Corporatism Must Die !!!!! ....... in quotes:

[marmar]

"This is the fundamental debate in our society: Are we a nation of citizens or a nation of
consumers? Are we a democracy run by citizens, or are we a corporatocracy that holds consumers locked in dependency by virtue of their consumption?"

- Thom Hartmann

......

"They had their cynical code worked out. The public are swine; advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill-bucket."

- George Orwell

......

"Money is a new form of slavery, and distinguishable from the old simply by the fact that it is impersonal—that there is no human relation between master and slave."

- Tolstoi

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"The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite."

- Dr. Lawrence Britt

......

"Thus corporations finally claimed the full rights enjoyed by individual citizens while being exempted from many of the responsibilities and liabilities of citizenship. Furthermore, in being guaranteed the same right to free speech as individual citizens, they achieved, in the words of Paul Hawken, 'precisely what the Bill of Rights was intended to prevent: domination of public thought and discourse.' The subsequent claim by corporations that they have the same right as any individual to influence the government in their own interest pits the individual citizen against the vast financial and communications resources of the corporation and mocks the constitutional intent that all citizens have an equal voice in the political debates surrounding important issues."

- David Korten

......

"This is the landscape of corporatism: a world not merely dominated by corporations, but one inhabited by people who have internalized corporate values as our own. And even now that corporations appear to be waning in their power, they are dragging us down with them; we seem utterly incapable of lifting ourselves out of their depression."

- Douglas Rushkoff

[Mojambo]

1. I don't see how you stop it at this point.

Corporation and the state are so intertwined I don't see how you kill just one.

[girl gone mad]

3. There's the rub.

When citizens decided last fall that a lot less consumption was in order, our government simply made up the difference by running up debt to save the corporations from their own bad decisions.

[readmoreoften]

5. They've always been entwined. That's how they became corporations.

The burgher class rose in power in collusion with the monarchs, eventually making them figureheads. Eventually, they overthrew the kings and invented the modern state to protect their interests from unrest among peasants and industrial workers. They became corporations because they already owned the state and they could do what they wished with its laws--consolidation into corporations became a necessary hardening of state/capitalist power in the face of various economic crises of the late 19th century.

There is only one group of people who can, structurally, overthrow them: by a working-class majority taking control of the means of production, reorganizing society and abolishing the idea of "class" thereafter. There are a number of ways to do it, but the most effective way has been through the establishment of a strike committee/workers council after a mass strike. Only a coordinated strike effort can pose a challenge to corporations and the state that exists to shield them because it is the ONE thing that general people have that the wealthy do not: the ability to do stuff.

Stockbrokers, bankers, and factory owners have no idea how to design and build cars, grow food, teach kids to read, design packages, drive trucks and planes, install communication devices, build houses, run web sites, make robots, etc. They don't know how to do shit. They only know how to extract wealth from the things we make. A mass strike in a few key industries and a few factories around the globe would halt the system: DSL maintenance strike in the US combined with a urban transportation strike and a teachers strike, various factory strikes abroad. History has shown that in the ensuing chaos, a strike committee forms, feeds people, picks up the trash, and takes over the means of production. The only thing that has stopped it thus far is an uneven revolt that is squashed by police. And we don't need to fight the military either. The military are working class people too.

That's about it. Minor tweaks and reforms won't do much. Keynesian economics do nothing but help keep their boat afloat. And even the Bush administration was Keynesian--look up military keynesianism.

We've got a long way to go.

[Wednesdays]

2. K&R

:kick:

[readmoreoften]

4. And return to what? 19th century single-factory owner capitalism? Not possible.

The robber barons were able to consolidate power in the 19th century because capitalist states were falling apart and in danger of social unrest without modern consolidation. Early capitalism was merely a transition phase between agrarian feudalism (fusion of King, God, Wealth) and capitalism as we know it (state protecting owner class through various ideological mechanisms).

This "corporatism" of which everyone speaks is another name for capitalism. And I agree, it must die.

[IDFbunny]

6. The corporation is collective ownership.

Are we arguing for communism?