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This is an expanded version of a presentation given to the Summit on the Future of the Corporation, Faneuil Hall, Boston, MA, November 13, 2007:
It is fitting that we hold this conversation on the future of the corporation in historic Faneuil Hall, the Cradle of Liberty. Deliberations in this very room more than 200 years ago were the first step on a long walk away from a king named George that launched a new nation and led ultimately to the end of monarchy. May the success of our forbears inspire us in our deliberations on the future of the private-benefit corporation.
The Big Picture
I recall my business school professors many years ago calling us to look at the big picture to identify the systemic cause of whatever immediate problem symptom captured our attention. We would do well to apply this wisdom as we look ahead to the role of the private-benefit corporation in a profoundly troubled 21st century. We must identify the deep systemic causes of the social and environmental crises unfolding all around us-no matter how troubling the resulting conclusions may be. Here is the big picture in brief outline.
Consumption: Growth in human consumption resulting from a combination of population growth and growth in consumption per capita is depleting the natural life support system of the planet, disrupting hydrology and climate systems, and threatening human survival.
Inequality: Unconscionable and growing concentration of financial power in a world engaged in an ever more intense competition for a declining base of material wealth is eroding the social fabric to the point of widespread social breakdown.
Institutional Pathology: The most powerful institutions on the planet, global financial markets and the transnational corporations that serve them, are dedicated to growing consumption and inequality. They convert real capital into financial capital to increase the relative economic power of those who live by money, while depressing the wages of those who produce real value through their labor. They offer palliatives that leave the deeper cause of our potentially terminal environmental and social crises untouched, because they are the cause.
Our future depends on a dramatic cultural and institutional transformation to reduce aggregate consumption and achieve an equitable distribution of economic power.It requires an epic institutional transformation to:
Reduce aggregate human consumption.
Redistribute financial power from rich to poor to achieve an equitable distribution of Earth's life-sustaining wealth.
Increase economic efficiency by reallocating material resources from harmful to beneficial uses. Examples include reallocation from military to health care and environmental rejuvenation, from automobiles to public transportation, from suburban sprawl to compact communities, from conversion to reclamation of forest and agricultural land, from advertising to education, and from global financial speculation to investment in self-reliant local economies.
Invest in the regeneration of the living human, social, and natural capital that is the foundation of all real wealth. This requires reversing the current process of converting the real wealth of living capital into the fictitious wealth of financial capital and accepting the resulting negative returns to financial capital. It may take us awhile to recognize that just as increasing financial capital at the expense of living capital makes us collectively poorer, increasing living capital at the expense of financial capital makes us collectively richer.
Accelerate social innovation, adaptation, and learning by nurturing cultural diversity and removing intellectual property rights impediments to the free and open flow of beneficial knowledge.
These are imperatives of the 21st century and it is difficult to identify a constructive role in addressing them for the private-benefit corporation-a term for any corporation chartered solely to serve the narrow and exclusive private financial interests of its investors and top managers.
The Private-Benefit Corporation
The private-benefit corporation is an institution granted a legally protected right-some would claim obligation-to pursue a narrow private interest without regard to broader social and environmental consequences. If it were a real person, it would fit the clinical profile of a sociopath.
The basic design of the private-benefit corporation was created in 1600 when the British crown chartered the British East India Company as what is best described as a legalized criminal syndicate to colonize the resources and economies of distant lands to benefit wealthy investors far removed from the social and environmental consequences. That design has ever since proven highly effective in advancing the private interests of the world's wealthiest people at enormous cost to the rest.
The private-benefit corporation uses its economic power to privatize (internalize) gains and socialize (externalize) cost. The resulting concentration of wealth creates an illusion that wealth is being created, when the actual consequence is a net destruction of real wealth. It is an institutional form best suited to achieving outcomes exactly the opposite of those we humans must now pursue.
The only legitimate reason for a government to issue a corporate charter giving a group of private investors a legally protected right to aggregate and concentrate virtually unlimited economic power under unified management is to serve a well-defined public purpose under strict rules of public accountability. This defines a public-benefit corporation, which can be chartered as either for-profit or not-for-profit. The private-benefit corporation is an institutional anomaly, a creation of monarchy that properly shares monarchy's historic fate.
A New Economy
The work at hand necessarily goes well beyond redesigning the private-benefit corporation to hold it accountable for its harms. We need to bring forth a new economy designed to value and nurture life in all its many forms and unleash the full creative potential of the human species to this end. Organization theory suggests that such an economy will necessarily be decentralized, self-organizing, and grounded in principles of cooperation and mutual caring free from the distorting influence of the massive concentrations of centrally controlled and managed economic power the private-benefit corporation makes possible. This suggests a planetary system of self-reliant community-based economies comprised of locally rooted, human-scale enterprises that engage in balanced, rule-based fair trade at the margin.
As with any other segment of public life, markets must have a framework of rules defined and enforced by democratically accountable governments to secure the public interest. The freer the economy from distorting concentrations of economic and political power subject to abuse by the ethically challenged, the smaller such governments can be.
Business enterprise is integral to any economy. Business enterprises, however, may take many legal forms that confer no special rights or privileges beyond those of any natural person and properly limit the concentration of unaccountable economic power. These forms include cooperatives, partnerships, sole proprietorships, and special for-profit corporations with charters designed to balance public and private interests.
Each of these legal enterprise forms is more consistent with the beneficial function of markets than are global-scale transnational private-benefit corporations with internal centrally planned economies larger than the economies of most nations. Breaking up the larger private-benefit corporations into smaller component enterprises either rechartered as public-benefit corporations with clear public purposes or converted to non-corporate enterprise forms is an essential step toward restoring beneficial market discipline and responsible, rooted private ownership.
So where do we look for leadership in the monumental undertaking at hand? As continued denial of the reality of global climate change became untenable, private-benefit corporations turned from denial to an effort to turn the crisis into an opportunity to increase their profits. They are implementing energy cost savings and promoting carbon-trading schemes, ethanol subsidies, government guarantees for nuclear power, coal gasification, carbon sequestration, and other measures that treat symptoms within a business as usual framework of economic growth and financial returns to the already moneyed. Cutting costs through energy efficiency is clearly a positive contribution, but it must go well beyond the easy reductions that produce a quick increase in the financial bottom line.
Private-benefit corporations are not touching any proposal that would limit aggregate consumption or their own power. In its present form, the private-benefit corporation is incapable of voluntarily sacrificing profits to a larger public good. Yet this is exactly what would be required for them to provide leadership in reducing aggregate consumption, increasing equality, and redirecting the economy from producing what is profitable to producing what is needed for healthy children, families, communities, and nature.
Capitalism, which means quite literally rule by financial capital-by money and those who have it-in disregard of all non-financial values, has triumphed over democracy, markets, justice, life, and spirit. There are other ways to organize human societies to actualize the positive benefits of markets and private ownership. They require strong, active, democratically accountable governments to set and enforce rules that assure costs are internalized, equity is maintained, and market forces are channeled to the service of democracy, justice, life, and spirit.
Leadership in advancing the deeper institutional changes essential to the human future must come from awakened citizens working from outside the existing institutions of elite power. This work begins with exposing the myths that blind us to the irreconcilable conflict between capitalism and democracy and to the potential of community-centered, life-serving market alternatives based on principles of responsible citizenship, community, and equity.
We are the people to whom the founders of our nation referred to as "We the People." We are the ones we've been waiting for.
David Korten is author of The Great Turning and When Corporations Rule to World. He is chair of YES! Magazine, where he writes frequently on issues of corporations and creating a living economy.
71 Comments so far
Show AllYes, David Korten is great, insightful, highly knowledgeable, and a visionary.
I started reading him ("When Corporations Rule the World") a dozen years ago, and although corporations now DO rule the world, it's not for lack of trying by Korten to inspire and educate people against this take over by the global corporatist Empire disguised behind the façade of 'Vichy America'..
In 1995, no one knew about the corporate empire's sly weapon of 'negative externalities'. I learned from economist Korten and was inspired to write articles on early internet about these negative externalities being a hidden and unrepresentative corporate tax on America.
