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Beware the Madoff Diversion
Sure, there are crooks out there. But the overwhelming majority of actions by corporate directors and managers that have created today's messes have been legal.
Not only legal, but also widely regarded as necessary and essential to sustain the American Way of Life. To put food on our tables. To heat our homes. To provide jobs. To defend liberty and freedom...
Simply put: Giant business and financial corporations govern. The few who run them make the governing decisions that dictate people's work, living conditions, health and the nature of our communities.
Business and financial corporations are not simply "market players." Although in legal terms corporations are mere "fictions of the law," they function as political forces. They concentrate wealth and power so their directors and managers can impose their values upon communities, the nation, the Earth.
Corporate directors and managers have long defined how people live, what people do. Sometimes they take their paychecks from their corporations; sometimes, from our governments. For generations, they've been writing our laws, propagandizing our children, dictating policy, plundering the planet. To gain such power, they long ago got Congress, federal judges and state legislatures to wrap their corporate bodies in the Constitution of the United States. To bestow upon their corporate "fictions" the authority to govern.
Armed with "freedom of speech," "due process" and "equal protection of the law," the "commerce clause," "the contracts clause," and other constitutional powers, corporate directors and managers have been wielding the law to deny people's most fundamental human rights.
Corporate directors and managers have been making "private" decisions which in an authentic democracy must be made by people in community via democratic processes.
Their real bottom line is not that their corporations are "just too big to fail." It's that without giant corporations, we helpless human Earthlings could do nothing to meet our needs. That we would languish freezing, starving, unemployed, unentertained, vulnerable, in the dark.
After the great Savings and Loan thefts, after the great WorldCom and Enron corporation thefts -- after every financial cataclysm of the past century -- people have been assured that the problem was "greed and excess."
There were always pundits and politicians galore to declare "greed and excess," just as there were always Madoffs galore to personify such evils. So as night followed day, legislatures passed laws to regulate "greed and excess." And then they told us to go home and relax... everything would be OK.
Sure, Madoff and his ilk are major crooks. They've caused great harm to many people. There are laws aplenty to deal with such obvious crooks -- so they'll end up in jail and good riddance.
But after the Madoffs of every generation are all locked up, most of the corporate directors and managers who "legally" plunged the nation into these messes continue governing over the nation. They keep instructing people that the source of the nation's problems is "greed and excesses," and "crooks." They keep spending the people's money to set things right. And they keep writing We the People's laws.
Isn't that what's happening today?
Corporate directors and managers count on our being desperate to return to the way things were, on our not changing who's calling the shots or the laws of the land which have long enabled a corporate class to rule.
So let's not let ourselves be distracted by a few high-profile crooks on perp walks. Let's beware "greed and excess." Instead, we can scrutinize constitutional law and statute law and judge made law that have long empowered a relative handful of corporate directors and managers to deny We the People's most fundamental rights....to prevent us from governing ourselves.
To stop corporate cataclysms from crashing down upon us and the Earth over and over and over again, and to drive human-friendly, planet-loving values into law and policy, We the People can rewrite basic constitutional doctrines regarding corporate "fictions," flesh and blood human beings, and Earth rights.
To do this, we'll have to assume the authority to govern ourselves.
Isn’t that a revolutionary idea!
29 Comments so far
Show AllYep. From the article:
Business and financial corporations are not simply "market players." Although in legal terms corporations are mere "fictions of the law," they function as political forces. They concentrate wealth and power so their directors and managers can impose their values upon communities, the nation, the Earth.
What should be added is that corporations also function to protect those who run them, and benefit from them, from liability. Corporations could be renamed "Responsibility Avoiders," as that is what they are in essence. Any politician who supports and protects corporate power does not believe in individual responsibility. Instead, the basic belief is that elites should be able to privatize the profits and socialize the costs, at least those that were not previously externalized, i.e. that it should be legal for elites to rob everyone else blind and the non-elites should have no recourse. It is organized theft, backed up by the power of the government, and nothing more.
