The corporate takeover of America has already happened

[buckettgirl]

This has been irritating me for a long while. I am so sick and tired of seeing people wanting to boycott every corporation. I am tired of seeing posts here that imply if you shop at walmart or wherever, then you must be one of them. Am I advocating for corporations? NO. But some of this crap is just flat out ridiculous.

For the record: Walmart is not inherently evil - in fact, in spite of it's current business practices, it is the ultimate success story of a mom and pop store. Sam Walton knew how to give people what they wanted and became successful doing so. I am sure that he would be rolling in his grave if he knew what walmart has turned into.

Corporations are not inherently evil either. Rather it is the laws we have that allow them to take advantage of the people and give people little control of what or where they spend their money.

However it infuriates me that people want to boycott any and all corporations because they say they are bad - for their business practices or their political agenda.
Obviously we all have computers and the internet (at work or at home) and we couldn't have either of these without corporations - doesn't matter if you have a Dell or built your own, the parts still came from corporations. How many people still hand sew all their own clothes from home grown, home spun cotton? How many people keep a dairy cow, chickens, fruit and veggie gardens, and go hunting to keep food on their table? How many people like having warm houses in the winter and cool houses in the summer?
Unless you live in the middle of nowhere and are completely self-sufficient and own nothing produced or sold by corporations, then what room do you have to talk?
Really. Just because some people think corporations are bad doesn't mean we can live without them. They have become an integral part of life. There are here to stay and the best thing we can do is make sure that laws are established to protect the consumers and not the power and money-mongers that run the corporations.

[mhr]

1. Speak For Yourself - Some Us Believe Otherwise!

eom

[firebee]

29. Historically speaking....

Check out the Hudson Bay Trading Company and the East Indies Trading Company involvement with the Revolutionary War.... hence, the Boston Tea Party.

Check out the activities of the textile companies prior to the Civil war... rather the effect the industrial revolution had on promoting the civil war.

Check out the Union Pacific Railroad and other railroad companies' activities after the Civil War, hence the "Railroad Wars"

Then look at the military conflicts we've been involved with for the past 50 years... Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, the Phillipines, Panama, South America, Central America, etc.... All of these are wars promoted by the special interests of corporate lobbyists, including the military industrial complex.

Corporations may not be inherently evil, but they sure tend to inherently promote a lot of evil $#!t.

[chomskysright]

2. I think the level of consumerism we have is 'evil'...

or more correctly: unthinking in terms of what is the effect long-term on such consumerism? First of all, we don't save our money any longer: we spend it all and a lot of what we buy is ridiculous. IMHO

[buckettgirl]

5. I don't disagree with that comment

It is ridiculous what people are willing to spend their money on. Consumerism, obviously, is a driving force in the growth of this corporate takeover. What had been done to stop it before it got to this point?
Why didn't the mom and pop stores try to give consumers what they wanted and change with the times?
I can say that I don't know the answers to these questions because I am only 23 and wasn't around for this - it was already here when I began to consume.
But I think it is silly to say boycott this or that when really we are ultimately dependent on corporations whether we want to be or not - and boycotting a corporation doesn't do any good.

[sonicx]

18. If you don't know about how corporations takeover, why did you...

start this thread without finding out (reading)?

[GreenArrow]

34. consumerism isn't about giving the "consumers what they want"

it about creating fake needs (more accurately, DESIRES) and exploiting them.

Wal-Mart may not be inherently "evil," but neither is a cancer cell.

[Al-CIAda]

3. Sam Walton was good...

They (wal-mart) used to take pride in 'made in America".

Since his death, the children have totally dismantled this and have turned it into an exploitive monster.

Defend them if you must, and may you one day see the evil staring you right in the face. Enjoy tthose 'falling prices', while your country and human rights falls apart.

[shance]

21. You hit it on the head. Greed gone awry. People have become

blind to the harm that is being done, largely because we are detached from it. If it was in our face like it is our troops and the Iraqis and other countries, I don't think we'd be so complacent about what is going on.

The "fuck you I got mine" mentality is going to nail America's backside if we don't wake up.

[ooglymoogly]

4. what a load of crap

if corporations are subjugating us by putting nazis in the white house and shredding our votes and constitution, they are evil and do not deserve our support. walmart gave 1 and a half million to put this idiot in the whitehouse and for the repukes to take over all branches of government.