From these posts today it is clear that many CDers are fully attuned to the dangers of unchecked corporate imperial crimes with negative externality costs on our society and environment --- so Korten has enlightened the debate and fight against corporatist Empire.
Today, even major banks and investment funds are warning of the downside effect on the 'market valuations' of dirty corporations that pollute and cause global warming, and are projecting lower valuations as these negative externality crimes are regulated in settlements against their phony profits ---- as was done to the cigarette companies.
EG. "The UBS and Lehman Brothers reports concur that climate change represents a classic market failure where company valuations neglect to take into account negative externalizations--in this case, predominantly the emission of carbon dioxide CO2, the primary greenhouse gas (GHG)."
http://www.socialfunds.com/news/article.cgi/2237.html
The Ponzi 'economics of empire' which IS the global corporatist Empire behind this façade of 'Vichy America' has always depended as its seminal, unaccountable, and hidden economic strategy on 'gaming' the known market failure of negative externality cost displacement.
While historical empires could brutally use overt imperialism to directly loot the resources of other societies in order to support their hierarchical pyramid of wealth and power-elite, beyond about 1900 and the decline of the British Empire it has become necessary for economic empire to more guilefully create the centralized wealth of empire.
The favored vehicle for manufacturing and centralizing this economic wealth of empire has been corporatism (or 'private-benefit' corporations, as David Korten describes them), and the specific methodology has been to employ the well known 'market failure' of negative externalities to build a 'one-way faux profit pump' --- that pumps private profits to the imperial elite by simply pumping (or evacuating) costs onto society.
The first generation of private-benefit corporations using such one-way profit pumping and cost dumping was industrial capitalism --- which manufactured falsely profitably industrial and consumer products by hiding and dumping 'social costs' on society, customers, government and the environment. But as hidden costs, like river pollution and cancer in smokers' lungs was noticed and legal/regulatory pressures pushed costs back onto polluting industrial private-benefit corporations (and their imperial owners), a less physically detectable method of the empire's faux-profit-pump was developed.
This second (and current) generation of private-benefit corporatism, to feed the empire's Ponzi economy, dumps and hides not the negative externality costs of any physical manufacturing process, but rather the ethereal 'debt bombs' created by the new alchemy of turning not lead but air into gold ----- finance capitalism.
In the service of private-benefit corporations, private-benefit hedge funds, and the even more obviously named private-benefit private equity funds, this new alchemy of finance capitalism does not exist for the claimed purpose of actually financing passé industrial capitalism, but merely exists for the Ponzi function of aggregating wealth and power inward toward the economics of empire, and exporting / externalizing the negative costs of 'debt bombs' --- which now appear to be the premier, and perhaps only, export product of 'Vichy America' throughout the global corporatist Empire.
But beyond this gloomy sounding truth, there are definite signs of progress against the apparent juggernaut of the global corporatist Empire cureently controlling our own country and most of the world.
Korten's latest "Great Turning" (along with "Multitude" by Michael Handt and Antonio Negri) points the way to an enlightened overcoming of this current empire ---- not by 'hanging it with its own rope' as I suggested, but by raising the consciousness level of all people.
I do consider RSJ's points to be important, reflecting the Bjorn Lomborg school that exhibits measures in which there have been global improvements, such as the average standard of living, the rate of environmental clean-up. However, this is a cover-up - the on-going perpetuation of so many facets of inequality and subjugation in our lifetime, when we have such information access, is the far greater story. When we have global pillage and degradation, it is not right to brandish the extra toaster in the favela.
Secondly, to hope for a return of the Great Depression and FDR is worrisome. Some think this is the only way the supersytem is going to reform, but economic devastation for the masses, with houses, jobs, and savings disappearing into dust, is not going to be an uplifting, Boy Scout change. We keep wishing for supernatural events like sainted leaders or a return to a fetishized nature to bring us to our "mutually supportive" whistling happiness ideal state.
To say that Bush was "one step back" - is that what national socialism was? Since the demise of the allegedly pious Carter, this nation has taken enormous steps, in every institution, towards letting the air out of every liberal initiative, every New Deal. One election, say even of the economic populist Edwards, is not going to cancel these reversals to institutional savagery. We cannot look to the past or to sweetly babbling brooks for our salvation, nor can we gather into little survivalist anti-system bands and bring down the colossus. The 60's left imploded through self-serving cant and slavish veneration of rockstars and celebrity speechifiers, however inspiring their sociology. The supersystem is us, it is what we live in, it is what will always surround us, and it does feature the comforts of television, the imperative to work for economic advantage, and complicity.
I think we need to approach the problem with a completely different mindset. We don't need "dramatic cultural and institutional transformation to reduce aggregate consumption," as Korten says, even though that sounds like a really good idea, at least to those satisfied by superficiality. The term transformation is starting to be used as a replacement for reform. What we must institute is a complete replacement, a systemic alternative, for a system which bestows status and assigns worth on consumption.
We don't need to "achieve an equitable distribution of economic power" which also sounds like a really good idea, and is just as superficial. What we need to do is remove the perceived power and adulation we grant to economies--which basically equates to mammonism. Putting this level of focus on economies assumes that capitalism is the best, indeed only, way to support and assure entrepreneurialism--which best thrives in an unregulated free-market. It takes for granted that everything we build is a benefit; giving any of these shiny toys up would be a sacrifice of such magnitude that all meaning would be removed from life, so nothing must stand in the way of production. It shares much with other forms of economic determinism such as Marxism. It is part of the cultural confusion between standard of living and quality of life, which is only possible in a culture based on Enlightenment values of dualism, a mechanistic universe, and reductionistic science.
The first concept--aggregate consumption--we must approach with the concepts of ecological carrying capacity and quality of life. How much stuff do we really need, is it really making us happier, does it degrade and impair our life support system, and if so--in fact, if and only if--how many people can be provided with this stuff without diminishing resources, diversity, or replenishment rates.
Equity--meeting everyone's needs--will arise through the community, social, and environmental relationships that meet our natural expectations for fulfillment. The quest for economic power is not built into our genes, it is built into our stories. Putting the economy on equal footing with personal, social, and environmental needs underlies much of the problem. People don't tend to seek power of any sort when their needs are being met. What most people seem to prefer are the opportunities to develop their own potential and enjoy their lives with family and friends.
Even the terminology Korten has chosen is suspect. There can be no such thing as a "private-benefit" corporation in an interconnected and interdependent universe. Nor can it exist within the natural confines of sustainability. Shareholders and life are intrinsically at odds. There is no legitimate reason to legally protect its right to "aggregate and concentrate virtually unlimited economic power".
We do indeed need a new economy designed to honor and nurture that which contributes to life, and Korten does point out the aspects it will have, such as decentralization, self-organization, and adherence to natural systems principles. But Korten seems to want to protect the primacy of markets.
Markets, and private ownership as exemplified by the piratization of the commons in 15th century Tudor England, is a direct outgrowth of dominator hierarchies, and this is the message we need to face. The Earth does not belong to humans, humans belong to the Earth.
I'd also like to briefly respond to a point that RichM made in regard to mainstream Americans "waking up" or taking the red pill. People do need to be re-educated (or perhaps more accurately, educated instead of trained). And the energy pumped into keeping people brainwashed
However, it's not going to take an equal amount of time or energy to reverse the effects of the brainwashing of corporate propaganda. In fact, it will take very little of either. As shown in a few wilderness therapy studies, culture is only three days deep. That's how long it takes to shake off the stress and depression of our lifestyles after being emerged in a wilderness experience. This is also how long it takes to return to those same stress levels upon one's return to "civilization." Other studies show that withdrawal symptoms from television last about 2 weeks for heavy users.
The study that holds the most promise, though, for change agents who can become so easily disheartened when noticing that the world keeps getting crazier, is from the field of operant conditioning, or radical behaviorism. The classic study that pretty much put the final nail in the coffin of B. F. Skinner's strict behaviorism model was done in the early 1960s by Breland and Breland. They showed that any animal very quickly loses learned or forced behaviors that are unnatural as soon as the stimuli are removed, and this occurs even quicker the closer the animal is to their natural environment.
