The Corporate Republic 255
Corporatism: "The organization of a society into industrial and professional corporations serving as organs of political representation and exercising some control over persons and activities within their jurisdiction." -- Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.
It's a word, coined in 1890, that's ripe for twenty-first century re-definition. Here's my suggestion:
And nearly everything now lies within their jurisdictions.Corporatism: "A system in which industrial and professional corporations fund and dominate politics, circumvent government and other forms of regulation, expand globally beyond accountability, alter the nature of work, marginalize individuals, and exercise monopolistic control over technology, culture, information and commerce within their jurisdictions."
America is becoming the headquarters of the Corporate Republic, a new kind of political entity that transcends geographic boundaries, and would have sent the original Republic's founders plunging into the Potomac in despair. Corporatism --fueled by the techno-driven global economic boom and the spread of mass-marketing technologies, has become the primary social, cultural and political force in the country, perhaps the world. No single political system is as powerful or pervasive. Increasingly, the big news is about corporatist maneuverings and confrontations.
Everywhere in this new Republic, individualism is on the run. A nation founded on the notion of individual choice, liberty, privacy, and primacy is in danger of being subsumed. All social and political issues -- work, privacy, creativity, individual liberty -- are subordinate to corporatism's sole ideology: economics.
Though America has been the birthplace of modern corporatism, just as it was the primary proving ground for ideas about individual liberty two centuries ago, the Corporate Republic already extends beyond the U.S.
It's a global phenomenon: In the Corporate Republic, Wal-Mart, Bertelsmann, Sony, Disney, Microsoft, AOL Time-Warner and their fellow conglomerates operate internationally, dominating the law, lobbying regulators, setting social policy, acquiring culture itself. Corporatism is the primary contributor to the political system. Corporatism now owns the mainstream media that "cover" the political system, and has acquired most of the companies that control entertainment and popular culture. Corporatist companies like Wal-Mart make small business ownership difficult in many regions, if not impossible. Culture -- from filmmaking and publishing to professional athletics -- becomes Disneyfied, homogenized and sanitized for the widest possible distribution.
To dwell within the Corporate Republic, individuals have to look the other way. The essence of living with corporatism for most people is acceptance and silence -- minding your own business.
The core of individualism, on the other hand, is refusing to mind your own business. This is not, as the essayist John Raulston Saul has written, always a pleasant way of life. "It often consists of being persistently annoying to others," he writes in his l995 book "The Unconscious Civilization," "as well as being stubborn and repetitive." Enlightenment philosopher Friedrick Nicolai also had something relevant to say on this subject: "Criticism is the only helpmate we have which, while disclosing our inadequacies, can at the same time awake us to the desire for greater improvement."
Criticism is different from confrontation. Criticism -- still thriving on the Net, but declining elsewhere -- is the individual's primary weapon, a means to personal affirmation, the most readily available exercise of dignity and legitimacy. But criticism is often linked to culture, and as the latter become corporatized, criticism is on the decline. In the Corporate Republic, comformity and acquiescence are elevated, while criticism and individualism gets punished, marginalized or ignored.
Who hasn't experienced this conflict -- at home, in a classroom, at work? Even in comparatively free communities like this one, non-comformity is bitterly controversial.
One of the hallmarks of the "unconscious civilization" off-line is our failure to grasp how pervasively we have slipped into conformity. Our media embrace "objectivity" -- a marketing ploy invented by publishers in the 1800's to make newspapers less offensive to large blocks of potential consumers. Corporatism is now so ubiquitous we can hardly even see it, even though it affects the food we buy, the restaurants we eat in, the books we can make and read, the movies we can see, the music we can listen to, the software most people buy. The media have turned bland and timid. Though H.L. Mencken brilliantly and savagely spoofed organized religion and politics a half-century ago, it would be nearly impossible to do so now in any public forum outside the Net. Public and political speech itself has become corporatist, aiming not to inspire or provoke but to avoid offense.
The late scholar and writer C.S. Lewis also foresaw this great leveling. In his famous "Screwtape Letters," two devils gleefully correspondent from Hell about the emerging corporatist ethos, "the vast, overall movement towards the discrediting, and finally the elimination, of every kind of human excellence -- moral, cultural, social and intellectual."
In fact, in "Screwtape Letters," one of the devils etches out what could be the Corporatist Marketing Manifesto: "Allow no preeminence among your subjects. Let no man live who is wiser or better or more famous or even handsomer than the mass. Cut them all down to a level; all slaves, all ciphers, all nobodies. All equals. Thus Tyrants could practice, in a sense, "democracy."
Perhaps it's not surprising that individualism and criticism have retreated mostly to the Internet, with its own peculiar traditions of individualism -- its founders were, to varying degrees, ferociously independent academics, scientists, outsiders and oddballs. But the Net -- a medium of individual, networked expression -- is also under siege in the Corporate Republic, which intends to dominate and acquire the network. Lawsuits and conflicts have erupted all along the Internet Edge as corporatism seeks to extend its reach into cyberspace, one of the few places it failed to get an early and decisive foothold.
More than any other greeting, e-mail to me often begins with the phrase: "I don't always agree with you, but..." It's well-meant, but always strikes me as curious because it's so unwittingly revealing of a society raised on corporatist pablum as a subsitute for dialogue and discussion. Why should people always agree with me, or I with them? Isn't that the very point of a columnist and critic: to provoke discussion, disagreement and thought? If people always agreed with me, what possible purpose would I serve? What point would there be in reading my columns at at all?
But given what passes for public discussion on CNN, MSNBC and newspaper op-ed pages, the greeting is hardly surprising. Outspoken opinion has become shocking (even on Slashdot, hundreds of people actually filter it out), though the founders of the American Republic (not the corporate one) meant it to be one of the cornerstone opportunities of citizens in a democracy.
Just this week, there was what once would have been an unthinkable display of corporatistism suffocating the flow of information, as the ABC television network vanished from the cable systems of Time Warner in eleven different cities after the giant conglomerate failed to reach an agreement with ABC's owners, the Walt Disney company. The spectacle of these two corporate media behemoths at one another's throats, each accusing the other of being "monopolists" -- Time Warner was, in effect, punishing its own customers -- was amazing enough, but the idea that one company could yank programming of an entire network away from millions of Americans -- including those in New York, Los Angeles, Houston and Philadelphia -- over a contract dispute was a landmark display of the consequences of corporatizing media.
One California station manager said the blackout was a "frightening foreshadowing of the implications of the Time Warner-AOL merger." He's right. No company has ever controlled as much synergistic content as the alliance between American Online and Time Warner. But how could he have missed this story until now? There have been frightening examples of corporatism's impact on speech, culture and media for years. Hardly anyone has been paying much attention, but the blacking out of "Who Wants To Be A Millioinnaire?" in different parts of the country finally triggered congressional calls for an inquiry into the AOL/Time-Warner merger.
Online, individuals cling to the myth that they can escape the Corporate Republic, though the synergy and momentum of contemporary politics, culture and commerce suggests otherwise. Just last week, C-Net published a special report on "The AOL-ization" of America, suggesting that the monstrous new company is already homogenizing the Net to a degree Microsoft never dreamed of. "
The truth is that corporatism is so entrenched in the United States and spreading so rapidly throughout the rest of the world that it's hard to envision defeating it, or even holding it at bay for very long.
Individuals have for decades felt powerless in civic affairs and now, it appears, they really are. The image of individuals on hold or lost in corporate phone systems has become a universal, almost poignant experience in 21st century America, a staple of life in a corporatist world. These entities have become masterful liars: they continuously market themselves as responsive and eager to listen while becoming steadily more arrogant and unaccountable.
Except through the act of voting -- which citizens increasingly see as pointless and meaningless, since they have such restricted options to choose between -- or through voluntary personal and recreational activities, citizen participation in civic affairs, the bedrock of American democracy, has been virtually eliminated.
Corporatism has as aggressively moved into the civic system as it has the marketplace. It funds the national political process, having corrupted the campaign finance system even as very idea of regulation of corporate growth has vanished as a civic idea. Corporatism has polluted public policy from gun control to health care to Internet copyright laws.
In recent weeks, the Pinkerton Corporation's entry into the school safety business via its noxious WAVE America.com website--which encourges schoolkids to turn in classmates they perceive as potentially dangerous -- has brought into focus corporatisms' powerful new reality.Civic issues, even the safety and emotional welfare of children, are now being managed for profit.
At a time where government provides mostly an enthusiastic competition to see which party and candidate can do the least, be the most divisive, and propose the fewest fresh ideas and programs, corporatism has moved to fill the void. Corporatists run prisons, schools, hospitals, and contribute a growing amount to dependent universities and research institutions. It no longer even seems odd for publishing and media to be in the hands of a half-dozen international conglomerates, from theme park operators to light-bulb manufacturers,or for the world's largest private security firm to take over school safety for profit.
This is, the natural, inevitable evolution of an era in which government has abandoned its historic obligations to police the power of business; in which technology and marketing permit companies to grow beyond anything previously possible; in which markets race insanely out of control; and in which globalism has put many companies beyond regulatory oversight or moral restraint.
American democracy was based on notions of personal and economic individualism, the very kind of autonomy corporatism is snuffing out. At the beginning of the 21st Century, the core ideology of civilization, it seems, has become economics. If business is good, we are a happy and contented nation. If it isn't, we aren't.
In recent years, the technologically-empowered individuals on the Net have begun challenging the corporatists in the most direct way -- creating the free software and open source movements, creating alternatives to monopolies like Microsoft, challenging industry's efforts to curb the flow of free music and movies.
This new movements are being bitterly resisted -- witness the recording industry's bitter fight over music-downloading on the Internet. These escalating conflicts evoke a "court opinion" written by the writer Robert Heinlein in "Life Line," one of his earliest published stories:
"There has grown in the minds of certain groups in this country the idea that just because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with guaranteeing such a profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is supported by neither statute or common law. Neither corporations or individuals have the right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back."
Heilein's ruling was eloquent, but fictional. Corporations do have that right, and are exercising it with a vengeance. Tensions between individuals and corporatism can -- and should -- only worsen.
But it will be a complex and unprecedented king of struggle. Without some radical change, individualism is likely to be outgunned by corporatism armies. Individuals resist leaders, spokespeople, and common agendas. By their very nature, they are uncomfortable with the sort of power acquired and deployed by the entities that push them relentlessly to the margins of life.
Online, the trade-off couldn't be more naked or significant. We have all of this personalized and highly individualistic and expressive technology. We can speak more freely than anybody in the world, but who, exactly, is listening?