In 1920 Ponzi's scheme unravelled in less than 20 weeks. It took Madoff's scheme more than 20 years to unravel.
Financial industry deregulation of the past 30 years has created exponentially greater opportunity for crooks to prosper.
It's how the founders wanted it, friends. They feared democracy and mob rule as they saw it. They were the business and legal class of the time and they didn't want another French style Revolution. Had the French Revol. not happened who knows what might have happened to our Constitution?
There is, of course, a much easier way to put an end to most of the bullshit - all it would take would be for a majority of Americans to simply stop "consuming" from the "bad" corporations.
No money, no company. Period. If We The People still liked Bennigan's, there would still be a Bennigan's. We The People liked "The Transformers," so there will be at least two more.
Now, if We The People all switched from Citi to, say, a local bank or credit union, Citi would disappear. Stop buying Exxon gas, Exxon will cease to exist eventually.
Instead, We The People continue to feed the corporations that are killing us while screaming and yelling that "something has to be done!" Just as long as it's not us who have to do the actual doing...
Well when I can get my gasoline from Jimmy down the street and I can get internet access from The net provider up the block that idea will work. Until then we're stuck with the choices they've given us. I don't get to choose who sends me electricity and gas and i don't get shop around for a better deal. Just thinking about the scale of thievery and collusion that dictates my days makes me want to go on a shotgunning spree. It's no wonder most people would rather just watch American Idol and let the world fall around them.
You've got it frank1569... if there were actually a functional democracy, with an educated and participating public, then community meetings and voting would be the way to guide our society toward the common good.
However in a corporate controlled state, spending our dollars becomes the equivalent of voting. The small upside of that is that we can vote with our dollars many times every day. Recalling a company that abuses the privilege of serving us becomes a simple matter of not giving them any more votes. Etc.
Sadly, we've always had the opportunity to control corporations this way, and people just aren't willing to think of the common good and spend accordingly. Cheap tacos at the expense of slave labour in florida - great! Toxic, tooth decaying, diabetes inducing beverages at the cost of mass murder of progressives in Columbia - great! Cell phones at the cost of unbelievable misery and death in the Congo? Cheaper the better! So long as it tastes / looks / feels good or is convenient to ME, then gimme more!
We are on the voyage of the damned.
And if you can, refuse to work as a wage slave and pay the taxes that only finance corruption, self-dealing, war and crony "capitalism."
If you're not madder than hell, you're not paying attention.
Acccording to the author the source of the problem of corporate abuse of the public interest is:
"For generations, they've been writing our laws, propagandizing our children, dictating policy, plundering the planet. To gain such power, they long ago got Congress, federal judges and state legislatures to wrap their corporate bodies in the Constitution of the United States. To bestow upon their corporate "fictions" the authority to govern.
Armed with "freedom of speech," "due process" and "equal protection of the law," the "commerce clause," "the contracts clause," and other constitutional powers, corporate directors and managers have been wielding the law to deny people's most fundamental human rights."
IF THIS IS TRUE, HOW DO COMPANIES ORGANIZED OUTSIDE THE US GET AWAY WITH ABUSING THE ENVIRONMENT AND OTHER ELEMENTS OF THE COMMONS? THEY ARE NOT "ARMED WITH THE BENEFITS OF THE US CONSTITUTION" WHEN THEY CAUSE HARM TO THE PLANET AND ITS PEOPLE ELSEWHERE. ME THINKS THE AUTHOR HAS MISREAD CORPORATE HISTORY. THE SOURCE OF THE PROBLEM LIES ELSEWHERE.
'Race to the bottom'!
Just as the individual states in the US have weakened their corporate charters to attract investment so has the world.
[This means that credit card issuers located in states with liberal or nonexistent usury laws, such as Delaware and South Dakota, can "export" the lack of an interest rate cap to customers in states with usury laws in place. These companies can ignore the "Natural State's" 17-percent constitutional limit.] source Boston Globe.