[buckettgirl]

7. so what?

you have a computer and the internet, so what corporations are you supporting? You have electricity and natural gas coming into your home, what corporation do you pay your bills to?
Do you know how to sew your clothes and do you keep a cotton field and work that field with your bare hands? Or do you go to the store to buy your clothes? Doesn't matter if it is walmart. It is still corporate.

[ooglymoogly]

9. the point being not all corporations are supporting the repugs

who are shredding our constitution and those are the ones some of us choose to support

[buckettgirl]

22. but

that doesn't make them "good" corporations either.
I understand your view, but all I'm trying to say is that we can't boycott everything because we have to live somehow. At some point you have do whatever you need to do to live and let the rest go. In an ideal world, we wouldn't have to worry about which corporation contributes to which political party. We would be able to get the goods we want at the prices we want.

[BrklynLiberal]

25. Obviously this is not an ideal world..and the reality we have to deal with

is that there are corporations that are better than others, there are businesses that are blood sucking vampires, and there are businesses that are not. We, as people with free choice, can make informed decisions to spend our money at the businesses whose philosophies we believe most closely resemble our beliefs. We CAN make a difference with our pocketbooks...especially with corporations who have stockholders that have to be answered to. And if we become stockholders, with even one share of stock, we can have even more of a voice in the behavior of those corporations.

[buckettgirl]

31. i see your point

Yes, I do agree with you in many respects.
However I can also say that because of how corporations run the country, many of us don't have free choice of where we spend our money. When I go grocery shopping, I can go to Walmart or Dillons(Kroger). I'll take walmart because at least it is cheaper. Unless I intend to drive for an hour to go grocery shopping (then I'd be supporting the oil industry), I really don't have a choice - same as the others who live here.
Ideally, we should be able to make a difference with our pocketbooks, but it seems that it doesn't work that way anymore. Really, what good does it do to boycott places like walmart when there aren't enough people worldwide who can do it? I'm sure walmart doesn't miss your money, i'm sure that the walmart boycotters don't make a dent in their profit margin. I would think there would be a better way, but I don't have any answers.

Mainly my point in my OP was that it is hypocritical to be against corporations/boycott them and yet still rely on so many different ones for everday life. It doesn't stop, they won't go away, and we have lost control to make it better. :(

[sonicx]

32. what do you mean you don't have a choice?

Walmart vs Dillons is a choice. Paying lower prices in exchance for shitty wages and treatment for employees is a choice.

Even if you don't effect Walmart's earning by not shopping there and even if noone else boycotts with you, don't shop there anyway! Stand up for your individual values, even if they are unpopular.

This "Everyone else does it, so i'll do it too" thinking is why people keep shopping at bad companies and why things never change.

[sonicx]

27. noone is trying to boycott everything. stop using that strawman.

I buy from Target alot of times, for example.

But there are certain companies that *do not diserve business period*

Not just because of politcal affiliation, but because of terrible wages, benefits, and labor practices. Walmart is one of them, and they should never get any of your business.

[neebob]

6. I'd rather support companies

that are more socially and environmentally responsible. Walmart just isn't one of them, and its success isn't a good thing any way you cut it. They simply aren't doing any good in the world.

[Unforgiven]

8. Not Really..

when corporations make the laws through lobbying and break laws already in place.

And you won't have to worry about most folks boycotting corporations, they are much too cozy with the current relationships they have with corporate america.

I don't shop Walmart period.

I'll spend my money at places like Costco, who actually have living wages, benefits and Unions.

Obviously you have a problem with those kind of things.

However if you feel the need to propagate the corporate mentality then please do so.

Don't expect everyone to tag along.

[BrklynLiberal]

10. Sorry..but you are very misinformed and naive

"There are here to stay and the best thing we can do is make sure that laws are established to protect the consumers and not the power and money-mongers that run the corporations."

The whole point the corporations have in running the govt is that you, the consumer and voter, cannot do any of the above....

[Demit]

11. Our current reality is Republican rule, whereby consumer protection

laws, and regulations, are being sytematically dismantled. Being powerless on that front forces us to turn to the old tried-and-true law of "money talks".

And that's a reality that Republicans listen to REAL fast.

There's a very real possibility that we are now powerless to ever be able to vote our rulers out again, but we can still vote our pocketbooks. Again, that makes the moneymen who rule the roost sit up and pay attention.

Corporations are bad when they exploit the powerless for their own gain, and power, as does Walmart. Sam's concept might have started out as a mom-and-pop operation, but now his behemoth destroys small businesses.

