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Corporation Age
Dec. 10th, 2010 03:56 pmhttp://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/12/invaders-from-mars.html
I've gone on about this before, but Stross has a very good summary of the realities of the corporate system that dominates the planet these days. Probably the key realization that pulled me out of my younger defense of a laisse-faire free market system into my current regulation structured economic belief was having an epiphany about the market structure and how corporations actually operate at a fundamental level, as opposed to how businesses operate. The free market principles that I believed had to be in play in a rational, logical business model are fundamentally distorted in the corporate model of maximizing short term quarterly return, actually destroying markets in the long term to capitalize on the short term. The thing too many people fail to understand is that is the perfect encapsulation of the ethics of the 'legal person' of a corporation. It's not that corporations are intentionally evil; the model has no ethical regulation along any lines other than legal between their operations and profitability.
I've already gone into great length about my disdain for the 'Citizen's United' ruling by SCOTUS, and have been accused of hyperbole by pointing out that it's going to go a long way in dismantling actual representation of the voters in the US. But the point is that corporations; effectively immortal, immensely powerful, and lacking any ethical restraints in terms of patriotism, personal morality, or sense of duty, now have a direct place in the democratic process from which to push for their agenda. If it hurts the US or its citizens? Doesn't matter, because their only ethical duty is to their nebulous shareholders.
I'm not sure I agree with Stross' alien occupation analogy, but it has merit.
I've gone on about this before, but Stross has a very good summary of the realities of the corporate system that dominates the planet these days. Probably the key realization that pulled me out of my younger defense of a laisse-faire free market system into my current regulation structured economic belief was having an epiphany about the market structure and how corporations actually operate at a fundamental level, as opposed to how businesses operate. The free market principles that I believed had to be in play in a rational, logical business model are fundamentally distorted in the corporate model of maximizing short term quarterly return, actually destroying markets in the long term to capitalize on the short term. The thing too many people fail to understand is that is the perfect encapsulation of the ethics of the 'legal person' of a corporation. It's not that corporations are intentionally evil; the model has no ethical regulation along any lines other than legal between their operations and profitability.
I've already gone into great length about my disdain for the 'Citizen's United' ruling by SCOTUS, and have been accused of hyperbole by pointing out that it's going to go a long way in dismantling actual representation of the voters in the US. But the point is that corporations; effectively immortal, immensely powerful, and lacking any ethical restraints in terms of patriotism, personal morality, or sense of duty, now have a direct place in the democratic process from which to push for their agenda. If it hurts the US or its citizens? Doesn't matter, because their only ethical duty is to their nebulous shareholders.
I'm not sure I agree with Stross' alien occupation analogy, but it has merit.