People don't need to read "serious leftist political critique" or understand what socialism means to realize that healthy, mutually supportive relationships are what a fulfilling life are based on. And the only thing they need to do to come to this realization is turn off their TVs, don't read any mainstream press, and spend a couple of days in the most natural area they have access to while in the company of a few friends or family members.
Sorry for the double post, but I don't know how to get rid of the first one.
The article is a great discussion vehicle and presents a very clear blueprint for new regulation of corporate charters.
LibertyPimp offers the only way to deal with this issue within the context of our current system and while improbable in that context it may not be impossible.
grannyt gives us the vision of what is presumably the common goal of most of us who post on CD. This vision is possible to live currently and presents a chance to change reality in the future. By becoming the change you wish to be, you also ignore the "system" in place. If enough people ignore that system it CAN become illegitmate and obsolete. While this takes time it has a distinct possibility of success.
Daniel David, on the other hand espouses working within the system as the only method to make change. He proposes continued collusion with the rigged political system by supposedly electing "liberals" to political posts and allowing them to direct the path of empire to a more humane and less imperial stance. He apparently has "faith" that the system can be resuscitated and places the rest of us in a category of delusional dreamers and mere activists operating outside of reality.
Unfortunately, his reality seems to be based on Stephen Colbert coined "truthiness". His "faith" in the system to correct itself calls up a quote used most recently in Al Gore's Nobel acceptence speech. The quote by George Orwell "Sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality...", fits Mr. David's enthusiasm for our current political system. His faith in politics as usual must be held up against the reality of our present situation.
Sorry Daniel, more Republicrats in politics is no answer and plays into the hands of the empire by legitimizing the current system. We truly need a tidal wave scale shift in government that can only be accomplished by the people and if the people cannot be rallied to take action (this may well be the root of the problem), and continue to act like sheep (no offense to actual sheep intended) we will be left to live our lives as best we can in a manner so well expressed by grannyt.
Notabilia wrote: "And RSJ decrying "fatalism" is just wrong - look at the grand sweep of wealth and oppression in America, taking in even one detour into Gerald Colby's fantastic depiction of the Duponts and the Rockefellers, and tell me that the Clintonian neoliberals are going to erase the neocon uprising?"
Clintonian neoliberalism won't erase that -- REAL liberalism will. It's not a done deal that Hiallry will get the nomination -- look at the surge by Obama and her 'hardball' tactics against him -- it's a sign of desperation. Besides, the neocons are imploding all by themselves -- their idea of government (or lack of it) simply doesn't work, as has been proven again and again.
You wrote: "The plutocrats and the monarchs of this day may be cringing and panic-stricken, as you say, but I would wager on their ill-gotten yet perpetual fortunes, as opposed to what some kid in East New York might see outside his school."
After the crash in October 1929, there were still a few hundred very wealthy people in the country, but most of the rich were completely ruined or nearly so. The middle class was also devastated; the poor didn't have far to fall and were consequently the least-affected group. The financial system in this nation is even worse than the one that precipitated the great Depression; for one thing, the government wasn't deeply in debt when the GD hit, making it easier for Franklin Roosevelt to bail us out with jobs programs and the like. Still, if we direct our resources at solving our own economic problems we could pull ourselves out of a depression, although it would mean a smaller military force, reducing government contracts, and using fewer imports. The rich may always be with us but, as in the 1930s, their influence on the nation can be curtailed and controlled, as it was in FDR's day.
Keep in mind that most Americans didn't believe FDR would accomplish much of anything when he was elected in 1932; he was a wealthy patrician politician with a funny aristocratic accent -- what did he know about the suffering of the common folk? He was elected mostly because do-nothing Hoover was so completely loathed.
You wrote: "Let's dispense with the liberal feel-goodism, and hope-hope-hope - Bush showed the puerility of our putative oppositional institutions. We had nothing against this malevolent idiot, nothing at all."
My comments were less 'liberal feel-goodism' than a peek back at history. Regardless of the one-step-back of a Bush, overall, the lot of the average person is improving -- it just doesn't seem to be frame-by-frame.
dplayful@bellsouth.n December 9th, 2007 2:53 pm
Hello cruxpuppy.
"You are right on the point: We have to take control of the Federal Reserve, which is a quasi private-"public" organization, as a major starting point. The control of the actual money and the sociopathic "money men" who control it begins there."
As an optimist, I don't think we're that far off. It's very possible this sub-prime debacle could easily destroy fiat currencies since many of the largest global financial institutions are hemorrhaging from the sub-prime debacle.
United Bank of Switzerland, one of the most conservative in the world just wrote down $10 Billion. Who knows how much more will be written down in the near future? It's a major banking crisis; the likes of which this globe has never seen before.
RJD: True.
And as a result of our decadence, we sow the seeds of the next plutocracy.
Me Too Also made my wife snort with laughter, which is about as good it gets for me. Although I grant that my remarks can, at times, be misconstrued as "pessimistic," I don't think there is any need for flowers, nor am I advocating any blind rage, other than honking at golf courses out too close to us hoi polloi. Voxclamantis is a pleasure to read, though I would advocate that we all can look at the Big Picture any time we want - what's wrong with some gold old-fashioned brooding? It's our genetic right, and it can be damn fun and inspiring. I don't think that we should expect that we can persuade any person of anything - I've never seen it happen, Me Too Also. The supersystem, in its incredibly complex arrangements of reinforced institutional inhumanism, will eat away at good ideas, smother the rhetoric, and encapsulate the "reformers." Who in the Aemrican "left" doesn't profit from the very horrors we condemn? Does anyone think that Korten's prescriptions are going to flower next month? I'm with Granny T and the Liberty Pimp, but let's see, there are the corporations, with their ludicrous trillions and impermeable suports throughout the supersystem, from lickspittle judges to pocketing pols to whoring lawyers to Mad Men, and on the other side, there are some fine books, a good proposal or two, and a pair of sneakers? Please. And RSJ decrying "fatalism" is just wrong - look at the grand sweep of wealth and oppression in America, taking in even one detour into Gerald Colby's fantastic depiction of the Duponts and the Rockefellers, and tell me that the Clintonian neoliberals are going to erase the neocon uprising? The plutocrats and the monarchs of this day may be cringing and panic-stricken, as you say, but I would wager on their ill-gotten yet perpetual fortunes, as opposed to what some kid in East New York might see outside his school. Let's dispense with the liberal feel-goodism, and hope-hope-hope - Bush showed the puerility of our putative oppositional institutions. We had nothing against this malevolent idiot, nothing at all.
I'm responding because of the kindness shown by a couple of respondents - I'm listening, I'm thinking, and I know you are too. Many thanks - it's what this damn Internet should be for.
BeyondEmpire, let's not discount the simmering anger of the infamous Silent Majority. I remember Eisenhower and I have never seen an administration so loathed; the fury is quiet, but palpable. As John Dryden once said:
"Beware the fury of the patient man."
Americans have been very patient, but they are ready to pop. Our Washington and New York based media, and the Beltway political class just don't seem to understand this -- they are ten years behind what's really going on.
I can't find anyone out here in fly-over country who supports Bush these days -- even Republicans. And the GOP is in disarray with the current crop of Republican presidential candidates inspiring little heat, with the exception of Ron Paul and Huckabee.
I think the next election will twist the MSM Conventional Wisdom into knots.
BeyondEmpire, let's not discount the simmering anger of the infamous Silent Majority. I remember Eisenhower and I have never seen an administration so loathed; the fury is quiet, but palpable. As John Dryden once said:
"Beware the fury of the patient man."
Americans have been very patient, but they are ready to pop. Our Washington and New York based media, and the Beltway political class just don't seem to understand this -- they are ten years behind what's really going on.
I can't find anyone out here in fly-over country who supports Bush these days -- even Republicans. And the GOP is in disarray with the current crop of Republican presidential candidates inspiring little heat, with the exception of Ron Paul and Huckabee.