Corporate law now prevails on a global basis.
Corporate rights, ditto (although, because of oxy, fat-boy, I now hate the term ditto).
Multi-national corporations are playing nation-states against each other in this 'race to the bottom' if you've noticed.
Was your question serious, or was it just a troll-booth delay to this discussion?
When you start differentiate between kings, sultans, emperors, prime ministers and presidents you have already fallen into an intellectual trap from which there is no escape. Right through history and right up to this very moment as I tapped out these words the human populations are ruled by the different elites of the strong, the smart, the greedy, the ruthless. To be in the elites you must have all the above qualities or most of them.
The so called "monarchs" are no different from the presidents. They all head an exclusive mafia gang. The composition of such elitist gangs may differ in their characteristics and job description but they all do the same thing, which is wielding power to benefit a minority. To play this role they must suppress everyone else outside these elites. So we had aristocrats but now we have CEO's and legislators, judges and police chiefs.
Those differences recorded of better governments and worse governments in history and by our present day commentators can be accounted for by differences in abundance of resources and differences in shortages of resources in the fortune of the whole nation. But whatever is the overall circumstances basically what is left for distribution to the populace and the KIND OF GOVERNMENT NEEDED FOR THIS DISTRIBUTION is decided by the elites who must first set aside the biggest piece for themselves.
There are only differences in styles of governments, in being smart or stupid, in planning for the long term interests or short term interests of the elites, in the technological resources available at the time to the elites. T think that is about all. We hadn't made much progress since the days when the men with the big clubs, the clever imaginative shamans and the clever manipulator (the leader) found that they are smarter and braver than the rest of the people, and that it is possible to con the lesser people around them to accept their rule.
By the way, the Dalai Lamas and their friends had all the girls who had their wedding days fixed to be first brought to them to be blessed. The "blessings" are to be done by the priests' penises penetrating the vaginas in what we commonly refer to as a sexual intercourse. This would help to bring the priests to a higher spiritual level. And everybody knows that when their priests are of a higher spiritual calibre everyone in the community will ultimately benefit spiritually.
They didn't have internet website like COMMON DREAMS to complain in, and even if they had no bridegrooms actually has the wish to complain. This may sound contradictory but life was good for the Tibetans when every Tibetan shared a common dream
wow 2 thumbs way up
good for you grossman
you got several paragraphs of truth into the record here at common dreams - not always easy
my heartfelt congratulations
now if a few light bulbs should only happen to click into the "on" mode while folks are reading it
i'm getting woozy - would someone get me a glass of fluoride poisoned water
bernie madoff is the oj simpson of the financial debacle
he is britney's little pussycat peaking at us from the front seat of her suv
he is a distraction - nothing more
that giant sucking sound is the sound of the last few pennies in our federal government being sucked into the vaults of the rothschild bank cartel
loaned to us at interest
forget bernie madoff - keep your eye on brother obama - he is the one who is stealing all our cash
let the jewish charities madoff ripped off deal with him - i hope they castrate him with a rusty tin can
but keep your eye on the president - he's the one giving our money away
Would someone who knows way more than this about me answer why the hell the purpose of stock markets is? And no, another way just to make money doesn't cut it.
I thinking that we might address our current difficulties with greater specificity than a general attack on the legal status of corporations many of which, after all, contribute mightily to the GNP. Say, for example, why not encourage a re-examination of certain sectors of the corporate business world like FIRE (Finance, Insurance & Real Estate).
That is, focus the blame where it belongs, put some restraints on some of the speculative behavior that got us into this problem in the first place like the way the financial departments of many otherwise potentially productive corporations tried to leverage their way out failures in their research and capital (goods) development divisions.
