatures haven't a chance. Not so long as we are individual 'ants on the road' but when we all join together, like an idea whose time has come, worlds can change.
"Do you actually expect buisnesses to run without a bottom line mentality? THEY ARE NOT SOCIAL PROGRAMS NOR INTENDED TO BE."
MtnGoat,
First, lets put this debate back on its track. The article in question is about corporations and corporate power, not all businesses. Don't build another straw man.
Actually, if you study a little American history, you will learn that when this country was founded, corporations had to be chartered by the state in which they resided. If said corporations failed to provide for the "common good" of the residents of the state, the corporate charters could be revoked and the corporations dissolved.
This from an article at the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy:
"During the colonial period, the royal chartered corporations -- trading companies like the East India and Hudson Bay Companies -- were extensions of the English monarch, institutions not only of commerce but of governance. It was through these corporations and the chartered crown colonies, like Massachusetts Bay and Virginia, that the colonists most directly felt the weight of English control.
So it's logical that once independent from England, the founders put corporations on a short leash, through state-issued charters that defined their purpose, length of capitalization and operation, made shareholders liable for harms done, and prohibited corporations from owning other corporations. Imagine!
For example, the Pennsylvania legislature declared in 1834: "The corporation is just what the incorporating act makes it. It is the creature of the law and may be moulded to any shape and for any purpose that the legislature may deem most conducive for the general good."
The general good, the general welfare, the commons. Of course, this was no golden age of democracy, since rule by the propertied few was well established from the colonial period up to today. However, for the first several generations of US history, property organized in the corporate form was subordinate to the people's representatives -- with the few and small corporations that existed considered public, not private, institutions. Charters had teeth and were evoked when violated and the corporation dissolved."
The full article, if you care to challenge your dangerously faulty assumptions, can be read here: http://poclad.org/articles/zepernick02.html
In short, I wonder what proponents of corporate power know that the founders of this nation didn't.
Chileans take to streets in anger at regime
· Hundreds arrested in clashes with police
· Economic inequality at heart of protest in capital
Jonathan Franklin in Santiago and agencies
Thursday August 30, 2007
The Guardian
Thousands of Chileans took to the streets yesterday in a burgeoning middle class revolt against the 17 years of coalition government that has ruled since the fall of Augusto Pinochet in 1990.
Hundreds of Chileans were arrested as they approached the presidential palace. Squares in and around the palace became a chaotic mix of mounted police, riot troops and teargas. As water cannons blasted protesters, waves of students counterattacked with rocks. Burning barricades almost closed central Santiago.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/chile/story/0,,2158717,00.html
Thank you for the insights re Thomas Jefferson . . . .
QUOTE: Thomas Jefferson's vision of America was quite straightforward. In its simplest form, he saw a society where people were first, and institutions were second. In his day, Jefferson saw three agencies that were threats to humans' Natural Rights. They were: (1) Governments (particularly in the form of kingdoms and elites like the Federalists); (2) Organized religions (he re-wrote the New Testament to take out all the "miracles" so that in "The Jefferson Bible" Jesus became a proponent of God-given Natural Rights); and (3) Commercial monopolies and the "pseudo aristoi" (pseudo aristocracy) in the form of extremely wealthy individuals and overly powerful corporations. All institutions, in Jefferson's view, must be subordinate to the humans that created them, including governments, religious institutions, and corporations.UNQUOTE
While I agree overall, especially the recently renewed use of religion by the patriarchy to once again create war and social controls and usurption of government . . .
I would point to the reality of religion being the underpinning for patriarchy. In fact, in this latest round, the GOP financed the start up of the Christian Coalition.
As for war, we went into Afghanistan six months before the Russians -- created the Taliban/Al Qaeda -- in order to "bait the Russians into Afghanistan .... in hopes of giving them a Vietnam-type experience."
The patriarchy have always recognized that there is no fanatic like a religious fanatic.
While obviously our invasion of Iraq had to do with control of oil and the ME, there are strong overtones of a religous crusade -- Christian vs Moslem.
IMO, there is no doubt that we can overturn this fascism crossing our threshold. The problem is time and the damage that capitalism has already done to our planet. It is so severe that not only are human threatened but the very existence of the earth.
Howard Zinn makes the interesting point that only in America do people ask him "what should I do?" We don't seem to know how to come out into the streets and we have purposefully been deprived of leaders.
As Global Warming becomes clearer and harsher, Americans will either figure out what to do, or perish.
iammyself, hey grandpa, i still have no idea what you're talking about. my question was simple, but i'll rephrase. let's say i want to steal money, or maybe i want to make a shit load of money and not pay taxes. how does being incorporated make that happen? if no-one can answer that, then doesn't mtgoat have a point?
Citizen activism can do alot to minimize Corporate power. It goes back to the old saying "follow the money" and vote with your money. Check out www.solari.com and be sure to read Catherine Austin Fitts biography.
I would think the first task of this SCI group would be to "identify" the corporations that are doing the most harm and begin a targeting campaign.
We could unite by email all these "grassroots" organizations and take on each issue. Imagine 3-4 million people not buying bottled water. Then 3-4 million people joining a union, etc. You get my drift.
First we need to know which corporations to target and why and how.
This earth will only be changed when people unite, organize and take back their power.
karenlee,
Your first point was the best: Vote with your money. I've seen Solari before, and will take a deeper look at it. Another point is to start wherever you are. The first thing we can and must each do is stop "needing" so damn much. Also, buying locally from local small businesses is an excellent way to support what we want and withhold our support from that which we don't.
Everything starts with us. It has to.