I think the next election will twist the MSM Conventional Wisdom is knots.
Many great comments and ideas here, but I notice a streak of fatalism that runs against the grain of history. In the 1890s, robber barons ran the country and President William McKinley was their boy. The lower classes didn't have a chance and it was never going to change. Then in the 1930s, thanks to the collapse of the stock market and the election of Franklin Roosevelt, an era of progress began in this country that wasn't checked really until the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. (Even Nixon, as bad as he was, supported such things as the EPA, Social Security, and gas mileage standards.)
Thanks to the tone-deaf and incompetent neocon elitists of BushCo, America has now gotten a good look at government run by a corporate plutocracy, and they don't like what they see. I asked a Republican who had voted for Bush twice to list his successes -- after a long moment, he said "Well, he lowered taxes for the rich." That will be Bush's pathetic 'legacy' -- in all other aspects he's been a complete failure and the worst president and administration in our history.
As I mentioned previously, the Republicanism of the corporate neocons will be eliminated by an economic disaster, which is currently coming to a head -- just read the financial pages.
After every such 'realignment' things have gotten better for the average American, although there was some pain in the transition. Far from being comfortable in their wealth and hubris, the smart corporate elites are very much as worried as the ancient monarchs -- the head is never easy that wears the crown.
Not to be overly optimistic, but greedy, grasping plutocrats and monarchs throughout history always plant the seeds of their own destruction -- they can't help themselves -- and their ultimate failure is inevitable. We are seeing that truth played out in our newspapers and TV screens daily.
An errant thought--we change the definition of 'status' so that it no longer implies unceasing acquisition to beat the Jones'. What if it implied stretching a penny until it was flatter than a piece of foil. Then the rules of the game will have to change.
Another errant thought--as long as we think we cannot change things we will be proved correct. Korten, Hartman, Lappe'(Frances) and scores of others have tossed out ideas to restrain or eliminate corporate rape, it is up to each of us to pick one we like and work on it. From what I can tell the most effective, quick acting solution is to change the definition as Korten suggests in this article. Then we can make corporations as liable for damages as any other entity. The quickest way to the head is through the pocketbook.
Living your own life below the radar or as quietly as you can will often be a good way to make your contribution. Most people don't notice or care what you doing if you aren't a big showoff. Remember, it is easier to ask for forgivness than for permission. If someone objects to what you do, be polite and claim ignorance of transgression. (This works better for old, female blondes!)
THE HOW TO IS AS PLAIN AS THE NOSE ON YOUR FACE!!
He who has the power to grant and register the Corporate Charter also happens to have the power to suspend it or take it away. That would be the Secretaries of State, and they are elected officials. Perhaps in the similar way that one by one the individual States Attorney's Office's brought suite against the giant Tobacco Corps. then too the possibility exists that under the representation of the electors courageous Secretaries of State could begin to require Corporations to provide more public benefit than they cost. The fact is, that many smaller cities and towns have already begun the revolution by banning specific corporations or even groups and types of corporation in participating or doing business in their respective jurisdictions.
The time is now be be involved fellow activists! Start by contacting your Secretary of State and ask them to hold irresponsible corporations accountable! Here is the site for all their webpages: http://nass.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=44&Itemid=1 Participate in the dialogues in your town meetings and city councils and at the very least introduce these very important concepts into the conversation. If they won't listen then run for office.
I still believe we can bring our democracy back around but time is running out. The Government has lost its way and are edging us closer and closer to an economic depression. Please lets do everything we can RIGHT NOW!!
"Why do I find myself in agreement with the most pessimistic posts? You are right, of course, that the system is a huge, seamless, daunting matrix. It is science fiction to think..."
Science-fiction often evolves into science-fact. So, too, you needn't agree only with pessimism (unless that's your personal-imperative) -- there's still cause for 'hope' if desired, albeit a slimming-one.
Philosophy (which I lump-under, but which has dominant-placement within, what I call 'Mythos' -- half of the Duality governing higher-order life-forms, and required [ultimately] for the other-half -- which I'll call 'Success', and the-half common to all life-forms) is 'one-thing'. Getting/forcing any others [people, nations, or in present-case, Corporations...] to do your-Will, or the Public-Will (which, hopefully, will conjoin?), is always possible. But when the Actor you wish to influence is 'powerful/successful', then the most-expedient way of doing-so is to 'argue'/influence in a fashion that clearly inspires/informs that Actor that their-Interests are to be as well-served as the Petitioner/Public/Philosopher-interests are.
That...works every time.
And, quite frankly, if you cannot convince the Actor that this is 'Truth', then _SHOULD_ you ever expect cooperation/acceptance/Success in your attempts?
In meantime, and whist waiting to see if Humans can survive their own-Success to further-Evolve, or instead meet their deserved Malthusian End-Times -- yes, humor helps!
notabilia
Why do I find myself in agreement with the most pessimistic posts? You are right, of course, that the system is a huge, seamless, daunting matrix. It is science fiction to think that our discontent is going to hit critical mass so that we all hit the streets and replace the status quo with a better idea even if we could agree on one. Nor can I imagine a procedure for incremental change in something so complex. And yet historically our social systems do change, and possibly even improve, due to some sloppy, chaotic gestalt of idealism and discontent. I do not think the chafing consciousness that we are ruled by mechanisms is more futile than any other awakening. It is somewhat contagious, and does find its way into the general social consciousness, though we should not, as you say, expect any orderly or imminent change. The mind set of radical humanism, of Albert Schweitzer who was also a pessimist in his later years, was that you are who you are and you do what you do, whether you appear to be wasting your energy or not. The big picture is likely none of our business. A sense of humor helps.
Wow!
A truly smart and well-meaning individual, this author...
He so-addressed a group -- Publicly, and in the United States? [Where do I address flowers, and when is his funeral?]
The one great failing about these types of speeches and comments is that there is disconnect. People talk in an Aspergian haze about going back to indigeneous this or that, the 60's, "spiritual." We are all located in our particular place and time, prisoners of what I call the "supersystem." That is what governs us, the mutually supporting, invisible arrangement of myths, traditions, practices, ingrained habits, animal instincts, that permeate all of our institutions. And while there is some movement in that, social matters do changem marginally, , the speed is glacial and incredibly frustrating, and matters can get far worse rather than getting better. The idea that we are going to unravel the corporate-military-legal-academic-political global industrial complex by this or that idea or initiative is preposterous. Each of us is but one individual, fated to be affected by the actions of elites we will never be able to touch. The elites, in turn, are subject to the existing rules of their games, and are versions of us with better bank accounts a a few degrees more complicity.. There is no god that will make all this nonsense turn out better, and humans in their institutional restrictions will let us down in innumerable ways as we strike out for our imagination of a cotton-candy halcyon world. All of the Big Names are united by their fraudulent piety - from Hartman to Nader to Cockburn to the Marxists to the bong-hitting musicians - we need honesty about our predicament, and laughter at the absurd waste of our talents.
Korten is one of the great social thinkers of our time. His books provide good historic information and show the fragility of present condition.
I live as simply as I can while trying to make a impact in my community. We all must work at being responsible citizens. But as Thom Hartmann references in Unequal Protection, unless personhood is taken away from corporations we will always be fighting defensively and eventually losing for good.
There are groups in Pennsylvania and California pushing against corporate personhood at the municipal and county levels. We should all look in our own localities and hook up with those doing this work. A good resource is POCLAD in Massachusetts.
Corporations have become the modern Frankenstein monsters and will surely do us in stop them.
All I can do is limit my corporate buying, spend less than I earn and push back a little bit.
"... HERE is the big picture in brief outline":
http://www.sonic.net/~taryfast/destruction.html
Hello cruxpuppy.
You are right on the point: We have to take control of the Federal Reserve, which is a quasi private-"public" organization, as a major starting point. The control of the actual money and the sociopathic "money men" who control it begins there.