You don't have to spin your own cotton to boycott Walmart. You can go back to patronizing small businesses, where they still exist. I don't think that's "crap that's just flat out ridiculous".

[gmoney]

12. All of what you describe is the product of PEOPLE

PEOPLE working together create the products, services and value of our economy. The Corporation is a sociopathic fiction designed to skim off as much profit from the work of PEOPLE and channel it to shareholders, who feel they have no responsibility to the PEOPLE who create the value and profit in the first place.

Yes, a FEW groups of people who behave like responsible members of a society work together in the form of a corporation, but they too will be crushed by the Corporations that produce only greed.

The Corporation does not see the benefit of a healthy, well educated, well compensated workforce. The Corporation only sees that there are ways to cut costs further by pitting one person against the other to see who will work for LESS money and FEWER benefits.

The Corporation does not see the need to protect our environment from pollution and toxins because this requires additional cost and cuts into profits -- at the expense of PEOPLE.

Take your Ayn Rand thinking and stick it someplace where you can retrieve it when you are crushed by some Corporation. Either you'll be laid off/fired when your job is outsourced, or if you own a company, your corporation clients will take your contracts someplace cheaper, or your retail customers will be so broke that they can't buy from you, or the WalMart will run you out of business. Or the Corporation that runs the major business in your town will shut it down, sending your community into depression. Or some corporate hospital, pharma, or insurance provider will make a cost-based decision that could cost you your health, your life or the life of a family member.

Or when the corporate-consolidated-controlled media completely stops watching out for PEOPLE, and the corporate-controlled government turns the US into a fascist theocracy where there will be only the super wealthy and the grinding poor, come back cheering for corporations.

The super wealthy Corporate sociopaths who value profits over PEOPLE make me hope that there IS a hell so they can burn there, the fires stoked by their material wealth.

[punpirate]

13. Corporations, in and of themselves...

... may not be evil, but they are in human terms, by definition, amoral. If their only morality is increasing profits for stockholders, then their aims are often at odds with a pluralistic and egalitarian society.

Regulation does serve to keep the ravaging tendencies of capitalism in check. But, you seem to suggest that all we need to do is maintain those laws, which is much easier to say than to do, because corporations are not passive in the process of regulation. They perceive regulation as inhibiting profit, and actively seek to interfere in the process of regulation for their own benefit. They do this by massive legal effort to gain court rulings favorable to them, by massive lobbying efforts to add tax credits, discounts and subsidies to their bottom line, and have successfully bought large numbers of politicians through massive campaign contributions.

The real issue is that corporations have now supplanted the general populace as the raison d'etre for government. More simply, government now exists to further the interests of corporations, rather than the people.

That is so serious a problem that it requires drastic action--action which is not forthcoming from government itself.

Boycotts, however much you pooh-pooh them, inform corporations about the public's displeasure in the only way a corporation can understand a problem--via its bottom line.

Here's another reality that ought to figure into any discussion of corporate behavior. The top 400 families in the country own about 30% of all stock in the country (the top 5% own virtually all of the existing stock and 70% of all available wealth). When one talks of publicly-held corporations as somehow being excused from scrutiny for following their nature--the pursuit of profit--one needs to be reminded that the direction of these large corporations is generally the result of the wishes of its major stockholders, most of whom are already fantastically wealthy.

More to the point, in the case of the Wal-Marts of the country, these organizations serve to enrich a very few at the expense of many, and supporting them with one's dollars perpetuates that process. It's well-documented that the policies of Wal-Mart actually cost the taxpayer additional monies in services to its workers which Wal-Mart does not fund itself--effectively, an indirect tax subsidy. That situation has come about precisely because government listens to the Wal-Marts, not the people.

At this point in the country's history, the multinational corporation is a rapacious being with all the rights formerly reserved for humans alone, and has used those rights to pervert the political process and the general economy. They hurt far more than they help, and the ways in which they hurt are manifold.

The only way to get their attention now is to deny them what they want most--ever-increasing profits--in any and all ways possible. Boycott, selective or otherwise, is one of those ways.

Cheers.

[BrklynLiberal]

17. The latest stats show that 70% of WalMarts products come from China..so

how would shopping there help the American economy? I would rather spend a bit more in a small, local store...where the products might stand a better chance of being made in the USA. I agree...we can speak with our pocketbooks!!! Look what we did to Sinclair Communications Stock when we inundated sponsors with letters!!! Their stock went down, and the stockholders voiced their dissatisfaction with the policies that caused that public outcry.