Next: An ideology of individualism.
Really? (Score:1)
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Corporate Katz (Score:1)
That is the big question, isn't it? If you didn't spout off everytime some 15 year old broke the law, Andover could lose viewers, which would mean that they couldn't bring in advertisers to try to make up for their incredible stock market losses. Keep bringing in those banner ads, Jon. The Man 0wns your ass.
What point would there be in reading my columns at at all?
This is not merely rhetorical, I assure you. It's something we must struggle with daily. what point is there in reading your articles? More importantly, why do you write them? You sold out long ago, so god only knows what gives you the right to complain. You're a part of the corporate machine. And I think you like it.
So let's all do something about it. (Score:3)
*sing* my soma has a first name, it's m-o-n-e-y...
This is nothing new (Score:1)
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How is this different? (Score:1)
People with similar goals have always come together and formed partnerships -- hunter-gatherer bands, villages, cities, countries, treaty organizations, corporations.
One of the many things that characterizes such associations is the giving up of some individual liberties in the interests of group survival and welfare.
Even in a free-wheeling forum such as Slashdot, there are limits to freedom of thought that are enforced by the moderatorial system.
Are we different in kind, or just in degree?
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America has a lot to answer for (Score:5)
America is becoming the headquarters of the Corporate Republic, a new kind of political entity that transcends geographic boundaries, and would have sent the original Republic's founders plunging into the Potomac in despair.
Why is it that America has proven to be the ideal breeding ground for the current corporation-driven global economy that has gotten so out of hand? If you look at all of the major issues that come up on /. about 95% of them are birthed in the US. How did the nation which prides itself on its God-given rights to freedom come to end up in such a state?
I think the "American Dream" has a lot to answer for. The dream of gaining wealth and possessions through the mechanisms of capitalism is one of the core national beliefs of Americans, and it pervades every part of their culture. Beneath its hope-filled surface, it subliminally encourages people to put themselves ahead of others, to work against them to better oneself, and to treat every opportunity in life as a means of making more money for yourself.
Undoubtedly this has done a lot of good for America's economy and growth, since the US boasts one of the largest economies in the world. But it has bought about the start of mega-corporations, massive bodies devoted to the gaining of wealth without any kind of conscience. They are the ultimate expression of the American Dream, and are intimitely tied in with the violence of that dream.
Personally I think that the whole notion of the American Dream is one that needs to be abandoned. It has resulted in a society driven by violence towards acquisition and greed, in which the violence of its spirit is mirrored in its gun-obsessed, violent culture and media, and in its interventionalist foreign policy.
Coming up next on Slashdot: (Score:1)
Can it be true? naw. Just consider Microsoft (Score:1)
And if say, Mitsubishi decided to utilize slave labor or sold 'genocide solutions', don't you think they'd be shut-the-fsck-down?
I think this article is all hype, little perspective. I am not very afraid of the US going to war with Wal*Mart. I know that isn't the point, but it is the reality.
Corporatism is well past it's peak (Score:2)
Sure, corporatism is still struggling, and can inflict considerable damage. But people don't think the same way they used to, and the corps are in decline. Look at how there has been major turnover in corporations fortunes. MS & Cisco didn't exist 20 years ago, and now they've overtaken GM & GE.
Most importantly, people's attitudes have changed. Very few think that corps are particularly well intentioned. So they will always be watched.
I'll take the bait (Score:2)
Okay I'll take the bait on this, and respond to the article seriously. Jon, why do you not back up what are very convincing arguments at times with fact. While quotes from CS Lewis, Heinlien(sic) and Nickolai are great, there is no proof in any of your arguments.
You never mention the facts about corporate ownership of many public resources(such as the Nigerian oil fields - a bad example I know), or the rampant abuses of the law(like the loggers who cut trees illegally around my house). You provide this great arguments, that are very well reasoned, but without these facts you're nothing more then a Sophist. [dictionary.com]
An Alternate Form of Democracy (Score:2)
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Katz is misguided on so many levels.. (Score:1)
In fact, in "Screwtape Letters," one of the devils etches out what could be the Corporatist Marketing Manifesto: "Allow no preeminence among your subjects. Let no man live who is wiser or better or more famous or even handsomer than the mass. Cut them all down to a level; all slaves, all ciphers, all nobodies. All equals. Thus Tyrants could practice, in a sense, "democracy."
No John, that's American Liberalism you are thinking of...
deaf dumb AND blind? (Score:2)
/. is a site that shows no matter how greedy a corporation gets, no matter how devious, and underhanded, there will always be a person, or a group of people that will try their hardest to
put out their product for free (beer/speech)
create a way to get around the rules of those corporations they deem "wrong"
compete and win against these corporations with the above mentioned tactics
so seriously Jon, let's not call normal everyday battles that we see, an apocalypse. mkay?
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
my parents tought me to be polite (Score:1)
> It's well-meant, but always strikes me as curious because it's so unwittingly revealing of a society
> raised on corporatist pablum as a subsitute for dialogue and discussion
well, let me write you I don't always agree with you...
starting a message that way simply means I want to share, to confront my ideas to yours, without wanting to hurt you
the purpose of sharing thoughts is not to offend you but it is to present you something else. If I am ruthless it will not make you change your mind. So I have more chance to you make your point of view evolve if I try to have a mature behaviour towards you.
in other words, beeing polite & having respect is a good thing
Coporatism the product of consumerism? (Score:2)
Also on another note there is are interesting trends in industry, up until the last 6 months most companies were de-merging to improve efficience or at lease trying to build up individual coporate branding within departments, which is in interesting move...
Re:An Alternate Form of Democracy (Score:1)
Jeroen
Re:How is this different? (Score:1)
Corporations...
...generally don't care 'bout anything except making $; all other considerations are incidental. In contrast to many Gov't types, Sony doesn't care if you're a smoker. GM really doesn't want to have to approve of how you develop your property. AOL/TW has no particular interest in whether there are pink flamingos scattered on your lawn. And I sincerely doubt that Exxon executives regularly contemplate what the company could do about kiddie porn on the Internet.
Many gov't folks can, and do care, and will seek precedents that lead to the potential regulating of every little detail, such as the use of punitive taxes to control behavior... EVERY little detail, ranging from fat consumption to property development, while claiming to look out for your own interests.
They also are, to a large degree, voluntary. Many corporations produce products which are basically luxuries... and generally don't have new upstart competitors shot. Try getting your state to declare independence...
nothing new here... (Score:1)
...but let me clarify: you oppose corportations "circumventing government regulation", but you are in favor of consumers doing so? (from yesterday's discussion about teens _stealing_ Metallica's music, using Napster as a conduit) Odd contradiction...
another example - so we'll get all pissed off when someone violates the GPL (circumventing regulation), but we support copyright violations (circumventing regulation) when it comes to consumers stealing music from artists. Hypocrites!
Links for further reading ... (Score:5)
Noam Chomsky Political Texts Online [geocities.com]: Noam Chomsky's a professor of linguistics at MIT, and has been writing about the effects of capitalism on democracy for over 20 years.
The Left Business Observer [panix.com]: A hard look at the messages of capitalism's cheerleaders, from an analytical economist's point of view. Plenty of charts and graphs.
Stay Free! Magazine [unc.edu]: A zine focusing on commercialism and consumer culture. Slashdot readers will probably enjoy the mean iMac ad parody on the front page.
Francis Hwang
Yeah? (Score:5)
Also, I must say this is am extraordinarily poorly written article. It has *very* little substance, mostly only opinion backed up by nothing. Come on, I was taught in my high school writing classes to back up my writing with more evidence than was put into this article published by a "professional writer".
Everywhere in this new Republic, individualism is on the run. A nation founded on the notion of individual choice, liberty, privacy, and primacy is in danger of being subsumed. All social and political issues -- work, privacy, creativity, individual liberty -- are subordinate to corporatism's sole ideology: economics.
Care to explain why I can't be creative because Time-Warner can blackout "Who wants to be a Millionaire"? I mean really, this piece is full of buzz-words that have little meaning without specific interpretation/proof.
If only it were that easy (Score:1)
Of course, it isn't likely to happend...
Re:I'll take the bait (Score:1)
a) Most tv-shows & films are completely written by & written for companies; they decide what you see
b) Sports - professional sports are dominated by the major companies. They even change the rules to fit their advertising schemes.
c) etc...
How to make a sig
without having an idea
Frustrating (Score:1)
Dont' Blame Me I Voted For A Ham Sandwich.
Resistence Is Useless (Score:1)
Re:So let's all do something about it. (Score:1)
The ACLU is one of the most destructive organizations out there. It's goal is to break down every single difference in society. With every action that it takes, the ACLU is making you more and more like me, and vice versa. Any believer in 'personal freedom' would be appalled at the acts of societal leveling that the ACLU takes part in.
Toqueville prophecied the coming of such organizations of obsessive equality. He was not impressed.
Corporations still not in charge but they could be (Score:2)
The thing is that whilst corporations are still based in a country they are vulnerable to the effects of legislation from that country, no matter how big they are. Witness the whole Microsoft trial - the biggest company in the world was not immune to being put on trial for all its vast wealth. And even the most international of corporations is vulnerable through the various treaties that bind countries together, and through the domino effect a successful case against a company can have.
The only way I can see for a corporation to truly have independence from governmental control is for it to be the government. And there are plenty of small countries out there which could be effectively "bought" by a corporation willing to take on its national debt, assets, GNP etc. In this way, the corporation effectively becomes the government, with all the rights to do what governments do - set their own laws and regulations, raise armies, have a foreign policy, create embassies and diplomats and so on.
Think of what an advantage that could be to a company. No matter what other countries may think of them, they are practically immune to interference thanks to their status as a soverign government. They can move all of their assets to their own country and establish distribution channels originating there. In this scenario, the corporation truly does rule.
I'm not sure about the amount of money it would require to do something like this, but given the trend towards giant mergers and acquisitions, it can't be soon before some giant conglomerate has the ability to do something like this for real. The question is, would they?
New Poll (Score:1)
[] Yes
[] Absoloutely
[] Jon Katz sucks
Really, who keeps paying him, and why? Must be for ad traffic (I use a blocker, so it doesn't matter)... I can't think of any other reason.
He probably creates more useless packets than Melissa or I Love You - at least I Love You has a positive message to it, rather than 'The Sanctity of Our World is Crumbling Around Us!!!!!!!', which seems to be the theme of every post Jon Katz has ever made.
Bah!
Don't you mean the Roman Empire (Score:1)
The Holy Roman Empire did not come into existence until Pope Stephen II sealed a pact with Pepin in 754.