A few points that are rarely made when discussing corporate economics:
1. The British East India Company not only had profit motives, but it also had eugenics motives, and not necessarily under strict racial lines. In fact, while the Indians were being looted and enslaved, the Chinese made into opium addicts, and the Africans enslaved by the later sugar business; the products produced (tea and sugar) were used to provide easy calories (no spoilage and minimum work stoppage) to the unfortunate labor class at home in England. Funny, we think of "afternoon tea" as a refined British pastime, but, in fact, the custom was largely a labor-class device and a way of diminishing the popular-movements coming out of the pubs (See Sugar Blues by William Dufty, for example). After all, the factories swelled with former farmers who had lost their land due to Enclosure Movement and other Malthus-inspired innovations, creating an endless class of cheap labor from the "lesser" white bloodlines. Instead of organizing labor movements in the pubs after hours, the imposed custom by the factory owners of providing tea houses to the entire family, kids and all, greatly tempered the ramble-rousing mentality of the pub-fueled men's clubs which also served hard-boiled eggs, jerky, and other more substantial fare. Compare that with the tea with sugar and the sugary cakes and jam with lots of bread that the whole family could stuff themselves with, affordably, but with substantial profit to the factory/tea-house owner.
2. Women's rights can either be a benefit to society (when it is grassroots) or a corporate tool to expand the labor class and thereby depress wages. It is not exactly progress when both parents are forced to hold down a full-time job working for someone else, namely a corporation. Beware of do-gooders trying to introduce feminism to the Islamic world. The result is seen in Turkey which swells with female-staffed sweatshops. Oh, what progress. Real women's rights means easy access to birth control including "natural" unpatented methods like extended breast feeding of the most nutritious food available to allow optimum genetic expression rather than the shrunken-mouthed stoop-shouldered expression people wrongly associate with British genetics but that is rather a result of generations of refined sugar and flour consumption, plus infant formula (as demonstrated by Dr. Weston A. Price, DDS, 1870-1948). You've come a long way baby.
3. The Republicans will be unable to sell the National Animal Identification Act to their base because it is so obviously "Big Government" and intended to destroy what few small farms are left in the U.S.A., that even they can't stomach it. Implementing the NAIS will require a clear Democratic majority whose base is in the cities. City folks do not usually understand that giving every farm animal an identification number is not purely to protect them from tainted meat and terrorism. Big CAFOs (confined-animal-feeding-operations) will only be required to maintain a single identification number covering all of their stock, although we all know which type of farm operation has the worst record of tainted products, ecological disaster, etc. Hint: it is not the small producers. This may seem like an aside in a discussion about corporations and capitalism, except when one looks to the Democrats to solve the problem (they won't) and when one looks at the root of the word, "capital", which is, of course, Cattle, true wealth, and the secret of the most successful local economies. Isn't it ironic that Ishtar, the cattle goddess, was the patron saint of Babylon? Now, I suppose it is Cargill.
I can't support Dennis Kucinich for many reasons, not the least of which is that he is vegetarian which means that he has bought into the "Diet for a Small Planet" myths that when taken to their extremes make the great big soy farm conglomerates the heroes who can feed the world and denies the ecological as well as superior nutrition benefits of humane, grass-based, ranching and dairying. Check out my handle.
I am sorry I have no solutions except that people need to start their own alternative economies in order to starve out the beast and should start improving their health in non-corporate means, which means no processed food including food that comes in pretty recycled packages with contributions to the rainforest or whatever, but that is no better than the big sacks of "feed" given to confined livestock. Soy meal with canola oil anyone?
Doll; Well said, my dear. I'm with you on that.
If corporations want the rights of real people, then they should be able to face the death penalty too. I oppose the death penalty for people, but a do favor the death penalty for corporations who harm real people.
I suggest we start with Monsanto. Everyone would be a lot healthier if Monsanto were to be liquidated.
The people that don't add true value to the economy are the super-rich drones and moneychangers that glom all the people's resources. And there's very few of them.
?????? What will become of all the people that don't add true value to the economy? There's an awfull lot of them, and I don't see them taking up farming any time soon.
What some Americans, feeding at the corporate trough, don't seem to understand is that we need a government to put a check on corporate power. Without that check corporations become plundering, rapacious monsters, as history has shown. As John Maynard Keynes once wrote:
"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."
These days we have 'crony corporate capitalism,' even more pernicious than ordinary capitalism as it uses taxpayer money to further enrich the wealthy and the corporations in which they invest.
The solution has been provided by the very corporate elites who have been on a dizzy binge of obscene profit for the past six years -- in their greed they have managed to wreck the American economy, making paupers of the consumer base they need to maintain and grow by outsourcing their jobs, inflating prices, and ruining their communities by selling them homes they can't afford, thereby guaranteeing a massive economic meltdown, which is in progress.
As in the 1930s, the people are going to turn to the government for solutions in the wake of this corporation-created catastrophe -- the Republicans are useless, as they were in 1929, so the Democrats will be forced to step up to the plate and clean up the GOP mess, just as FDR did during the Great Depression, or risk losing out to a third party that WILL do something.
David Korten has identified the most critical problem that we face today. There is one model of a Democratic corporation in the world that is an unqualified success:
Google:
THE MONDRAGON COOPERATIVE COMPLEX (in Spain).
At last count, they had 76,000 employees (2,000 more than Microsoft),they own their own banks! They have $14 Billion in assests and sales of $14 billion per year.
They are a worker-owner cooperative. They have taken charge of their community with their own schools.
Never heard of Mondragon? Don't feel deprived. It is the Best Kept Secret in Economics. I have written a fact-filled novel, showing how 5 billionaires and a few good City Planners could build 21 New Towns that expand on the Mondragon model, resulting in a totally self-sufficient economic system that meets David Korten's goals, titled, THE TRINITY CONSTELLATION (brace yourself for the subtitle--Christ's Rebels Build the Future.
I know it's provocative, but do you think the Buddhists or Taoists will build it? The book is available at Amazon.com It shows how difficult such an enterprise would be and it has action, spies and of course, romance!
Korten sees with a wide angle lens and from multiple perspectives can describe what he sees with intelligence and compassion.
He also describes them with courage:
"The private-benefit corporation is an institutional anomaly,
a creation of monarchy that properly shares monarchy's historic fate."
Talk about your David and Goliathon.
A lot of great comments but I feel some readers have been too quick to shoot from the hip in crtiquing David Kortens article because they are not that familiar the immense depth and width of David Kortens' writings.
David Korten is without doubt, one of the foremost minds in the world today when it comes to how Mankind must mature as a species and heal our broken world. David Korten has tremendous experience in Third World economic development and his writing has a powerful underlying spiritual message.
I would like to suggest that CommonDreams readers get to know David Korten by reading his three major books;_When Corporations Rule the World_ The Post Corporate World, Life After Capitalism_ and his most recent book, _The Great Turning_, also his numerous articles available on the People Centered Development Forum and Yes!Magazine, and his association with the International Forum on Globalization, the Earth Charter Initiative and the World Social Forum. .
Many CommonDreams readers are rightly stymied as to how our society can possibly launch such radical social change. David Korten does not attempt to provide all the answers, but I am sure he would suggest readers to become familiar with the many excellent publications provided by International Forum on Globalization. David Korten is a contributing scholar with the I.F.G.
Overall, David Korten does make clear in his writings that such a movement, working for a just, sustainable and compassionate world, must come from reinvigorated democracies and a major paradigm shift in the world in the form of an emerging higher global consciousness that is best expressed in the Earth Charter document.
By the way, the Earth Charter was voted down by the U.N., primarily by the U.S., as a threat to Western industrial capitalism. However, the Earth Charter initiative is not dead, the movement is just tired and stopped in its tracks by the U.S. war on Terrorism
What I see from this discussion is a lot of folks who have no concept of idealism. If we do not have a "New Jerusalem" to aim for, then we will fight over such minor and inconsequential "reforms."
Only one who has given up can say, "How can we implement such a transformation?"
For example, in order to reduce aggregate consumption, simple steps can be legislated or begun. For instance, make computers which are big enough to easily accept new hardware innovations, instead of forcing the purchase of new computers anytime the corporation can convince the "consumers" to buy something new. The consumers are not just households, but other corporations who are able to take a tax break for capital improvements.
