It all sounds fine and dandy but how the hell can we possibly implement such a transformation?

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.

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.

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.

Viva la revolucion!

... 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.

This is it exactly!

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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!

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?

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.

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 !

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.

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.

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 »

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.

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.

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 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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

Thanks for this well thought out piece.

I'm glad to see Mr. Korten sharing his ideas in this forum. I hope we'll be hearing more from him.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

?????? 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.

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.

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.

Doll; Well said, my dear. I'm with you on that.

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?

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.

"... HERE is the big picture in brief outline":

http://www.sonic.net/~taryfast/destruction.html

All I can do is limit my corporate buying, spend less than I earn and push back a little bit.

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.

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?]

"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!