Rather than handing out legions of lucrative tax breaks, loopholes, shelters and subsidies in exchange for campaign contributions, ask them to make money "the old fashioned way": manufacturing and marketing useful products that contribute to both the individual interests of their customers and the commonwealth of the nation. Require them to buy the necessary insurances for their activities from third parties like everyone else instead of through self-regulating "captive" sub-divisions which allow them to conceal profits, expand the availability of "funny monies", reduce their premiums and stiff the claimants against them.
Of course the way property values are assessed in this country is hardly rational, let alone scientific to the least degree, based mostly on the principle that "there is a sucker born every minute". The whole business of title insurance is a complete anarchronism, originally set in place to overcome the conflicts that arose in the settling of wild frontiers and exists today as a "drinks for nothing and chicks for free", sham- security scheme controlled by what are essentially inherited sinecures. In many cases "mortgage brokering" turned-out to be little better than cattle russling so, obviously, a more careful system of branding is needed there.
In regard to insurance: it is a far cry from the sort of idea people like Ben Franklin had when they first got it going in this country. Policy holders were originally concieved as stock-holders- owners entitled to a portional share of surpluses generated by the exercise of common sense, good fortune and intelligent design, not just premium-paying wage slaves covering mere fractions of their risks.
You know, it pains me very much to hear people in the present administration, Congress and at the Fed. say that the urgency of providing bailouts and stimulus today so great that we have to postpone necessary reforms and new regulations until we get "back on our feet". This is tantamount to an admission of defeat, that the political difficulties of real change are too great and that, in fact, the banks and troubled corporations are far from "too big to fail". Without a thorough re-examination of the system and real reform these institutions are actually "too big to save". We might suceed in putting off doomsday one more time but the bone and muscle of the American working people will not be able to support the bloated and parasitic weight of FIRE for long.
I read a report today that said the informing director of the FDA will be facing a very demoralized institution and that's not surprising. It has been understaffed, underfunded for years- radically stripped on any real power to regulate runaway corporations like the drug companies who spend billions advertising improperly researched products with marginal if not entirely concocted benefits at huge expense to a mightily bamboozled public. The same is the case with OSHA and a host of other important regulatory bodies with devestating consequences for millions of Americans and a gradual reduction in the confidence of investors (share-holders and bond purchasors)in the long-term viability of their capital contracts.
The failure of the government to do its job- as if the markets themselves were NOT fundamentally irrational and will somehow solve of all the problems of private indifference, ignorance, incapacity, mendacity and greed-is getting us deeper and deeper into the mire of failing productivity, environmental destruction and political lunacy.
Things won't be turned around on a dime but it is important for the adminstration to get cracking on these problems. No real recovery will be possible without change in the practice of regulating the behavior of business corporations in this country.
Yes, anytime conservatives are in charge, government agencies are gutted.
Sioux Rose
John S: Very intelligent, thoughtful posts. Thank you for sharing them.
Mr. Grossman, it's great to have you here on CD! I saw you lecture a few years ago.
You're candle in the dark!
In a vain similar to Mr.Maddoff, do the Wall St bonuses fit a the same pattern?
Jon Stewart has justifiably gotten a lot of mileage off the (paraphrased) question:
"Why should these bank execs get multi-million dollar bonuses when they're responsible for the financial crisis that we're facing? This makes no sense!"
A bonus is a thank you for a job well done.It occurred to me to ask myself a question: Under what circumstances would the bonuses make sense?
The question seemed to answer itself: the bonuses would make sense if the "financial meltdown" was intentional (and very profitable), and to top it off Wall St. gets us to give them hundreds of billions for free, no strings attached. Hell, they deserve the bonuses. It seems that the only real crisis the bankers face is a public relations problem. The public doesn't like being ripped off so extravagantly.
Diversion from What??
a list of suggestions:
***the Weimar Republic-like situation we are seeing: stirring up the masses. This is treason.
***The pullout of capital from newspapers all across the country all at the same time, Leaving us all on the same dependency: the electricity and the internet. This can be censored automatically by programming. It can be shut down leaving people isolated and ignorant.