Large companies have workers whose job is to repair their existing computer hardware. For the household market, there is no reason that new organizations can begin that can install the new equipment and cure the problems at a reasonable price. The computer geeks company is only the first step.
If this works on a small scale for a few years, then legislation can be enacted to remove the tax break for purchasing replacement computers. Yes, this will take a few years to accomplish, but it should have a large affect on metal pollution, workplace safety and will save money.
This is just one example. And not a minor one.
David Korten, your proposals have no chance unless you first of all radically reform the monetary system. You chastise the money makers..."Capitalism, which means quite literally rule by financial capital-by money and those who have it-in disregard of all non-financial values..." but your proposals will do nothing substantial to change this "rule by financial capital".
Our Constitution gives the people the right, nay, the obligation, to make their own money. The creation of money, the money power, which is the control of the economy itself, is the business of the people's government, not the private and secretive operation called the "Federal Reserve".
So long as this money power is in the hands of a wealthy minority to use as they please, the good of the people, other species, and the environment will continue to suffer no matter how you tinker with corporate law.
To have a government by and for the people, it is necessary for the people to take back the money power and create their own debt-free monetary system as Franklin and Jefferson demanded.
This is not in principle a difficult thing to do, but in actuality, when leaders such as yourself seem to not understand the nature of the money power, it seems much more difficult.
Well done David Korten. How is it that everyone misses the solution you propose and go off on tangents discussing candidates for President and the like? The problem is not a people problem that can be changed by changing the players or their attitude. The problem is a systems problem. The system with the fault is the engine of capitalism, the corporation, as you correctly point out.
You state:
"There are other ways to organize human societies to actualize the positive benefits of markets and private ownership. They require strong, active, democratically accountable governments to set and enforce rules that assure costs are internalized, equity is maintained, and market forces are channeled to the service of democracy, justice, life, and spirit."
What causes the corporation to externalize costs? The unbalanced duty of directors to act in the corporation's best interest. This duty needs to become balanced to protect the environment and other elements of the public interest. It's a simple change designed to internalize costs that are now being externalized.
It may not solve all of the world's problems, but it is a good start. The perfect should not become the enemy of the first step in the right direction. Which would you rather have, corporations that act only in their own self interest or corporations that act only in their own self-interest to the extent that it does not come at the expense of the environment, human rights, the public health and safety, the dignity of employees and the welfare of the communities in which it operations?
rtdrury December 8th, 2007 8:51 pm -- "In school the kids will learn that the best way to deal with human nature is to avoid trying to control it but instead place strict controls on the institutions, ..."
Exactly. The "Catch 22" problem is that the proponents of "unfettered capitalism" are currently the controlling sponsors of the institutional regulators needed to accomplish what you advocate.
Too many here are missing the point. The idea is not to place one's hope in centralization, i.e. an elected president or party. The idea of "decentralization" places the responsibility for change upon each of us.
"We need to bring forth a new economy designed to value and nurture life in all its many forms and unleash the full creative potential of the human species to this end. Organization theory suggests that such an economy will necessarily be decentralized, self-organizing, and grounded in principles of cooperation and mutual caring free from the distorting influence of the massive concentrations of centrally controlled and managed economic power the private-benefit corporation makes possible."
The paradigm shift requires nurturing life in all its forms.
That is key. The decentralized self-organizing units grounded in principles of cooperation and mutual caring is also key.
What is being described here is Indigenous society. These values are basic to Indigenous lifeways. They were basic to American Indian lifeways before the great genocide. They are still basic to Traditional American Indian life today.
These are the values that Hugo Chavez is attempting to implement in Venezuela and to which the American Corporate elites are so adamently opposed.
So at the very least be honest about the source of these beliefs. They are Indigenous and they are sensible and sustainable for a balanced life.
I'm glad to see Mr. Korten sharing his ideas in this forum. I hope we'll be hearing more from him.
Thanks for this well thought out piece.
Whatfools: You have hit the nail on the head. We need a constitutional amendment yesterday. Jim Hightower's been talking about this for years "A corporation is not a person"
I'd give them the right to free truthful speech about their products or services. And due process.
RichM: There are various alternative models for organizing society
The society has to be re-organized, with heavy restrictions on corporate capitalism, if it is to ever climb out of its quagmire, but the alternative organization need not be developed on paper before it is implemented. It's not like a tower that will collapse if the design is flawed. The framework has to evolve through trial and error but the guiding principles have to remain fixed.
Arvy: You'll never change human nature — nor, for that matter, the inherent and necessary attribute of all living things to maximize benefit to themselves
In school the kids will learn that the best way to deal with human nature is to avoid trying to control it but instead place strict controls on the institutions, organizations and channels, mandating that they support the positive side of human nature and banning them from inflaming the negative side. These entities should promote cooperation and win-win approaches and discourage the zero-sum game, perpetual economic growth and all the rest of the capitalist dogma. It is very practical, logical, ethical and effective to regulate these entities. This is how healthy societies are maintained. In the USA, the way to implement this is for the people to practice localism (to build local political/economic power), and vote political candidates who are very strongly in favor of implementing these controls - a very few Demoks (Kucinich), and the rest are Green Party members or independent progressives such as Nader. DO NOT pretend that Hillary or any of the other corporate lapdogs are going to implement a progressive revolution.
Gail -- the difference between Bush issuing Executive Orders, and a hypothetical President Kucinich issuing them, is all the difference in the world. When Bush does it, he's acting ON BEHALF OF the corporate elite -- and almost all of Congress is on his side. If Kucinich did it, he'd be acting IN OPPOSITION TO the corporate elite. He'd be opposed by almost everyone in Congress of BOTH parties -- as well as by the media, the Pentagon, and all of corporate America. He would get no more support as president than he's gotten for his bill to impeach Cheney (only about 21 Dems have backed it).
You write, "Don't you think the majority in this country would finally wake up if Congress tried to reverse these privileges when a president for "We the People" got into office?"
- Actually, no, I don't at all think that. The American people's problem with politics is not exactly a matter of "waking up." They need to be politically (re)educated -- it's more than just being "woken up." Good instincts & good intentions are not enough. American life, as we have known it, involves being brainwashed on a daily basis. It takes a lot of work to reverse the effects of that. Probably less than 1% of the population has read any serious leftist political critique. Probably less than 1% could partipate in an intelligent discussion about socialism, or even tell you what its principal ideas are.
The best that a brainwashed public can do, without further political education, is to be discontented and frightened about the way things are going. That's a start, but it's not remotely enough to base a movement on. And make no mistake -- a very broad and serious movement is exactly what's required. In the absence of that, there is no prospect of confronting & changing the existing order. (These guys are, if nothing else, very well-organized. They pay attention, & know how to defend their own interests.)
Kucinich is a good guy, as US politicians go. But the system, as it now stands, will not permit such a person to be nominated. Also -- Kucinich himself is not saying anything about "confronting and changing the existing order." He is not attacking capitalism in anything he's saying, and his campaign rests on the flatly false premise that "We the People" can effect profound change in the system, simply by voting for a liberal Democrat.
Long, long time ago, in high school (Canadian no less), I learnt in history class, that it was legislated that corporations in the United States were chartered to fulfill a certain objective that was in the interest of "the people" and once it had completed its goal, it had to disband, or to recharter itself with another goal in mind, still mandated to benefit the people. Those days when Americans had thinking and moral leaders who worked for their constituents, have long passed and corporations have become vultures, surpassing even Marx's worst imaginings, eating more and more 'proles' in their non-stop inhuman greed. Korten is right and I hope that the future he envisions comes to pass.
It is time to return to local businesses that produce what we need and not what we want.
Gail: ""Executive Orders", "Executive Privilege" and last but not least, the "Unitary Executive"!"
The reinstatement of Monarchial rule. Those that don't repeal, implicitly resubscribe to feudal tenets.
RichM December 8th, 2007 6:06 pm
"Even if a miracle happened and a Kucinich was elected — which is completely impossible — this radical reorganization could not take place."