Merely a shift of power, nothing new.... (Score:1)
Yes, perhaps corporatism is a bad thing, wielding that kind of control can dampen individual's creativity and selfness, but it's not like it's new, it's merely a different form of how we (people that is) have always yielded to peer pressure and decided that it was easier to let some power from above dictate the framework within which we live our lifes... it's hard work always being an individual, most people are lazy and conformity means having to make fewer decisions.
At least with corporism it is not only possible but not all that hard for new members to join the oligarchy of power.... how many religions got any type of power in the domain of Catholicism (Europe primarily) during the thousand years 500-1500? In any case, the FORM of the powerholders may have shifted, but the fact that there ARE such powerholders has not. You can idealize all you want about individual freedoms and liberties but the fact remains that most people, given a choice, would rather let someone else make the choices.
-B
Karl Marx said same in 1848 (Score:1)
Karl's followers got carried away.
What's New... (Score:2)
Good question (why the fear of IDing yourself?). Economists and political scientists say what's new is the size, power and technology the modern company. Corporatism isn't the same as capitalism. What's new is Microsoft, and ABC being owned by Disney, and the latter getting network yanked by Time-Warner and the changes in the nature of work and the economy since the early 90's. Corporatism now is funding politics, which is new, and gets more powerful by the day.
Re:Katz is misguided on so many levels.. (Score:1)
Re:Corporatism is well past it's peak (Score:1)
And although I agree with you about people's suspicion of corporations, I think a lot of that potential can be checked by cynicism. Many people resent the extent to which commercialism seeps into our lives, but few of us feel like we can do anything about it. Nike doesn't care whether we resent them or love them, if we keep buying their shoes.
Francis Hwang
pika? (Score:1)
Why? Why can't things get better? No, fuck that: I'm an optimist. Things WILL get better. And I'll make them. Somehow. If tensions between corporations and individuals increase, then why would either side look to making things better?
Corporations that have specifically repressed me:
Nintendo - Pokémon. The hours, days, weeks, months lost time spent playing these games could better have been used playing other video games. I intend to stop playing Pokémon until my friend gets out of the hospital, then I'm taking my Game Boy Color back.
Coca-Cola - Withdrew funding for the WWF. Not that I ever drank Coke in the first place, but you know how I feel.
Pepsi - Makes Mountain Dew. I suffer lack-of-caffeine withdrawls every other day or so if I forget to drink at least a sixpack. My solution? I will drink Jolt! Then I'll have to drink less to get my fix.
AOL - Put ABC back on TV after yanking it. And I thought they were on my side. (as if anyone in Time Warner has any say it what goes on anymore.) I dunno about this one, I don't think I could live without AIM.
Microsoft - SON OF A BITCH! Why do Visual C++ 6, Visual Basic 6, and Visual Interdev 6, all part of Visual Studio 6, use different text editing conventions?! ARGH! It's so annoying! You know what? There is no solution, unless I go and buy Visual Studio 7 (2000? can't wait
In any case, as cr0bar said on detonate.net: Metallica rocks, lawsuits suck, mp3z rock, thieves suck.
BTW: "Though H.L. Mencken brilliantly and savagely spoofed organized religion and politics a half-century ago, it would be nearly impossible to do so now in any public forum outside the Net." Today, Howard Stern slammed the dead Cardinal O'Connor as being against gay people and against the building of an AIDs specific hospital close to his church (or something, did anyone else listen to that?). Howard Stern is syndicated in how many places? I think that was fairly public.
response.write "More than any other greeting, e-mail to me often begins with the phrase: ""I don't always agree with you, but..."" It's well-meant, but always strikes me as curious because it's so unwittingly revealing of a society raised on corporatist pablum as a subsitute for dialogue and discussion." &Chr(13) REM hello? didn't your mom teach you to be polite? ^^;;
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
AOL IM: jeanlucpikachu
Re:An Alternate Form of Democracy (Score:1)
* in a democracy politicians present a political roadmap (evenhough they do not follow it closely), corporations do not have roadmaps, they just have marketing. Well maybe the difference is very small in US between political roadmap & corporation marketing...
* in a democracy politicians are grouped in parties, corporations are not
corporatism in not an evolved form of democracy
on the contrary politicians adopt values from corporatism (marketing, fast talk, very short term planning, seduction)
herein is great danger
I would not talk of democracy but republic (like katz)
because inside a corporation there is a very small number of people who can define strategies & who can choose/vote for others (in France CEO is ellected). that's the way of republic compared to democracy (everyone votes)
Now before I run to the shed and get my gun... (Score:1)
First, anyone see that movie "Network?" It's a great flick, centered around Katz' point that we're all sort of changing into this gray, homogenous, muck. And the movie blames it on the media.
Second, maybe someone out there who is a history buff can confirm this, but wasn't the American Revolution spurred by economics?
Third, the Zaibatsu in Japan have been doing this for decades, haven't they?
Fourth, Is it really true that "individualism" leads people to stick their noses in other people's business? That seems like a pretty pro-active individualism. There is another individualism that leads people to become hermits. But, maybe that's not the "good" kind of individualism? For more on this check out that AC post about the American Dream further down, it's a good one. He says the American Dream leads people to try and one-up everyone else, and I agree. Not that I'm not trying too.
Fifth, Katz seems to equate Napster, everyone sharing intellectual property, with the open source movement. I think that's a false analog. The open source movement seeks to share ip that was intended to be shared in the first place, not to be sold (as a first intention).
Over all, this is a good article, but maybe just a tad bit paranoid. Although I agree that these mega mergers are a serious problem, and that we desperately need Campaign Finance Reform. But seriously, does anyone think our souls are in more jeapordy now than they have been for the last half century? For more on CFR, get in touch with Common Cause. www.commoncause.org
OoO
huh? (Score:2)
Are they Listening? Are we Speaking? (Score:1)
Well, it would help if people spoke. Most people, honestly, don't really care about long-term issues/questions/problems, whether they're about freedom, corporate control, or what have you. Historically, there have been three things (that I can think of) that have acted as controls on corporate power: other corporations, activist organizations, and goverment. Relying on corporate-corporate conflicts is, I admit, moronic: companies are, once again, awakening to the idea that if they all cooperate/merge/ally, they can make a bigger buck than by fighting. But activist organizations (ACLU, Common Cause, and so forth) are doing what they can. In some cases (ACLU) that's a lot. In others (Common Cause) it's not so much. But it's interesting that most people, when polled/asked generally have a negative view of the activist groups (usually as troublemakers/pinkos/destroyers of 'family values', etc). And government, spurred on by the fact that less than half the eligible U.S. population bothers to vote anymore, takes the path of least resistance and goes with the corporations.
I've worked for/with/against several politicians in the last few years, and learned something that's pretty obvious but doesn't generally get noticed. If it's a fight between votes and corporate influence/money, votes generally win. A few thousand letters, and a couple hundred phone calls have a big influence on how a legislator will vote, almost always outweighing a corporate lobbyist's contributions and threats. And if they don't, the people can vote the bastard out of office. Isn't democracy beautiful? The problem is, most people don't care. People vote based on their economic self-interest, or based on who looked better in the ten-second ad they saw on t.v. If they vote at all. I suppose/hope that eventually corporations will go too far, and piss a substantial number of people off enough that effective political action becomes possible, but by then it may be too late. So the question becomes how to convince a largely apathetic population to act on a problem whose full implications are further over the time-horizon than they're willing to think about. It's not so much a matter of listening, I think, as a matter of speaking.
sorry for ranting.
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country....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.
-Abraham Lincoln
Re:It's About Equality (Score:1)
1). Representative democracy ain't too bad. Constitutional monarchies are still not that unusual. And the modern world is pretty tolerant of the occasional military junta/dictatorship, as well...
2). Is it justified? If you're asking whether all races are equal, that's a silly question. Statistically, there are observable differences. Why? It's uncertain. Some are cultural. Some are genetic. Some are purely fiscal. You'll find, for instance, that in the US, those of African descent are far more likely to have at least one gene for sickle-cell anemia -- but it make sense, because that same gene also helps against malaria, IIRC. You'll also find that they are somewhat more likely to believe that the CIA is responsible for spreading AIDS in Africa (cultural; propagated by Line PR of KGB, and spread by anti-establishment folks), and disproportionately likely to be professional basketball players (although the probability is still extremely low on an individual basis). They are less likely to desire membership in the KKK, and more likely to join the Nation of Islam. Are you claiming that most folk, if they think about it, consider everybody equal in every aspect?
And would you call affirmative action racism? I certainly would, and indeed find the entire idea disagreeable, but obviously many have found it to be a helpful evil.
3) Arguably, yes, depending on your metric. If, for instance, diplomacy is an issue, I'm almost certainly not your chap given how uncompromising I can be. And it would be silly to claim mental and physical supremacy over the bulk of humanity. The case would be more clear-cut if I were an anencephalitic paraplegic, but that happens not to be the case. So with probability approaching 1 (over 6 billion people)... of course.
Or, for that matter, to claim to understand how everybody thinks.
"First of a series"?! (Score:1)
Re:An Alternate Form of Democracy (Score:1)
That film where everyone was hobbled (Score:1)
What if,,, (Score:1)
The Internet was built by corporate institutions, not induhviduals,so why not let them control what they created?
And on another note, why is "corporatism" bad? People think that capitalists want to squeeze every last penny out of the general population. WRONG. If that was the case, it wouldn't work. Capitalism is symbiotic (sp?). Masses of poor do not help capitalism, but masses of rich do (they can actually feed money to the corporations, where as the poor can't). Capitalism would die a very quick death if it lowered the general wealth of the populus.
Re:Coming up next on Slashdot: (Score:1)
How do you moderate a Katz article? (Score:2)
Looks suspicously like those "Jews rule the world" posts you see all the time.
Of course, I didn't take time to read the article much, once I saw Katz re-define a term.
Hey, I redefine corporation to mean "fuzzy blue duck" and republic to mean "timex watch" for the 21st century, because everything is so wonderfully post-modern. Now write an article.
Corporatism and Neo-liberalism (Score:1)
This also goes way beyond the small confines of this computing community. Witness the recent large scale protests and riots against the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund in Seattle and DC and recent Mayday demonstrations. Thousands of people have already spoken up about neo-liberalism and free markets destroying the earth and developing nations.