***The National Security implications of loss of newspapers and dependence on terrorist target electrical grid for our information.
***The reason there are no opposition plans is they do not intend to allow any success at all...we will be hearing the need for martial law soon, as Glenn Beck says.
They are telling us what they plan to do: but we are not listening, Go listen to three weeks of any style radion ranters and find out the truth about our situation.
Sorry I forgot the big one :
Keeping anyone from focussing on the progressive agenda and if they don't stay distracted, keep the screws on by withdrawing capital from all forms of speech.
the reason for the grave demands and scary whole bailout thing!!!!!
People who said NO were right. It is only a diversion and a shock doctrine disaster.
Keep us from noticing further losses of freedoms: people who are desparate are unable to articulate their pain. People who have been thru this remain cautious and circumspect. Down, Masses! Down!
*******Humans have an infinite capacity for self deception.********
Bernie was "outed" at the right time.
How convenient.
Keep your eyes on the money.
Great article Mr. Grossman.
Howard Zinn's "The People's History of the United States" explains the impact of the hijacking of the 14th amendment away from protecting African Americans to protecting Corporations.
The scramble to patch up the fundamental rot and corruption in this economic and social system seems apparent. In this Same-Old-World Order where the American Empire swings us back and forth from a "bad cop" Commander-In-Chief to a "good cop" Commander-and-Chief in order to keep the lid on the pressure cooker, US, while appeasing the Powers that Be-Little-US-All...controlling the people through the people's own money is as old as the Union.
When Tyranny is Law, Revolution is Order.
I love this article.
It in no uncertain terms describes what's truly at stake: our sovereign freedom.
Nothing less.
And Grossman's quote below:
"Corporate directors and managers have been making "private" decisions which in an authentic democracy must be made by people in community via democratic processes."
reminds me of what Iowa Democratic debate moderator Carolyn Washburn said when she prefaced her question to John Edwards:
"You've talked a lot about reducing the power of wealth and special interests in the country--the same groups often responsible for getting things done in Washington too. How will you accomplish your agenda, after spending a lot of months calling these groups corrupt?"
You know, her comment still boggles my mind.
Grossman is right--"the overwhelming majority of actions by corporate directors and managers that have created today's messes have been legal."
Legal--but corrupt. But don't let the likes of the Carolyn Washburns hear you say that.
see it for yourself:
(Washburn's quote 7min 11sec into video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIq4PVBXc1U
Richard, excellent article, as always, regarding the primal issue; democracy vs. hidden empire.
[Admission: I was an early fan of yours at POCLAD, and have been greatly influenced by you and David Korten]
Yes, Richard, as you have always said, corporatism, corporate laws, corporate money-power, and the control that it buys is the ultimate problem ---- just as it was the first time American colonists overthrew the multifaceted British Empire's political, economic, social, and military control right within our own land.
I look at the empire-controlled government of 'Vichy' France as the prototype of our current dilemma. Today, a guileful ruling-elite 'corporate financial Empire' almost totally controls our former democratic Republic by hiding behind the facade of its much more sophisticated two-party, 'Vichy' sham of democracy (aided by its equally 'Vichy' corporate MSM). Goebbels would turn over in his grave in admiration of their mass PR skills.
I look perhaps slightly differently, Richard, at Empire as the ultimate enemy of self-governing democracy, but certainly corporations as the prime vehicle of empire's rule today --- as opposed to tribal, religious, racial, and national lynchpins of empire over the centuries. [In fact, in reading Paul Kennedy's insightful "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" about the great national empires of European history, he explicitly notes that the prior age of empires was regional and religious, but does not foreshadow that the next full shift in imperial eras would jump to corporate.]
But back to your point, that a democracy can not allow control of the economic sphere of its indivisible political economy to be controlled by an economic empire within its heart --- or the whole will ineluctably become empire over time, which, of course, is what has happened to us and our U.S.