But Rich, that's where "Executive Orders" and "Executive Privilege" and the "Unitary Executive" enter the picture.
George Bush didn't have to ask for the approval of Congress to withdraw the U.S. from the International Court or the Kyoto Treaty, among other things; and as far we have seen, Congress doesn't have a clue what "The doctrine of the separation of powers" is all about.
Why couldn't Dennis Kucinich withdraw the U.S. from the WTO and other defective trade oraganization agreements without the approval of Congress? Don't you think that he could also tell Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that taxpayers are not going to bailout the central banks after they irresponsibly failed to "regulate" the predatory activities of the banks they supervised which led to current financial crisis we are in?
"Executive Orders", "Executive Privilege" and last but not least, the "Unitary Executive"!
Don't you think the majority in this country would finally wake up if Congress tried to reverse these privileges when a president for "We the People" got into office?
I still believe in miracles!
funeocons -- you're missing my point. I didn't say Kucinich doesn't want to win. And I'm completely familiar with his platform -- I worked very hard for his 2004 campaign.
What I'm saying is that:
1) he can't get even close to winning (not his fault, really -- it's the way the media, the Dem Party, & the US political system work);
2) even if he got to be president, he wouldn't even have support from other Democrats, let alone Republicans; &
3) his program, even when you study it carefully, does not really say anything about capitalism itself being the problem. It simply suggests palliatives (which would be improvements, if we could get them -- but even then, they'd be more in the nature of band-aids than the radical overhaul we really need, & which is the subject of Korten's article).
Danial David (above) wrote that the beginning of a solution is to elect Democrats. This is in a response to the claim that the problem is capitalism and the solution is to replace the capitalist system with something better. Andi this is going to be accomplished by electing Democrats? Please.
RichM - Kucinich doesn't just run to run, he really wants to win. He has developed a platform that will set us on the path toward a transformed society in terms that the average person can relate to. As a candidate, he has to appeal to a broad constituency to get elected. He doesn't propose half the things he would like to do -- simply because the American people are not ready for such a radical shift. But if he were the president and he had the "mandate" from the people, you better believe he would take us down this path.
randolfski (5:32 pm) -- I'd like to point out that even Kucinich, despite his very admirable positives, is not proposing anything remotely like the kind of radical reorganization of society that David Korten is talking about in the article. Indeed, this is one of Kucinich's shortcomings: he's encouraging people to believe that the needed changes can be achieved inside the prevailing framework of the 2-party system & corporate capitalism.
And this is not so. Even if a miracle happened and a Kucinich was elected -- which is completely impossible -- this radical reorganization could not take place. His own party would impeach him if he dared even attempt anything of the sort. He would not have the slightest bit of support, even from the Democrats, if he tried seriously reining in the corporations. And -- as I said -- this is not part of his program. His program is mainly out-of-Iraq, and universal health care. (Yes, I know there are other things too -- but these 2 main things are most of what he gets to say, in his 5 minutes per debate.) He's not explicitly talking about corporate capitalism being our most fundamental problem (even if he privately believes it to be the case). He's already regarded as a "leftwing nut" as it is, and if he actually started criticizing capitalism, they'd call him a Commie & probably ban him from further debates. In fact, he'd probably lose his own House seat, if he said anything like that.
The Corporations are like Kostchei the Deathless. All powerful and immortal. The railroads made corporations American 'citizens' over a hundred years ago and it's been downhill for humankind ever since. Google: "Santa Clara County vs. Union Pacific Railroad" to see where we lost our nation. Repealing Corporate Citizenhood will go a long way toward sanity. Otherwise a Red/Blue seperation of the states may be necessary.
DAVID KORTEN -- Wonderfully vivid pinning back of the "wings" of the capitalistic incorporated beast, now all we need is a big enough killing jar full of carbon tet.
It is the association of profits and outcomes, that must be linked to the societal and environmental costs of production and eventually cleaning up the entire life-cycle. If we were to calculate the real cost of WAR (or POVERTY), we would rapidly see that effective balance and overall policies for the public's good are not so complex.
What is complex is the continually adaptive subterfuge needed to hide corporate exploitation for short term profits, the their contradiction of basic humane principles described by our founding fathers, while making the appearances of supporting "freedom" and "democracy".
Boy, I cannot wait for breadbasket American's to finally wake up and get the "they" that 'Hates our Freedoms', is really the USA's own corporate boards of directors, not the enemy outside our borders. Now that's re-framing for truth and impactful insight.
Namaste … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … … … … … … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed »
yes indeedy, we humans have created quite a conundrum for ourselves.
in our impatience to make reality happen faster and more conveniently
we have created this monster that is called a corporation. And ironically
enough, the created now controls the creators. Shakespeare, if you're
out there somewhere, i hope you're taking notes. So the question always
is, what can we do, we're all just puny human beings. What each of us
can do is drive less, eat less, buy less, boycott christmas shopping, be
kinder more, be more tolerant of differences. Then we can commit to shopping
locally and participating in local government. Finally, we can vote for
someone in our primaries who represents our values, one who has
never betrayed his "we the people" base. One who didn't grow up with
a silver spoon in his mouth. The one, the only.........Dennis Kucinich.
This is an excellent article. "The conflict between capitalism and democracy is irreconcilable". And the catastrophes belong to the US/UK/Israeli axis.
We see that "American Style" capitalism has largely followed in the tradition of the British East India Company. We can see it in the United Fruit Company plundering Central America. We can see it in Standard Oil, General Motors, and Goodyear wiping out the highly efficient rail transport system. We can see it in Philip Morris popularizing death through lung cancer, and Microsoft imposing its monopoly tax on the entire PC user community.
But now it is the 21st Century and the grim reaper is coming for the giant corporations. In their places, the people are building beautiful cities, societies and institutions.
Daniel David (4:29 pm) -- Well, let me give you credit. I concede that on the surface, you correctly identified a weakness in my earlier post. Basically, you caught me being lazy. Here's what lay behind that --
The various alternative socio-economic models that should be considered include (among other possibilities) social democracy (like Scandinavia), democratic socialism (like what Allende hoped to achieve in Chile) & the kinds of things mentioned in Korten's article (emphasis on, as he writes, "cooperatives, partnerships, sole proprietorships, and special for-profit corporations with charters designed to balance public and private interests").
The problem with discussing such subjects on CommonDreams is that the software CD uses is too limited. It's linear (compared, say, to the software used on Democratic Underground, which permits extended discussions, and specific detailed responses to individual posts, without the need to scroll up and down the whole thread to find out what a given post is referring to).
So I decided not to bother with a subject that can't really be discussed here -- ie, the pros and cons of each of these other models. I simply went after the main point -- which is that corporate capitalism will not and cannot work -- and that's all that's being pushed by Dems & Repubs.
Consider, Thomas Jefferson, even Adam Smith, would have immediately understood the point in saying that "The only legitimate reason for a government to issue a corporate charter . . . is to serve a well-defined public purpose under strict rules of public accountability. . . . The private-benefit corporation is an institutional anomaly." The idea that you need corporations is presupposed in discourse today (otherwise you're some sort of 19th century utopian). Keynes was right in saying that if capitalism is to survive it needs to be regulated; but it's questionable whether capitalism is ultimately compatible with survival of the planet. My only skepticism re: Korten is whether an equitable, democratic, green capitalism is even possible. The real challenge may be to abolish capitalism altogether, and create a completely NEW economy, one in which there are no zero-sum games (see ZNET, PARECON). Am I being too utopian? The kind of consciousness arising from THESE efforts might actually prove radical enough to resist cooptation, and to attract adherents. In other words, while his critical insights are valid, Korten's pro-capitalist approach is NOT UTOPIAN ENOUGH to WIN !
Corporations must be exempt from 14th Amendment protection. Until this is done, then the monster that is the corporation will continue to be bad citizens who have a measure of protection from their bad acts due to their legal status. The only possible way this can be accomplished is as a constitutional amendment, because the current Supreme Court are as pro-corporate as their predecessors from the Robber Baron era.
alexnosal said:
"It all sounds fine and dandy but how the hell can we possibly implement such a transformation?"