I see the Internet as a means to subvert this growing problem. Check out some of the independent media sites on the web: indymedia [indymedia.org]. These sites provide alternative coverage of the events that the corporate backed media dismissed as bored youth movements. (one problem on these independent media sites is uninformed zealotry, just like some slashdot commentary. nevertheless, independent and free discussion and communication is always a good thing.)
some more links for info:
a16 [a16.org]
50 years is enough [50years.org]
New Pressure On Individualism (Score:2)
The other new consequence of corporatism..as it dominates the economy and politics..is it just puts pressure on individuals and individualism. The pressure to conform has really worsened. Online, we're fooled a bit because anybody with a computer can spout off (witness any Threads), but I think that distracts people from the fact that in schools, businesses and politics, everybody is under pressure to be inoffensive, tepid and quiet.
Gov power -> corp power (Score:3)
The outcome is predictable. The gov has assumed ultra-Constitutional powers.
The corporations a) defend themselves via purchasing politicians and b) purchase the power seized by the corporations.
The problem ins't power of corps vs govs, it is gov vs people.
We no longer have a limited gov of enumerated powers. The Interstate Commerce clause of the US Constitution supports at least 3/4 of the current gov.
This has been done under the assumption that the gov could improve life for individuals == laws can be used to program an open environment to attain particular ends.
Lawyers must be smarter than me. In a carefully closed environment, with the ability to restart my programs in a known state, inspect the internals of the system, and otherwise test the hell out of it, I can often make small, simple programs work in a few days.
They claim to be able to write 10,000 page laws dealing with an open environment, very complex socio-techno-economic systesm (e.g. health care) and have them work so well they only need revisions every few years.
There are fundamental reasons that limited gov works better than un-limited gov.
Lew
Sure, dis the Corporations... (Score:1)
Almost any large-scale form of organization scares me, at one point or another. Why? Because when a lot of people get together and think the same way, they leave little room for dissenters. How else would you explain the fact that probably 70% of the country thinks that the ACLU is a bunch of pedaphile-protecting hippie scum? Is it because corporations and the media have pulled the wool over their eyes, or because they just never sat down and really thought about it?
Don't go blasting the people on top for having some motivation. There are cultural forces at work here a lot more powerful than corporations keeping people in line like sheep, as evident by your 100+ year old quote. I mena, capitalism wasn't even defined, int the modern sense of the word back then. Do you really think that people had the foresight to predict the corporate behemoths to come, or were they merely staring at the reflection of other corrupt institutions and projecting outwards, much like Dante does to the corrupt Popes and the Church in Inferno?
Don't get me wrong, I am not anti-religious, or anti-institutional - I just feel that people should have an understanding of what they're getting into an what the power structure of their organization really means and where its roots are.
Re:If only it were that easy (Score:1)
Re:So let's all do something about it. (Score:1)
BACK OFF SLAMMING KATZ (Score:1)
"Rumour - believe all you hear, your world will be more interesting" (paraphrase, John Brunner, HipCrime vocab in "Stand On Zanzibar")
Re:America has a lot to answer for (Score:5)
I think I agree. But I don't think it's only an American dream. So many of the people I meet care primarily about the way their material make them appear to others.
I remember when I was younger (mid-teens to mid-twenties) I hated the fact that I couldn't afford a cool car, cool clothes, cool clubs, ski trips--all the things that the "cool" people had. It took me a while, but I finally put it together.
For most of my life I'd been brainwashed by television and other forms of advertising. The idea that grew in my mind was that I was somehow inferior because I didn't have the things that "cool" people had.
As I got older I realized that something just wasn't working--my life was miserable. Everyone I knew was miserable, even the people that had all the cool cars and toys and girls. Money and material goods weren't enough to make anyone happy--people wonder why stars that "have everything" commit suicide all the time. It's because they don't have everything.
If you're someone that feels like you need to buy stuff to make yourself complete, please take a second and think on this: You've been brainwashed. It's not about material possessions. It's not about money. What you really want is to be happy. You'll be a lot happier when you don't give a rat's ass about what you have.
numb
Re:So let's all do something about it. (Score:1)
Re: ACLU (Score:1)
This is another example of "creeping corporatism" (Score:1)
One huge problem here is that corporations are becoming more and more like government entities, but without any Constitional restrictions on them. The amount of drug testing, background screening, and confidentiality paperwork that I had to go thru to get my current job at a certain large publishing firm was unbelieveable. On top of that, employees here are urged not to do "anything" that would cast the company in a bad light.
So, you say, I'm a worker of the Information Age; just take it elsewhere, right?
Well, the flipside of huge corporations is that they now provide services that the government has in the past, but that they do to a much lesser extent than they used to. At my new place of employment, I have both a 401K AND a retirement plan that will keep me out of Fluffy's can of food when I'm 70...Social Security sure as hell won't. While many states have programs to subsidize commutes, many companies don't participate...mine does. I have real medical, dental, visual, and so forth. I also belong to a
Bar Association society that is practically a guildhouse--I can get cheap supplemental insurance, disability insurance, etc....ever try to live on Welfare or disability payments?
The tiny little dotcoms and startups that I worked at in the past let me dress in pajamas and live in a Dune-like orange spice cloud of drugs if that was my choice....but...which is worth more in the long run, the right to smoke buds and have blue hair or some security for your future?
The choices are ugly and few. The US Government is doing nothing to secure people's futures...in the financial or in the personal sense..."Private Sector" can't be used as a shield to hide behind invasive behavior on a business's part any more...more to the point it shouldnt' be....
Stephenson's "Snow Crash" was right on....not in the technical sense, but in the sense that corporations are slowly becoming mini-nation states.
Re:So let's all do something about it. (Score:1)
Re:What if,,, (Score:1)
Everyone here should know that's not true. The internet started as arpanet, and everyone knows Al Gore invented that!
OoO
Choice and corporate culture??? (Score:1)
Nationalities, countries and national states as we now them are a construct that evolved during the 17th and 18th century and were precedented by families, tribes, Shires and kingdoms and other forms of traditional rule (whoops, this is getting tough, I hope I can make myself understood... My english...). Imho national states and national identities as we know them are based upon common cultural knowledge shared between (*usually* not very) different ethnic entities.
Basically a state or a country are based on some sort of agreement between the people of the given country and the respective group or person in power who wield power based on e.g. charisma, birth, legitimate rule (elections...).
What they all have in common is a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force on ots citizens or others. You do (at this point) not have this with corporations. They also provide a deal: citizens have to obey to the given rules, and in turn receive secutity. Security against external powers, like other countries, and security whithin the community through the set of rules they should obey to. Its a whole different story just how these rules evolved and wether they are legitimate in any way. You could argue that you can find different sets of rules and corporate culture in different corporations.
Now I am therefore not shure if a company could provide all this, thus replacing nationalities. After all multiple companies can exist in the same territory and have to obey to the laws and the government of that territory (to an extent, I mean that`s exactly what John is arguing).
What`s interesting about this idea is that you do not get to choose your nationality, and you also do not get to choose the culture that influences you most. Even If you go abroad later, a lot of cultural influence of the place where you grew up will stay with for you all your life. You do get to choose your place of work (well at least I hope so... to some extent...), and thus you get to choose a certain corporate culture and work environment, which could be positive.
BUT you do not grow up in a corporation, and neither you nor your family spend their entire time in your corporation, which does not make it a real choice in cultures.
The rise of international corporations could actually weaken the national states and there could be a chance there and problem. Apart from many people considering any change a bad thing. But I guess if international corporations rise in power, they will somehow have to provide a greater share of the services that were formerly provided by other, now weaker entities. This is a big problem, because: Why exactly should they do that? Who will make them do it? And corporations get to choose their own members: They do not want just anybody.
OK, I`ll stop here, there`s a lot to think about there. Remeber, I was just typing away, so go ahead and rip it apart
Katz needs a history lesson (Score:3)
I'm really not sure what to make of this article. It's hardly controversial in this forum to say that corporatism is bad, but to say that it somehow contradicts the dreams of the Founding Fathers indicates that Katz's grasp on American history is tenuous at best.
The Founders were actually split on the subject; after the Revolution, they eventually split into two camps. The Democratic-Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson, had the philosophy of individualism that Katz speaks of; Jefferson wanted America to basically stay an underdeveloped nation of small-scale farmers. The Federalists, on the other hand, wanted to see America develop quickly, and were very supportive of corporate expansion through programs like the founding of the Bank of the United States, America's first central bank. The Federalists included powerful figures such as George Washington, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton, and they basically controlled the government through the early days of the Republic until they overreached and tried to criminalize criticism of their programs through the Alien and Sedition Acts. (Read American Aurora [barnesandnoble.com] by Richard Rosenfeld for a great treatment of the tyranny the Federalists tried to impose on us.)
So the tension between corporations and individuals is hardly new -- it's been with us since the founding of the Republic, and it will probably be with us forever. We can, and should, take steps to limit the power corporations hold over the public sphere -- but to claim that somehow America was an idyll of untrammeled individualism until big bad Time Warner came along is to demonstrate a profound misunderstanding of our common history.
-- Jason A. Lefkowitz
Fighting the corporations (Score:2)
Now for the main point. You fight a corporation by depriving it of it's source of income. How you might ask? Well you can just not buy the products yourself, encourage your friends and family not too, stage a general boycott, sabotage the production lines, suborn their employees, burn their buildings to the ground and/or stage a armed rebellion. All of these could work but the boycotts are probaly your best bet.
Simply take it on a low level. Don't support a company you don't believe in. Don't like Disney for whatever reason? Don't see their movies, don't buy their products for yourself or your children, don't visit the Magic Kingdom (look it's magic! you're wallets empty), and don't watch their television stations. Remember you are only responsible for what you do and if you support a company that does things you don't like then you are giving them at least marginal approval of these things. If you want to try and convert others then go ahead. Remember that others might not take well to conversion though. If you do want to convert then convert your friends and family. The best way is by example, by the way. Then they will convert others and so on.
Remember a corporation can not function without money and if enough like minded people bought with their beliefs in minds and not just their desires then things will improve. Corporations will bow to public demand if the public demands it. How else do you describe low fat foods or enviromentally friendly (at least on the surface) products? The public wanted them, or thought they wanted them. This assumes the public has a decent grasp of what is good and what is not... this comes from a good education and is another bag of worms entirely.
What happened to Jon Katz? (Score:2)
The most obvious is his conflation of corporatism and conformity. Historically, strong pressure to conform was around long before the corporation existed. Were the witch-hunts in the 1600s the fault, somehow, of businesses of the time? Pressure to conform has a lot to do with our monkey heritage, and little to do with multinational corporations. And noting that non-conformity is uncontroversial approaches tautology: All controversy has some sort of expressed difference of opinion (= non-conformity) at the hear of it.