[sonicx]

14. nothing wrong with *minimizing* corporate buying

of course it's impossible to rid yourself of it all, but discretionary spending like clothing brands, entertainment brands, food brands, etc. can be adjusted to support better companies and avoid worse ones and lessen spending altogether.

so i can't bring down a corporation. so what? I'll personally feel alot better. I spend to much money on junk anyway.

[BrklynLiberal]

20. choosetheblue.com shopblue.com

[unblock]

15. your argument needs some clarification

if you separate defending "corporations" from defending "walmart", you might make your point more clear. i'm not sure which you mean to be defending.

"corporations" covers a vast range of businesses and business practices, and certainly, they range from evil to saintly. plus, there are other ways of constituting business other than incorporation, and they, too, range from evil to saintly.

"walmart" is one particular corporation, with a long history, and many controversial business practices. among them, they take advantage of their status as such a dominant retailer that suppliers are forced to choose between going out of business or bending to their will. often, their will is to force suppliers to do things of dubious ethics, such as using overseas sweatshops, to get their prices down.

very different arguments, i'm not sure which you mean to be taking on.

[G_j]

26. my thoughts also

thanks for attempting to get some clarity.
I have personally seen the inexcusable damage to community and environment Walmart has done and this is repeated over and over again. Is cancer evil? I don't know, but a person is a hell of a lot heathier without it.

[buckettgirl]

28. I'm not trying to defend anything

I'm not defending walmart necessarily. I understand that they have horrible business practices and that clearly must change (how, I don't know - but boycotting won't work). But I think it is safe to say that this is not what Sam Walton intended when he opened Walmart.
I don't want to defend any corporation. To me, Target or McDonalds or my engery company (Aquila) are as bad as Walmart whether or not they have good business practices or contribute to democrats. Where I live, I can go grocery shopping at Walmart or Kroger - at least walmart is cheaper.
Mainly my point is that we have corporations. They are here to stay and have integrated themselves in every aspect of our lives. It is very hypocritic to say "boycott the corporations" or walmart or whatever, but yet still rely on them for your everyday routine/needs. The corporate takeover of America has happened, small stores are rare, and consumers have little protection. This is a horrible tragedy. Why didn't anyone stop it? We are stuck now. Boycotting large corporations like walmart doesn't work because the few people who do it (who can do it) don't make a dent in their profit margin. There must be better ways.

[sonicx]

30. Morally, i feel better not shopping at Walmart. I don't care if people...

i don't care if people join me or not. That's like saying i should be against gay marriage since most Americans are.

Secondly, your point is still silly. We know corporations are here to stay, but if you can avoid discretionary spending (cloths, entertainment) at certain ones with bad labor practices or ones that give an overwhelming amount of money to Republicans, we're going to do it.

oh, and please explain to me why Costo or Target are as bad as Walmart. You just threw that in there without giving any reasons.

[tsuki]

41. Oh I think it has affected Walmart. They are posting lower than

expected earnings. Also, lately the light has began to shine on them and their "practices." Frontline did an excellent job turning over the Walmart rock.

I cannot shop at Walmart at anytime, for anything.

[dave123williams]

16. You're a fool; corporations are inherently...

amoral; corporations exist to further their own interests, period. A corporation is not a person; it's a legal entity, designed to protect its owners from thorny legal topics, like liability for individual action. Amorality is a state wherein in terms like 'good' or 'evil' don't really apply.

And another thing, I'm not a consumer; I'm a CITIZEN. Citizens have obligations to each other in our little social contract; corporations don't. A corporation will never get drafted, a corporation will pay less tax or no tax at all where possible, will never sit on a jury of peers, and will do everything in it's power to do as little for the country that is it's foundation; a corporation exists to serve itself, and therefore has no sense whatsoever about duty, honor or country. We all know how dearly American corporations value loyalty to their employees when the winds of fortune shift.

The conservatives are always labeling liberals as 'elite', which is hilarious. The tiny group of folks that control the boards of most of the corporations in this country, who think ripping off their shareholders is part of the 'beauty of capatilism'...that's your 'elite', right there. Guess how they vote.

[jandrok]

33. That's a pretty good breakdown......

...but I'd take issue with the statement that corporations exist to serve themselves and rip off the shareholders. In reality, corporations will do everything in their power to INCREASE equity to the shareholders, no matter what the consequences. The largest shareholders are on the board of directors, and every action they take is geared to keeping the stock price as healthy as possible. If you're lucky enough to have stock, you can ride along. If you're at the bottom of the pile and can barely make it from paycheck to paycheck, then you're probably not in the profit sharing plan. THOSE are the people getting ripped off.