Simply by incorporating We the People into a private benefit corporation where every American gets equal, non-transferable shares of stock in and dividends from their trillions in public resources and treasure. Where the administration works for us, not for other corporations. Where we can hire and fire our administrators in yearly stockholders meetings, according to their performance.
We the People will vote to take our dividends in money, peace, education, healthcare and a healthy environment. It will mean an end to poverty, pollution, war, crime, hunger, overwork, corporate and financial exploitation and so on.
A greater share of stock divided up by a smaller population would give us an incentive for reducing population growth. And public assets like wildlands and wildlife, clean air, clean water, could no longer be stolen by a rapacious corporate oligarchy.
This is a great, glaring platform that any candidate from any party can run on because it benefits each and every one of us, regardless of class. Why won't they run on it?
alexnosal wrote: "It all sounds fine and dandy but how the hell can we possibly implement such a transformation?"
How can we not? The spectre of impending civilizational collapse seems to be having the salutary effect of focusing growing numbers of minds on a variety of problems and solutions. That we seem to be a few decades behind schedule does add a bit of drama, doesn't it!
RichM reminds us: "There are various alternative models for organizing society, and while it might not yet be clear exactly which of these is the best,..."
"and while it might not yet be clear" was the gem.
Until it gets "clear", you might want to think about your real life, your real kids, your real country, and your real finite election choices.
I can certainly understand the wish to see human nature as exceptional, or at least as something less mechanistic than "The Selfish Gene" might imply. It may be a tenable supposition that humanity at large might possibly be trainable toward acceptance of individual self-interest in broader societal terms.
But, even if that were so, 'corporate persons' have an absolute obligation to maximize their own profits. Anything else contravenes their legally mandated fiduciary responsibility under the capitalist system. They are indeed "giant feeding machines" by design and intent, occasional appearances of methodological enlightenment notwithstanding.
"Private benefit corporation" seems to be a euphemism for "giant feeding machine." What makes Richard Dawkin's "The Selfish Gene" such depressing reading is that his materialist/mechanistic mindset reduces all biological reality to the unfortunate advent of microscopic, pre-biological "replicators" - tiny, brainless devices which exist only to reproduce themselves and perpetuate themselves into the future. If Dawkins is right (as he may be) then there is no such thing as altruism or free will or any of those reasons why it would be too bad if the biosphere and the human race simply perished. The modern corporation, as a cooperative body, would be, in this view, an extended phenotype of the same self serving, self perpetuating mechanisms. Corporations do not contain in their definitions the ability to care about our quality of life unless that can be made into a salable commodity. They are neither good nor bad. The greed of their CEOs is not relevant. CEOs who do not deliver profits are replaced by natural selection.
Another kind of thinking, to which I gravitate, does not see the world as a machine. I am not myself a machine, and the people of my acquaintance are not machines. This is defensible philosophically, though currently out of vogue. When the quick printer with whom I did business some years ago replaced its customer service representatives with a job tracking computer system they missed so many deadlines that I had to fire them. There is no way to mechanize a caring, responsible human being. When you do it, as in a regimented corporate collective, with no human oversight, you can expect the whole thing to go clattering off a cliff like some monstrous, demented Energizer Bunny, not unlike the oil conglomerates who are degrading our environment today based on the disastrous premiss that only accelerated consumption and growth will assure survival.
I don't take orders from my lawnmower, or let my car tell me where I am going. if we are going to allow ourselves to be ruled by our gadgetry, to become gadgets ourselves, then I suppose the outcome doesn't matter.
kickboxr December 8th, 2007 3:06 pm -- "Unless we can achieve a basic paradigm shift and move humanity to seek that same status in other ways, we may not get anywhere with any meaningful reform."
You'll never change human nature -- nor, for that matter, the inherent and necessary attribute of all living things to maximize benefit to themselves. The best one can hope for is some degree of enlightenment that recognizes self-interest in the context of broader societal benefits, and even that is not likely through mass education alone.
The theoretical benefits of capitalism, which rightly accepts self-interested realities, are generally based on the assumption that marketplace forces alone can adequately address their excesses. Unfortunately, even those limited countervailing forces, and the regulatory measures put in place to maintain them, are themselves weakened as much as possible by the above-mentioned 'narrow private interests' through collusion with those 'representatives' who are chosen nominally as protectors of the common good.
So long as political parties continue to operate under a system whereby they represent their 'corporate person' sponsors rather than their electors amongst us 'common folk', the desired 'paradigm shift' is highly unlikely to say the least.
I agree with voxclamantis, who wrote (1:23 pm) "This is an important article." There's a great deal in it -- it's densely packed with real substance, & admittedly, it takes a while to absorb it all. I've seen David Korten giving his presentation in person, several times. He's got an unusually deep & well-developed grasp of the big picture.
The first thing he's right about is that the solution to today's intensifying crisis requires nothing less than the total reorganization of society. Anyone who tries to tell you that the solution can be found within the existing political & economic framework, is just full of it. That's why apologists for the Democratic Party are so pathetic & counterproductive -- boils of ignorance on the ass of progress. They should simply be slapped aside & ignored, because the hour is growing late.
The second thing Korten's right about is that society's organizing principle makes all the difference in the world. If you enshrine the private profit of a few as society's organizing principle (aka corporate capitalism), you get an unsustainable society guaranteed to destroy the world either by resource depletion, climate change, war, or social unrest triggered by rising inequality. That's our future in a nutshell -- if corporate capitalism is not challenged. // In contrast, a society whose organizing principle is meeting the justifiable needs of most human beings, and protecting the environment -- that kind of society produces an entirely different world, and a different future.
Corporate capitalism itself is our principle enemy. There are various alternative models for organizing society, and while it might not yet be clear exactly which of these is the best, one must understand that continuing under the model of corporate capitalism (100% supported by both big parties) is a guarantee of disaster.
no to zero-growth. no to the idea that resources are finite. >any >particular resource is finite, and human survival depends on finding new ones.
I totally agree with David Korten, but it seems to me that one of the fundamental drives in human nature is the quest for status. That quest for status is what advertising taps into, it is that drive that leads to uncontrollable greed, etc. Unless we can achieve a basic paradigm shift and move humanity to seek that same status in other ways, we may not get anywhere with any meaningful reform. Collectively we humans are like the moths attracted to fire, it may kill us but that doesn't seem to deter us.
This is it exactly!
... and then, of course, you have the 'wisdom' of the USA's Daniel Davids who actually seem to believe that the road to success can be found through electing candidates based of the color of the party flag they wave. At least we can now exclude that 'liberal' former Democrat Joe Lieberman whose color changes based on expediency are more obvious than most.
Viva la revolucion!
By their behavior, it is reasonable to assume that avowed "conservatives" believe in "conserving" (and perhaps expanding on) the corporate structure that now exists in America.
The alternative is electing "liberals" into government, and the nearest thing we have to "liberals" in the national political races of 2008 are (mostly)Democrats. Please help elect some.
And, please, after you read the rants to come below about how they're all the same, please consider that right now your Democratic Congress has attempted to pass new auto mileage standards and has been stymied again by Republican conservatives in the Senate, with Bush waiting to veto anyway as the second defense.
Your politicians ARE NOT all the same. You want change in corporate domination? You'll have to first elect a more liberal government. Once you have one, you can talk about changing corporate laws. Not until.
Well, you could start by electing people who actually share and respresent those values rather than merely endorsing the 'electables' annointed by the pundits of 'narrow private interests' as if that were a real possibility for achieving the results being sought.
The notion of the US being 'greatest democracy on earth' would merely be a laughable and pathetic farce were it not for the illusory mandate it purports to create for governing the rest of the world as well and exporting the same tragi-comic system by force of arms to others.
This is an important article. The almost biological evolution of the private benefit corporation lies at the root of every other problem we face, from war to crummy health care. But alexnosal is right. Imagine the hornet's nest that would get stirred up if anyone seriously threatened that system with regulation.
It all sounds fine and dandy but how the hell can we possibly implement such a transformation?