And Has it occured to Katz that the rise of Walmart or CNN or McDonald's is that most people like them? Personally, I don't; I value skill and individuality more than I value the few dollars I'd save by buying from one of those companies. But most of America has different values than me.
Why does Katz feel it necessary for everyone else to share his values? Isn't that just another demand to conform? He appears to feel that these values are the result of mass-media brainwashing that only he is safe from, but he doesn't demonstrate this. I'd bet that Americans liked cheap, greasy food long before the first McDonald's ad was on televison.
Most telling, though, is this comment:
That's just ridiculous. Has he considered the possibility that people are being polite? Even if it's not a vice he personally indulges in, many people like being polite to others. And although I'm not an expert on the topic, I have the impression that etiquette existed before the corporation.
Maybe Katz has a real point buried somewhere under all this. But he'll have to work a lot harder to convince me that corporations are the root of all evil.
Re:America has a lot to answer for (Score:2)
Capitalism makes it possible in the first place (how many serfs owned their own homes back in the middle ages?), but it also seems that capitalism has become a goal, not a means to an end. The end is to create the most efficient means of production so that prices drop. However, if the consolidation that efficient production requires really does have an inherently negative impact on the political process, we're in trouble.
Walt
Good, Katz is mellowing out. (Score:3)
- MC
What about Coca-Cola and Belize? (Score:2)
From what I last heard, Coca-Cola backed down on the project because of the PR reprecusions from "owning" their own country in a very literal sense. If there were a company who didn't care so much about PR perception, especially if they were principally an industrial supplier, they probabally could get away with doing something that bold. At least it is an idea to consider... or at least a good plotline for a science fiction novel.
In terms of more local poltical juristictions, this already happens. At the beginning of the 20th Century, coal mining companies routinely established "company towns [briscar.com]" where the mining company literally owned everything, from the schools, police, fire departments, banks, grocery stores, and homes. (For a non-confrontational view of this, watch the movie "October Sky", which uses the coal town as a story background to a surpurbly geeky moive)
This was probabally best described by Tennessee Ernie Ford in the song Sixteen Tons [ernieford.com] where he sings about life in a coal town. (BTW, the link has the lyrics and a real-audio recording of the song.)
Re:America has a lot to answer for (Score:2)
_______________________________________________
Manifest destiny is a term that has been used in the past to describe what is happening here. Follow through history as cultures battled one another over property. As property has become scarce to the point that there isn't enough for everyone, an imaginary property (intellectual property) has emerged and the battlefield is the global market.
It is very naive to assume that the present situation would never have emerged if the US had not had an American Dream. Pure socialism (the antithesis of the American Dream of ownership) cannot work because power corrupts. Even if a Utopian society managed to achieve pure socialism (cf Aboriginal peoples throughout the world in the past 500 yrs), they were immediately subjugated and their culture stripped because the lack of competition for ownership stagnated their society. (I am not advocating this position, just telling it how it is.)
As for how pitiful the nation is? 26 students died in school last year.. take away the one noteable outlier and you get a ridiculously small number compared to the past decade. The reason why we can't compare this number to others like it throughout history is because education has become a right--not a priviledge for the wealthy as it has been in recent millenia.
In other words, violence in schools is down-- way down (thanks in part to the American Dream to provide more people with the opportunity to go to school). Follow: people make more money, gov't collects more taxes, people make more money and buy more property (real or imagined like e-IPOs), gov't collects more taxes. These taxes provide better schools. (Same argument applies to HUD, infrastructure, etc. These problems are not fixed, but they are improving at an extremely rapid rate)
Without this American Dream and companies like Apple (who first successfully put computers into schools and homes), the wonderful people at Xerox (ethernet, mouse, windows, etc), Microsoft (basically its their fault the PC (and MAC and SUN and HP, et al--their is a logic to it if you wish to email and find out) is popular), Cisco Systems (nuff said there), you would not be able to post your opinion to /.. All of these mega corps are the American Dream.
Without the American Dream there would be no competition. Without competition, there would be not reason to excel. Without reason to excel, there would be no advancement in science. Without advancement in science, there would be dark ages, regress, malaise, death (yes doctors need science, agriculture needs science to help booming countries outside the US to help feed them, oppression cf anywhere there is stifling regulation of arms and trade--if anyone does now of a place that doesn't strictly regulate arms and has oppression, please email me, et al)
With America leading the world in science, saving the world from massive depression (cf the 1990s), policing--albeit often misguided, and other areas (thanks to the American Dream), the world life-expectancy has risen.
I much prefer todays problems (not to trivialize them, for there are serious issues) to those of the industrial revolution, the Roman empire, the Mongul hordes, Ch'in dynasty, Ottoman empire, or any other period of prosperity in history because I have the opportunity to live to 80 and retire. To explore what I find important. I also have the opportunity to piss it away. It is a much harder decision to pursue what you find important than those faced by people just 50 years ago when college was not for everyone. When high school was optional in rural areas. When peoples social standing absolutely determined what they were going to do with the rest of their lives.
Given the choice-- I choose for personal choice in every aspect of my life. The American Dream took over 200 years in development to be offered to most people in the US (admittedly, not all yet). We are getting better. It is working. For those who believe otherwise, next time you are offered a raise, donate the difference to charity. Next time you win something, give it to someone else. Next time you feel that someone is being unconscienable (sp?), do what every great moral leader (like Ghandi, Jesus (not the theological aspects of his teachings, but the moral side), Confuscious (ibid), Martin Luther King Jr., etc.) and boycott, do something legal (I know Jesus sacked a temple--but moneychanging should never have been in the church by Hebrew law) make your voice heard. Do not do like bad leaders (Stalin, Hitler, Nero, etc.) and point and name call to abase what you find repugnant. I follow the American Dream and don't carry a gun (support 2nd amendment all the same), don't watch or purchase professional sports products (they get ~$10B a year, people should be investing that money into their children's schools), or buy other merchandise from those companies that I find unconscienable.
Put your money (which you claim to have no love for) where your mouth is and give up on your American Dream, but don't get pissed off if you don't drive the car you want to drive or get the bandwidth you want, or other such things you feel you deserve just because you breath.
Re: Off Topic (Score:3)
Jon Katz: some people hate him, some people love him. Some people have him blocked off their list of authors, others visibly brighten upon seeing a new Katz article on Slashdot. Why?
I'm honestly ambivalent about Mr. Katz's articles, and often have trouble seeing what all of the uproar in response is about. Nonetheless, I'm not completely unbiased, and I'll start by admitting that I tend to find myself agreeing with him more often than disagreeing, so this is written from that point of view.
I thought I'd try to work out the reasons for all the strong opinions:
Slashdot, while advertised as News for Nerds, is really much more than that. It certainly has the this is a really cool new breakthrough and the new version of Apache news items, but it also carries various news items that are more socially-oriented and connected, ranging from the article yesterday about toxic waste in Silicon Valley, to the (in)famous serious of articles a while back about the Littleton shootings.
One of the unspoken assumptions that some make at Slashdot is about the homogenity of opinion about the issues that are posted/discussed here. IMHO, while it's true that opinions on many technical issues are relatively homogeneous despite the the all-over nature of Slashdot's audience (geographically, socio-economically, politically, culturally, etc.), that opinions on social issues are not homogeneous.
Though questions like Windows vs. Linux, Free/Open Software vs. Closed Source, etc, etc. are all assumed (for the most part, correctly), to have a general consensus, it seems to me that assuming that opinions on social issues will also come to a general consensus is unrealistic.
Most of Jon's articles tend to deal with the social side of computing and technology. He deals with corporatism, invasions of privacy, etc. These are all things that tend to be volatile issues, on which we should expect a difference of opinion. This is okay. I disagree with Jon a hefty amount of the time also. But I don't see any reason to get nasty about it, just as I don't usually see any reason to worship the guy as the next Jesus (or substitute your appropriate diety or natural force)
When it comes to social issues, disagreement is a Good Thing(tm). If we all kept on nodding our collective heads in unison, Slashdot would be a very boring (IMO) place. While having a unified opinion on technical issues can lead to more productive discussion, a unified view on such more flexible things like social issues only tends to lead to stagnation.
I personally believe that Jon's articles are written in a thought-provoking manner, designed to promote discussion, both in favor of the points in the article, and against. However, I don't agree with the cynical view taken by one of the earlier posters on this thread about Jon's articles essentially being nothing more than trolls, ZDnet fashion, used to generate revenue via ad banners.
Jon has done a great job in stimulating discussion on Slashdot, and although he may have been a little too successful (witness the flame wars that exist in the discussion forum of every Katz article) in stimulating strong opinions and even stronger *ahem*discussions, I must applaud Jon for his overall contributions.
Re:Yeah? (Score:3)
The idea that they're just giving us what we want is only a half-truth. Ask most McDonalds(TM) patrons (well, those over ten years old) what they like about the place. I suspect you'll hear "cheap," "fast," and "convenient," but you won't hear "I like the food" much. Size and lack of concern allows big corps to leverage the unscrupulous activities I mention above into lower prices, which tempt people into making short-term tradeoffs with long-term negative effects.
Am I suggesting that people are incapable of making good cost-benefit analyses, and should be protected from themselves? No. The way to stop this is through education, through making sure people can see the consequences of their choices as consumers and making them relevant at the moment money is being plunked down.
It's what I hope I'm doing right now.
- Michael Cohn
He might have a point, Jon (Score:3)
When I read your article about Metallica and Napster yesterday, the message that came through loud and clear was, "We have got to stop Metallica's evil ways for the children!" It seemed more than a little hypocritical, and just more evidence of how so few people manage to resist dragging out irrelevant, emotional arguments to bolster their cases when they've got a weak one. Sure, I expect the mainstream media to shout "for the children!" at the top of their lungs as often as they can, but I've gotta admit that I never expected it from you, Jon.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
JonKatz, our savior (Score:2)
Ah, now I see. Everybody but Jon is suffering from a false consciousness. Only our idol Jon has the intellectual temerity to see through the veil and bring to us the True NatureTM of things.
This is the classic Leftist attack on corporations. Corporations are successful in a free market because people *want* products and services they want. But Katz and others know that is a lie -- we only think we know what we want, but really we need a vanguard of individuals to deprogram us.
Give me a break.
Isn't it interesting, btw, that most of the things Katz writes about are about access to corporatist pablum? The Revolution *will* be televised and, apparently, it turns out to be "What Wants To Be A Millionare"?