Lately, I have been amused and annoyed by this chatter that the banks (bank-holding corporations) should perhaps be 'nationalized' (a term which carries fearful imagery).
I have written that the banks should instead become 'democratized' (which they should always have been).
Democracy must again be the prime order of our time, at this final end of Empire-times, and everything; political, economic, social, and military should come under the sway of democracy —- just as was intended in the American Revolution against the British political, economic, social, and military Empire.
Sovereignty in America is only ‘of the people’ — not of the crown, the banks, the generals, nor CERTAINLY the NON-human corporations!
Using the evasive, guileful, and propagandistic phrase “nationalization” of the banks (or financial sector) is an extreme media disservice, distortion, and even deceit to the American people.
Instead of this fear/scare term ‘nationalization’ of banks, a truthful and truly democratic media would use the honest term, “democratization of the banking system”.
The bottom line is that the banking system is now one of unchallenged, unelected, and ruthless EMPIRE, and it must be brought into the service of ‘the people’ under the control of our indivisible democracy — just as every aspect of our political, social and economic lives, as free and voluntary members of a self-governing democracy entails of all spheres of our shared lives — except for the separate and non-interfering sphere of religion, as defined in our Constitution.
A free and democratically representative Republic of self-governing people can not allow an uncontrolled Empire to exist within the economic heart of its Republic — else Franklin’s greatest concern will come true, “We have our Republic now, if we can keep it (from Empire)”
Nice reading your work again, Richard.
Sincerely,
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
In Switzerland the people rule, not the corporations.
The Swiss have not had a war in over 150 years although surrounded by warring nations, no boom and bust economy, no War on Drugs and no drug problem, few immigration problems, a healthy environment, the best free education and health-care and they enjoy the highest per capita income in the world.
See Greg Fossedal's "Direct Democracy in Switzerland":
http://ni4d.us/fossedal
Immigration is becoming a problem, there is a fair sized nativist political party over there. I believe their emblem is a couple white sheep kicking a black sheep aside...and I'm not joking.
Size matters. Direct democracy is possible in smaller countries such as Switzerland, even when they are diverse (as Switzerland is).
The United States needs radical constitutional reform to devolve power to new regional governmental entities based on connections provided by the natural world and supportive of local economies with agendae set by members of the community. This, by the way, will require expropriative land reform to wrest control of our toxic industrial-agricultural system from the logic and control of multinational corprate agribusiness.
Until that happens, we're trapped in, and doomed by, the current system.
Now, that really does sound like a revolutionary idea.
Actually the Swiss did have one hell of a boom during WW II...it turns out doing business with the Nazi's is quite profitable!
A few quotes, that are still highly pertinent:
"Private property based on the labor of the small proprietor, free competition, democracy, all the catchwords with which the capitalists and their press deceive the workers and the peasants--are things of the distant past. Capitalism has grown into a world system of colonial oppression and of the financial strangulation of the overwhelming majority of the population of the world by a handful of "advanced" countries. And this "booty" is shared between two or three powerful world marauders armed to the teeth (America, Great Britain, Japan), who involve the whole world in their war over the sharing of their booty." ...
"Production becomes social, but appropriation remains private."...
"...the development of capitalism has arrived at a stage when, although commodity production still "reigns" and continues to be regarded as the basis of economic life, it has in reality been undermined and the bulk of the profits go to the "geniuses" of financial manipulation. At the basis of these manipulations and swindles lies socialized production; but the immense progress of mankind which achieved this socialization, goes to benefit . . . the speculators."
From: Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, 1916
V. I. Lenin
if bernie wasn't jewish and worked for goldman sachs etc. he wouldn.t be in jail right now.
he would be collecting his corporate bonus and be given his"atta boy" corporate salute!
he would then figure out a new way to fleece people and get away with it while rubbing the
feds dumb nose in it!