But I'd agree with the rest of your response. Corporations themselves are amoral. They do what they have to do to survive in a competitive marketplace, period.

[dave123williams]

35. I would disagree with one thing you said...

Corporations in the ga-ga 90's focused on 'increasing shareholder value', not on profitability, not on actual revenues, but on pumping up their stock prices. This triggered egregious bonuses for the corporation's executives, while burning the investors. So, they're self-serving to the point of their own failure, in many cases.

The dynamic reminds me of Ebola; Ebola is a virus resulting in hemmoragic fever that spreads so quickly and so effeciently that it often destroyes all of its hosts before it can get out of the little villages where it flares up.

So, it's *very* self-serving...to the point that it fizzles out. Think Enron.

[jandrok]

39. I understand what you're getting at, but......

...Enron is a bad example of that. They failed for a different set of reasons entirely. But there are other examples of what you're talking about. Locally we had several, like Garden.com and Trilogy. They were classic examples of the 90's bubble, all potential with no profitability. But I'd also postulate that that wasn't entirely their fault, but the fault of the market itself at that point in time. There were many, many companies that were overvalued. It's sort of like the MLB ballplayer market today. Why NOT believe your own press clippings when owners will pay top dollar for you, even though you're a third-year utility player who happened to have a breakthrough 2nd half?

And yeah, some folks got rich, but a lot lost their shirts, too.

More to my point, the market is completely different today. Companies take as much as they can to the bottom line to stay in good graces with the analysts. Post a bad quarter? Didn't meet your forecast? Plan to be downgraded. And most companies learned from Enron, too. Keep your finances audited and transparent, or hire some REALLY sneaky bean-counters to make it look like it is. The Enron bean-counters were careless and arrogant, that's what brought THEM down.

[sandnsea]

19. control prices & production

That was the purpose of a trust, that's the purpose of a multinational corporation. Just like we fought them at the turn of the last century, we have to fight them now. Just like they had the power then - to destroy the environment, use child labor, exploit workers, - they have the power now. It wasn't good for the people of the country then, it's not good for the people of the world now. We didn't have trusts and corporations until after the Civil War; the one thing southern Democrats were right about was the power of industry and banking. Too bad those southerners don't have that same common sense today.

[Occulus]

23. The problems you are trying to address

are enabled by the doctrine of corporate personhood. Revoke that, add enforcement, and they will behave- or be dissolved.

Now, going about doing so, per another thread here, would probably require a constitutional amendment.

[BrklynLiberal]

37. It was a court case that gave them personhood...involving the railroads

vs one of the California counties, I think...just before the turn of the century...so it might just involve another judicial decision to undue it...The problem would be finding a judge who would be willing to risk it...and no doubt it owuld go to the Supreme Court of the US..and we know how they would decide at this time in history.

[BrklynLiberal]

38. Here it is...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2864431

[MSgt213]

24. It's not the specific corporation people have problems with its the Greed

[OneBlueSky]

36. corporations are vehicles for the unlimited and perpetual . . .

aggregation of capital . . . and, as such, are inherently undemocratic and, yes, evil . . . but don't take my word for it . . . take a look at what presidents from Jefferson to Eisenhower have had to say . . .

"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." Thomas Jefferson

"There is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by... corporations. The power of all corporations ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses. It's one of the reasons why the word "corporation" doesn't exist in the constitution - they were to be chartered only by states, so local people could keep a close eye on them." James Madison, Father of the Constitution

"In this point of the case the question is distinctly presented whether the people of the United States are to govern through representatives chosen by their unbiased suffrages or whether the money and power of a great corporation are to be secretly exerted to influence their judgment and control their decisions." Andrew Jackson

"I am more than ever convinced of the dangers to which the free and unbiased exercise of political opinion - the only sure foundation and safeguard of republican government - would be exposed by any further increase of the already overgrown influence of corporate authorities." Martin van Buren

"As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless." Abraham Lincoln

"As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen is struggling far in the rear or is trampled to death beneath an iron heel. Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters." Grover Cleveland

"Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day." Theodore Roosevelt

“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, IS Fascism.” Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” Dwight David Eisenhower

[clu]

40. no offense but...

"Unless you live in the middle of nowhere and are completely self-sufficient and own nothing produced or sold by corporations, then what room do you have to talk?"

this kind of reasoning wouldn't fly by any decent high-school teacher.