As usual, Katz gets it wrong... (Score:2)
The enemy isn't Disney;it's people who buy tickets to Disney movies. If everything is 'Disneyfied', it's because that's what The People, so beloved of Katzian leftists, *actually* *want*. Contrary to bumper-sticker politics, 'corporate greed' exists only to serve 'human need' -- otherwise, the greedy corporations don't get any money. Corporations serve The People more slavishly and more fanatically than any government does.
Katz claims he wants the opportunity for individuals to excel, not to be crushed into gray paste by the evil corporations -- but isn't a global corporation the ultimate symbol of human excellence? Katz seems to think that you have a right to run a business if you're barely eking out a living, starving slowly in your little shop in the little main street of a little town, but, should you be SUCCESSFUL -- should you advance beyond your little store, become a big store, then a chain, then a franchise, then a true player on the international scene -- well, then, you've gotten too big for your britches, buddy, and you must be controlled, constrained, chained down -- in the name, hilariously, of 'individualism'!
Katx has not merely redefined 'corporatism' -- he has redefined 'invidualism' to mean 'communism'. Rather a tricky task. When Katz demands corporations produce media that is more 'controversial', he is saying, in effect, "Produce stuff no one wants to buy! It's your social duty to go out of business!" That he wraps this sort of self-evisceration in the mantle of 'individualism' -- which Katz clearly opposes utterly -- is repellant.
Every cent a corporation has was given to it by one of The People, who freely chose to buy their goods. If corporations have 'too much power', then, blame the people who gave them their money -- not the businesses whose only crime is offering goods for sale that anyone is free to choose not to buy.
Signing off, while I sit here by my Dell Computer and guzzle Diet Coke. I think, in honor of Jon, I'll go to McDonalds for lunch today.
Re:You should be more worried about Government (Score:2)
Corporations could not expand intellectual property rights beyond legitimate bounds without Congress. Corporations could not suppress labor organization without police who turned a selective blind eye. Corporations could not even enjoy their special limited liability status without laws defining them as a special class of "person".
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Re:Corporations still not in charge but they could (Score:2)
The case isn't done until the Supreme Court has ruled on it (or refused to deal with it). Microsoft's money may yet prevail, and even if it eventually doesn't, don't you think this case would've been over a lot sooner if they didn't have so much money?
Dunno - a true government has to do a lot of stuff for the citizens (even if it's not treating them real well) which a "normal" corporation doesn't really want to deal with (since it's generally considered "overhead").
Also, I doubt that "normal" governments would appreciate another government appearing solely for the purpose of supporting a single corporation - and "normal" governments have a tendency to enforce their desires using heavy-duty weaponry financed by their taxpayers.
Still, it would make an interesting fiction story - and I could see a large company essentially "buying" the government of a small country, and then exploiting that country for resources & labor. They'd still have to work behind the scenes pretty much, though.
Re:What's New... (Score:2)
(The emphasis in the above quote is mine.)
In a perfect world, people read what they have written, and build on their previous message. If this "jonkatz" is actually the author of the article that is the subject of this thread, I would invite him to look back at his article.
Specifically, look back at the first paragraphs, where an 1890s era definition of corporatism is given. One of the defining features of the concept is...guess what? Becoming an essential unit of political participation. And, believe me, this included a lot of money dedicated to the purposes of political persuasion.
So, what's new? Certainly not the funding angle. And it's not the whole manufacture of consent angle. Guess you'll have to try again. Or not.
Simple mind, simple view (Score:2)
1. Corporations are bottom-line oriented. They want to make money. That means that they will cut cost where they can, make as much money as they can, at the same time pushing the legal envelope as far as they can. The only thing that prevents them from way overcharging is the free-market, unless there's a monopoly or a cartel of some sort.
2. Corporations that control the media are powerful because they are the gatekeepers of information and popular culture. They influence how people think, act, and buy. Until the advent of the Internet, they had very dominant control over the media distribution channels. Media, of course, being things like TV, radio, publishing, CDs, etc. They come between advertisers who want to sell products and/or services to make money and the rest of us. They also have control over editorial content and therefore filter and dictate what we see, hear, and read.
3. AOL Time-Warner is obviously in the category of a media company. When media companies start acting on each other funny things happen. They are competing against each other, but have to follow some fairness rules that the government has set up.
4. What worries me most is that giant megacongloerates that owns several different kinds of media channels that is so powerful that it can afford to coerce its clients (the advertisers, or other media companies) to follow its own set of rules. It can be more powerful than the government because it controls what information goes out to the audience/consumers, it creates the direction for popular culture. In effect, it charges companies to sell their ideas to us, it controls what we see, hear and read, it tells us what we should spend our money on, and we should be glad to pay them for telling us to do this. It even tells us how to think and what to laugh, cry and get mad at.
Corporatism of old is different from corporatism of new, simply because the communication channels have well extended their reach into every household. Media corporatism is a dangerous force to be reckon with, I'd imagine. Now that the Internet and the massive communication infrastructure has gotten up to a good start, I think we as consumers need to be very wary of the media corporatism that will rise.
Good thing we always have subversive elements in the society that prevent use from becoming mindless zombies following the whims of media conglomerates.
What else is new? (Score:2)
That's why we have the DMCA, and why UCITA will probably pass, and why copyrights have been extended retroactively all in the past few years. Does any of this legislation help citizens, or does it help corporations?
I mentioned in a Slashdot forum a month or so ago that Lincoln's words about a nation "of the people, by the people, and for the people" would today have the people replaced by corporations.
We can make a difference by helping organizations that are on our side: Electronic Frontier Foundation, ACLU, etc. We can also make a difference by being the voices of reason to others and expose these things to the light of day.
DCMA? Tell people what it REALLY does.
UCITA? Let them know that it is a bad thing.
Time Warner made a bone-headed move by keeping people from seeing the Millionaire game show... it's exposing the worst of what Jon calls Corporatism to the American public. Hopefully, this won't be the last time, and maybe some of the rest of us bone-headed do-nothing Americans will finally figure out what is really going on.
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Jon Katz checklist (Score:2)
1. Attempt to make annoying new buzzword; "Corporatism," Check!
2. Sixth-grade writing techniques; Beginning the article with a dictionary definition, Check!
3. Broad generalizations; America is becoming the headquarters of the Corporate Republic, a new kind of political entity that transcends geographic boundaries... Check!
4. Unjustified alarmist language. Everywhere in this new Republic, individualism is on the run. Check!
Bra-vo. It's good to see success has not spoiled Jon, and that he continues to give us more Katz-y goodness with every article.
and as for on-topic-ness, I'd say that I partly agree with the premise that corporations have negative effects on society that should be recognize, but I feel uncompelled to express this idea in broad terms, without specific cases to apply it to.
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Re:Sounds lik (Score:2)
Generally monocultures are not a good plan. Only granting freedom of speech to 'approved' groups would create a monoculture of thought. Am I defending what the KKK says? No. Am I defending their right to say it - the same right used by their opponents? Yes.
Censors operate on both sides of the 1 dimensional political spectrum, and for the same reason. They disagree with what the censored people say and think, and believe that the opinions are too dangerous for anyone to even be aware of. How can we oppose the KKK if we don't know what they do? Censorship is generally a very bad plan, and I do not believe that it is ultimately successful either. I would much rather let people think with the brains God gave them than attempt to do it myself.
Re:An Alternate Form of Democracy (Score:2)
But this situation is somewhat different; power doesn't lie in the hands of wealthy individuals or families. It lies in the hands of abstract entities called "corporations" led by individuals who are shielded from accountability for their decisions and actions on behalf of the corporate entity. And yet all individuals still have, at least in name, the power to elect their government officials.
I've been convinced for years that the rights and liberties (and liabilities) reserved for individuals in the Constitution and Bill of Rights has been diluted by the courts over the past century, by assigning those rights and liberties to Corporations, but without assigning any accountability to the individuals who make the corporate decisions.
And it's getting worse... individuals' rights have become so diluted by corporate rights that this beverage we call a Democracy is beginning to taste like a Plutocracy instead.
You didn't look far. (Score:2)
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This post made from 100% post-consumer recycled magnetic
To see the essence of what you're advocating (Score:2)
"Beneath its hope-filled surface, it subliminally encourages people to put themselves ahead of others, to work against them to better oneself, and to treat every opportunity in life as a means of making more money for yourself."
Okay lets invert that:
- people should be encouraged to put themselves down and conform to the crowd
- people should remain frozen and not seek to better themselves
- people should treat every opportunity as a means to lose money
Now you come to see the hateful evil of this stance. The essence of "left" is coercion. Your property isn't yours, it's ours to own for our good. You don't own yourself. You exist to sacrifice yourself for all our wishes and needs.
Don't grow, it will make the stunted people feel their smallness.
Don't own. Everything you have we want, though we have nothing to give you in exchange. But you must esteem our lack as a virtue and hate your plenty as a vice.
Don't produce. But if you must produce, you may'nt have anything you've created, you must sacrifice yourself, your effort, your property to those who can't produce.
Don't think, it will place you above the stupid people. And who are you to tell them they are wrong?
Don't judge, what makes you so moral you can call us immoral?
Don't be good, or you will expose our evil
Think about it.
Re-Definition is 100% Newspeak Tactics!! (Score:2)
You continue on here on Slashdot, despite being beseiged round about by people who could care less about what political termites are eating away at the very wood of the log cabin that is their basic freedoms. They won't care until it comes crashing down on their heads, and they won't even remember you telling them they had a termite problem. You walk the tightrope between a visionary and Chicken Little, and that is an extremely courageous thing to do. Our country was founded by men who did just that.
However, today, I have to take exception to something you said, which could have the effect of helping to unravel your whole cause. The quote is here:
Beware! This is a very dangerous tactic you are suggesting. Even though it does look like the right thing to do, and it accurately depicts what is going on today, redefining Corporatism, even using this accurate new definition, is exactly one of the things that George Orwell warned us about in 1984. Specifically, you are suggesting that we resort to Newspeak. This tactic will eventually come back to haunt you, because everyone will want to do it, and justify it. Newspeak tactics is a critical pillar in the kind of oppressive society that you and I both fear.
What am I saying, they already are doing it! Grab yourself an old Webster's dictionary and look up any number of definitions and compare them to some in a modern Webster's dictionary. You won't even recognize the two from each other!
Jon Katz, please take the safe road and place your definition under a new word or conjugation of words. I would suggest Neo Corporatism, or Hyper Corporatism, or Neo-feudalism. But the definition of Corporatism has already been set in stone. Thanks.
========================
63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
We are creating "corpratism". (Score:2)
The problem with the multinationals is not that they're businesses, but that they can play countries off against each other. "You won't let us operate tax free with slave labour? Fine, we'll go somewhere else that does?" "Your people won't buy our cheaper products because they aren't made in your country and we don't put anything back in to the local economy? Fine, we'll go elsewhere?" Frankly, I can't blame the multinationals for doing what they do: they are essentially playing by the rules that have been set for them.
The thing is, on the political front, people are so afraid of "the New World Order" and concerned about protecting the "sovereignty of nations", that the notion of having multinational governmental bodies with real teeth (i.e. enforcement power) is just not possible these days. I have no idea why people think it's ok to have multinational companies but not multinational governmental bodies. It doesn't make any sense to me.
The truth is, the sovereignty of nations is being continually reduced, and without some form of body who's got power beyond that scope, you just create a vacuum. Instead of doing something about it, countries are sadly trying to shore up their "sovereignty" and at the same time allowing the corporations to play a "divide-and-conquer" game with them.
Countries try to limit access to the Internet. They try to establish strong trade tarifs. They try to impose "cultral protection" laws. The fact is, there are lots of things that are global. Here's some basic examples:
1) The Environment. Until countires accept the fact that they have negligable control over the environment in their net territories, they will forever be stuck doing piecemeal environmental controls which probably have more impact on their neighbors than on themselves.
2) Nuclear Arms. Trying to limit the know how about how to assemble one of these is a joke. Currently you can control access to nuclear materials to a limited degree, but there is no reason to imagine this will continue forever. Under current conditions, all it takes is one nuclear power's political/police/military structure collapsing (and we know that never happens right?
3) Work Conditions. The unions are some of the biggest opponents to "big government", and yet they know damn well it's increasingly easy to have work done anywhere in the world (i.e. whichever country will make the most concessions).
4) Human rights abuses. Serbia is a wonderful example of this: massive human rights abuses can occur so long as you can play off different nations against each other. Imagine if a serial killer could be certain roam free as long as he could keep the various police departments in the world fighting amongst themselves.
I could go on.
Americans should look back to their history. They'll remember a time when some foreign nationals showed up on the doorsteps of the natives of this land. The natives were divided into small warring tribes with no single voice to represent their collective needs. The foreign nationals simply executed a convincing "divide-and-conquor" strategy that allowed them to commit agregious offenses while ensuring minimal retaliation. Europeans just need to look back 60 years to a leader who was able to commit shameless acts while various other nations quibbled about and worried about protecting their own back yard.
Hey, international governmental bodies scare the heck out of me too. National governments do too. The thing is, they scare me a lot less than the alternatives.
Next Katz Articles (CTP) (Score:2)
That's close. Remember that Katz did say that this would be the first in a series. This was on the Coporate Republic so according the Civilization CTP timeline, Katz next articles should be "How a technocracy hurts women and minorities especialy children, Children, CHILDREN", "Good Reasons for an ecotopia (aka Save our Children), and "Creating a Virtual Democracy" (although it will seem like a socialist state from Katz's description) like you said.
Re:Yeah? (Score:2)
You seem to ignore certain things such as why corporations have the power they do. AOL and Time-Warner didn't just pop out of nowhere with billions of dollars. They became the powerhouses they are because *individuals* wanted the services they had to offer and gave them money for it. If the vast majority of Americans were unhappy with these corporations for a vast period of time there power would dwindle.
I think you need some courses on economics and marketing. Those corporations did not become powerful because "individuals wanted the services they had to offer", they were successfull because they were profitable.
First off what "individuals want" is molded and shaped through advertising and culture, it is not by any means solely the result of some intrinisic predefined preferences. If you don't believe this, talk to anybody who works in marketing or the "information department" (read propoganda department) of any government in the world. I mean do you really think most AOL clients picked AOL after assessing a variety of different ISPs, reading consumer reports, etc... A few did, but most of them probably got the CD in the mail, saw an ad on TV, or talked to a friend who was already a member who said it was okay. People don't have time to get good information, and advertising doesn't help matters. Just because somebody buys a product from a coporation doesn't mean they support that cooropiration, it only means at that point in time they wanted to buy that particular product or service. Buying a hockey ticket doesn't mean that the buyer supports billionaire owners, millionaire players or the latest rule change. Buying != support.
Also your argument is flawed because most of the surveys and polls I've seen show Americans hate and distrust big business (along with big government) yet they continue to purchase the products. It's not because they are hypocritical, it's that they generally don't have much choice and the alternatives presented to them (shop at little businesses) offers no real long term alternative.
Re:Yeah? (Score:3)
Yeah, like the way Microsoft kicked the Justice Dept.'s butt all the way to El Paso, or the way Big Tobacco wiped the states suing it off the map, or the way the drug companies...etc...etc....
And, man, that was real impressive how the dreaded Time Warner/AOL merged entity broke into the Gonzalez household without a valid court order and removed a scared 6-year-old at gunpoint after beating up one of the few members of the media that bothered to hang around after one of their lawyers suggested the media not cover the raid!
Oh, wait, you say those white vans weren't TW/AOL vans? Maybe we can blame GM for making 'em, or something...I dunno....
Math lesson:
I mean, yes, I'd love for our society to look much more seriously at the various ideas floating around regarding removing all sorts of government regulations and the effects of past court rulings (unconstitutional ones, perhaps?) propping up corporations, or perhaps I should say corporatism, today.
I'd also like to see corporate-sponsored crimes, such as perjury (e.g. certain Microsoft testimony in the trial widely considered willfully false, or people claiming obvious stuff is "not obvious" when they attempt to patent it), much more zealously prosecuted.
I happen to think steps like these might well be necessary to reasonably restore the balance of power between individuals and corporations.
But they're unlikely in a sociopolitical environment in which the US government is likely to decide that, when it comes to its unilateral disarmament against what it considers its enemies, the last entity it'll disarm against, after doing so against China, Vietnam, and so on, will be the American people. (After all, the US government is busily, and to some extent successfully, making the opposite -- the people disarming themselves against the most powerful military/police force in all of human history -- become a reality. Needless to say, it's really only those with a totalitarian view of governance that favor our going in that direction, whether they recognize their views as such or not. And a nation that refuses to prosecute its Chief Law Enforcement Officer for blatantly lying under oath in court in a case involving a citizen's civil rights is not likely to have set the stage for less abuse of the few legal protections we all still have against things like rampant corporatism.)
In the meantime, I suspect (no hard figures to back it up) that the "density" of corporate ownership among the American people is among the very highest in the world...
One of my many hopes is that the Internet, and forums like /., will render impotent many of the past mammoths of oppressive human organizations, such as mega-corporations and governments. Most of the anti-corporate propaganda I see seems to stem from a narrow view of what truly constitutes the enemy. The enemy is not freedom of choice, or billions of people exercising freedom of choice, which is fundamentally what drives most corporate success! But an enemy includes granting humans the opportunity to foist the bearing of responsibility for their own mistakes onto others, under the protection of some sociopolitical construct enforced by the threat of violence, and both governments and corporations depend, to varying extents, on that very enemy for much of their support -- much moreso than do churches, religions, and non-profit organizations, the first two being frequent whipping-boys of many of the same folk who go around complaining about globalism, corporatism, etc.
(E.g. Christianity preaches giving to the poor, but it takes a government to put a gun to your head, in effect, saying "you pay us 30% of your earnings, and we'll give that to the poor...if you smile while you do it, that means you're compassionate!")
In summary: you can't reliably and safely reduce the power of the corporation without carefully and consistently reducing the power of the government -- that type of organization which gives the corporation the ability to exist in the first place, and that supports the viability of its actions with its military might.
*ROFL* (Score:2)
Is Metallica the ultimate symbol of musical excellence?
Is a toxic waste dump the ultimate symbol of environmental excellence?
Is a pedophile the ultimate symbol of childcare excellence?
Sorry man- you are _crazy_ to think as you do. Enjoy the cancer you'll eventually get from blindly consuming anything your fed (you _do_ smoke, don't you? The ultimate symbol of selfwill excellence), and enjoy the social cancer of the corporations you so love... while it lasts.
Re:Fighting the corporations (Score:2)
They are mobs, herds- you could make a very good case that they are a new life form, like a hive mind, in the same sense that people are not cells though they are made up out of cells. Combine the right cells and you get something that acts very different and has different motivations and in fact can be very hostile to some of its cells (fat cells, for instance, or facial hair cells)
Combine people in the right way and you get something that acts very different and has different motivations and can be very hostile to people, or indeed to its own environment and the world in general. It is _not_ strictly a superior form of life/hive-mind thing: though it has the capabilities to suggest that, its agenda and motivations are LEGALLY required to be pure mob rule, herd behavior, and this is sub-human.
There are no reasonable, purely logical ways of coping with this, but thankfully reasonable and logical don't always apply. The Black Plague, AIDS and cancer are not reasonable and logical- they tend to kill their hosts. But they are processes on a cellular level that kill an individual on the human level. There are processes on a human level that will kill an entity on the corporate level. This can be characterised as 'terrorism', and rightly so- however, because it is derived from the human level, it is possible to aim such activities not blindly at other humans, but at the corporation itself. Sort of the anti-Unabomber... he attempted to punish pretty randomly chosen individuals for the crimes of what he saw as a social movement, larger than even a single corporation. It would be possible for individuals to wage war on a corporation by attacking, not a social movement or a concept, but carefully chosen weak points of a corporation- possibly attacking key individuals as in traditional warfare, possibly attacking more abstract areas such as the corporation's valuation or standing with the IRS or EPA or supply lines or product acceptability.
I could almost suggest the possibility that the recent troubles with Microsoft Outlook viruses were a terrorist attack from _inside_ the company- not in producing the viruses, but that somebody is waging war on Microsoft by skillfully persuading them to establish, and stick to, a model for program interaction that is fatally flawed! The sensible thing for them to do would be to scuttle the committment to ActiveX and live content. Why don't they, when they are ever closer to being held responsible for these disasters? Perhaps there is somebody in there who's dedicated to the destruction of Microsoft (the corporation) who is carefully holding them to this fatal path by continually suggesting, "People want to not have to click a button- do you want Sun to beat you for live content? It's the customer's responsibility to not run bad software- the customer does not want to mess around clicking on things, just make it go- why not have a preview pane so they can see their new content before even opening the email?"
Now that is a terrorist for the next millenium...
Hmmmm... Déjà-vu... (Score:2)
Geeee!!! Sounds like big bad ole communism [gmu.edu] (tm) to me!!!
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Re:Yeah? (Score:3)
Thats precisely why it is unfair. If individuals cannot succeed in our economic system, if the only entities that can make money are large corporations, then something is very wrong, my friend.
Consider: Bookstores - in 1990 there were over 5,500 of them in the U.S. Today there are less than 3,500. The reason? Barnes & Noble and Amazon drove them out of business. OK, you may say, "tough break", but what is really happening is a loss of diversity in information. The squeeze of the bookstores means that all your printed information will come from increasingly fewer sources. The increase of corporatism on the internet means the same thing - less opportunity to get opposing viewpoints. Corporatism breeds uniformity. Uniformity is certainly more profitable, but at what cost? Diversity, thats what.
You may be satisfied with a world controlled by the large interests. I am not. I will vote with my voice, my vote, my dollars, and whatever other means that I have to ensure that individualism, freedom, and diversity can exist in a world increasingly controlled by large corporations.
Re:And where do all those dissenting voices come f (Score:3)
Interesting that all those left wingers are all from America. Perhaps it is only "evil America" that gives them the right to voice their opinions, no matter how misguided they are.
Pardon my blunt response, but you're a fucking idiot.
For starters, there's groups like the CNT and FAI, which are anarcho-syndicalist and anarchist-communist trade unions, respectively. They are both based in France and Spain. And what about the Zapatista National Liberation Army, a (to some degree) collectivist anarchist federation fighting for freedom in Mexico?
I could go on, but the truth is that bottom-up politics will exist for as long as top-down structures exist.
Stop listening to Rush Limbaugh, stop being one of the mindless masses.
Michael Chisari
mchisari@usa.net
Re:America has a lot to answer for (Score:3)
Looking at the history of England, one shall not be surprised of this. When the magna carta was signed in 1215, it was just a few barons stripping the king out of some of the power he had over them. Over the times, when the king got at odds with other aristrocrats, the latter would often revolt against the king and depose and behead him, say, à la Cromwell.
To this, add the fact that the british isles are rather poor in natural ressources, and that the custom divided estates unequally amongst sons, it is not surprising that plenty of people sought fortune overseas; at the death of the family head, most of the estate was passed to the eldest son, forcing the younger ones out so seek fortune elsewhere. Thus the british mindset is deeply oriented towards commerce, be it legitimate or outright plundering.
Huge private concerns were formed, with the sole objective of sucking dry the wealth of newly "discovered" territories. Those concerns were strictly private corporations belonging to a few shareholders, and they had their own armies and were granted godlike powers on those territories attributed to them. The Hudson's Bay Company (founded in 1670 and still thriving) was one of those concerns who delivered it's own law upon the natives of what is now northern Canada. And, unsurprisingly, that law made sure it got wealthier. Never mind that suddenly, millenia of Cree hunting traditions and customs became suddenly illegal, simply because they did not send every pelt into the coffers of the Hudson's Bay Company... A similar outfit ransacked India...
The Reformation had something to do with it, too. When you have to struggle mightily to make a decent living (just keep the house reasonably warm in winter and dry under the rain) under a harsh climate, when some (catholic) bozo comes along (from sunny southern Europe) and says that you should share your wealth with the poor, you're quick to give him the boot. Never mind that the scatholic prelates suck the wealth out of the people, what hurts the most is the pocketbook. This is why the english mindset loathes "compulsory charity" (what one would nowadays call "taxes for social programs") and explains the popularity of private charities to whom you give only if you want.
Later, when the Industrial Revolution got in full swing, the bourgeoisie gained power because the new industrial endeavours needed capital to be implemented, and those traders who plied the seas, amassing huge fortunes, were the most naturally placed to supply that capital, instead of the degenerated, inbred, sedentary aristocrats who toiled the same unchanging estates.
Over the times, the bourgeoisie increased in importance, and with it, came political power. Members of parliament were elected solely by the wealthiest property owners (it is not until the beginning of the XXth century that all "commoners" earned the right to vote), so it is not surprising that a strongly capitalist mindset got firmly entrenched in the government.
In the United States, Revolution separated the colonies from England, and brought with it a strong mistrust of Government. Hence the long string of rather ridiculous "checks and balances" that insure that no one can gain "too much" power; well, at least, that's what the "founding fathers" had in mind.
The infant United States of America was a fresh country, but it was still laced with the strongly english trading mindset, and that mindset permeated profoundly the emerging institutions. Industrialization was not possible without paramount attention given to property rights, especially more so that the legislatures were firmly in the hands of the bourgeoisie; thus, it is perceived to be extremely natural to kill somebody in order to protect property.
The small population only had, for models, the successes of the bourgeoisie (which was, by the way, and still is very competent at hiding it's failures - unless when they end-up in politics), and this, too, became part of the mindset. Thus, most people in the US aspire to be his own boss...
Then, came the XXth Century, pass two big wars and two communist revolutions that shook the universe, threatening the sacro-sanct property rights to an extent never seen before!!!
Fresh from a struggle against fascism, the United States was on the defensive, being threatened by a former ally. Followed an unprecendented buildup of military power that sucked dry the ressources of one of the eventual belligerents, and practically bankrupted the other.
Then communism fell. It naturally became the villain, and any idea that was leaning towards the left was immediately suspect. After all, it would lead to oblivion, no? More than ever, the trading mindset got even more entrenched throughout society. The only goal of commerce being profit, it was clear that anything has to be oriented towards profit, and to the maximum amount of it, please. Since one distrusts the government, one shall not look to it for relief, but rather to what one can do for himself.
And this is a godsend for the most powerful of people, because in a democracy, if you can lead those who have the power (the people) to believe that having less government is good, eventually, those citizens will want less government and vote accordingly. Because less government means more free-hand to do whatever you want, that is, profit... After all, since government naturally leans towards communism when it is not working towards property rights, it has to be the ennemy, no?
This is why, in the last 20 years, croporate power has risen so much: they are reaping what they sowed in the minds of people: less government. Less interference in their profit-making business, while the people receive the crumbs and applaud in the process, as they are led to believe by all the things thrown at them by the bourgeoisie to numb their minds that everything is the best that can be...
It's a classic magician trick: while the left hand does the trick, you have people watch the right hands. So, when the superbowl plays, no one think of what the big corporations do to increase their power and wealth even more.
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Re:Yeah? (Score:2)
Given the way the public education system is being gutted by government cutbacks (less taxes = less money for the State), it is clear that the bourgeoisie has NO INTEREST that the population be properly educated, since then they will not as eagerly purchase the ofren useless and many time dangerous goods peddled to them...
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Re:What else is new? (Score:2)
Thanks in advance.
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Here's my mirror [respublica.fr]
Re:We are creating "corpratism". (Score:2)
Er... There are plenty of "multinational governmental bodies" arround (say, the European Union, and it's predecessors, like BeNeLux, the Comecon), and some others have been around for centuries (say, like Canada, the United States of America, the Confederatio Helvetica, the Deutsche Bundesrepublik, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and the Holy Germanic Roman Empire) that their individual constituting nations or states often have blended together to the state of being unrecognizable...
Multinational bodies are not necessarly a panacea, especially in those where one nation dominates others; those who are were founded for very specific purposes that, often, has been outlived...
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Re:Yeah? (Score:2)
And here is my major bitch about the canonical Wal-Mart example that Katz blows the dust off of and throws up about once a week.
The reason why Wal-Mart succeeds and the small Ma and Pop shops fails is because by having better buying power, Wal-Mart is capable of selling the same goods as those Ma and Pop shops at a cheaper price.
And people want cheaper prices over the service and intimacy of a Ma and Pop shop.
This is, as a matter of fact, the invisible hand of economics that people like Katz is totally oblivious to. Wal-Mart succeeds not because corporate america sprinkes pixie dust into the water supply, turning middle America into a bunch of mindless zomboids from planet Consumer. Wal-Mart succeeds because people want cheaper goods. And Wal-Mart can sell them cheaper goods.
I don't believe anyone here cried when Egghead stores all disappeared into the electronic void of the World Wide Web. Perhaps that's because people here disliked the poor selection offered by the small Egghead retail outlets, and prefered the cheaper prices and better selection offered via mail order and over the Internet?
Well, it's the same damn thing.
Two to one that Katz buys his computers, hardware and software over the 'net, or at the very least shops around for the best price. Just as Katz would be unwilling to pay $80-$90 for a polo style shirt he could buy for $15-$20. Just as Katz would be unwilling to pay $18 for a CD he could buy for $12-$14.
If this is true, then I would call Katz one hypocritical idiot.
The US didn't invent this... (Score:2)
For the first real Company that effected policy you have to hop across the pond to have a look at the East India Trading company over the course of 250 years it determined much of British foreign policy and was a large reason for the growth of the British Empire.
Now there was a company that makes Microsoft look reasonable and harmless.
Re:America has a lot to answer for (Score:2)
You want an example of the opposite? Look at Russia during the communist days. When the iron curtain was lifted, we saw that there wasn't much to fear. Everything in Russia sucked, technology and standard of living were basically below USA. Why?
Economy in Russia started to suck after it was dismantled in the hope of becoming "more free" -- I have lived there and moved to US in 1993, so I can compare the life before and after "perestroika" in Russia, and in US now. The comparison from the point of view of more or less "normal" person is definitely not in the favor of what I see in US now -- it's better than what is in Russia now and definitely better than what american propaganda lets you to see, however I felt better in 1989 in Russia than I do in 2000 in US. It's true that there was little freedom in Russia compared to what I would want, however in US there is even less if I discount as nonexistent the "freedoms" that are taken away by inefficiency of legal system, lobbying and lack of any mechanism that restricts a power of businesses over their employees and consumers. I am probably supposed to be considered "successful" in american society since I have decent job and make enough money for life much more comfortable than one that I care to actually have, however I feel neither "free" nor "happy", and this is what counts in the end.
Re:We are creating "corpratism". (Score:2)
You need governments with global juridictions, otherwise, multinationals just go outside the jurisdiction.
I hear your argument about bodies created for very specific purposes. I think the kind of things you need are bodies which have fairly "universal" derectives. These are the kinds of things we can hopefully all agree on (admittedly, that's not a lot). The U.N. in theory exists for this purpose, but it has no teeth, and furthermore does not have an even handed power structure.
Ishmael (-1 Offtopic, +1 Interesting) (Score:2)
Speaking of culture, Daniel Quinn's book Ishmael [ishmael.com] discusses Culture and How Things Came To Be The Way They Are. Fascinating read.
darren
Cthulhu for President! [cthulhu.org]