Posts Tagged ‘leash’

Corporatist Network Exposed – How the 1% Rule

Monday, October 24th, 2011

The 99% of the world who’ve been getting the shaft by today’s system now have a definitive target on which to set their sights, thanks to a team of Swiss mathematicians.

An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has revealed that a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, control a disproportionate power over the global economy.

The team found that a core of 737 companies (mostly financial services companies) control almost 80% of the global economy. See #occupy haters? The world is controlled by just a few corporations!

To get a better understanding of what this corporatist network can look like, check out the excellent visualization tools available at theyrule.net. There you can delve into the US’s ruling class and explore the inner workings of the American oligarchy.

One of the criticisms of the Occupy movement is that most of the protesters who are speaking out against corporations are clearly consumers of corporate products themselves.

But the issue shouldn’t be about whether or not we need corporations. Instead, the discussion should be what kind of relationship with corporations do we want to have?

In the not so distant future, we won’t be so dependent on corporations like we are today. We’ll have the means to produce our own energy with residential renewable solutions. We’ll be able to grow our own food in automated greenhouses. And we’ll manufacture whatever products we need with our very own 3D printers.

Yet, until this day arrives, we will need corporations around to provide us with the stuff we need to live. We can’t simply get rid of them without devastating consequences. But that doesn’t mean we have to endure the tyranny of corporatism.

Instead, we can hold these international businesses accountable to the people. Treat corporations like part of the public commons. Make these big businesses a shared resource, necessary for our world to function, but kept on a very tight leash for our security.

Now that the face of our foe has been exposed, there’s nothing left to do but declare all out war. It’s time to take the power back and usher in a more just civilization for everyone, not just the lucky ones.

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Corporations Are Stealing From Us

Monday, February 7th, 2011

Question: What do corporations do when we leave them unchecked?

Answer: They subtly manipulate the system in ways barely comprehensible to us, with the end result being our money lining their pockets.

Corporations have countless lawyers and lobbyists tirelessly working in their favor, rigging the economy and laws in ways that ultimately cheat the general public out of more and more money and power.

In George Monbiot’s latest article, he breaks down the intricate details of what could be “the biggest and crudest corporate tax cut in living memory”. Here’s some highlights from his piece:

If you’ve heard nothing of it, you’re in good company. The obscure adjustments the government is planning to the tax acts of 1988 and 2009 have been missed by almost everyone. They are, anyway, almost impossible to understand without expert help. But as soon as you grasp the implications, you realise that a kind of corporate coup d’etat is taking place.

[The UK Prime Minister David Cameron] has quietly been plotting with banks and businesses to engineer the greatest transfer of wealth from the poor and middle to the ultra-rich that this country has seen in a century.

So how did this happen? You don’t have to look far to find out. Almost all the members of the seven committees the government set up “to provide strategic oversight of the development of corporate tax policy” are corporate executives [from major corporations and banks].

Our political system protects and enriches a fantastically-wealthy elite, much of whose money is, as a result of their interesting tax and transfer arrangements, effectively stolen from poorer countries and poorer citizens of their own countries.

Governments ensure that we are thrown enough scraps to keep us quiet, while the ultra-rich get on with the serious business of looting the global economy and crushing attempts to hold them to account.

Sure, the methodology used by corporations can be subtle and complex, but the solution to corporate power grabs is quite simple: we need to make our collective voice louder than those of the corporations.

The power and influence of these billion dollar corporate empires will prove to be no match for the cooperative efforts from large groups of energized and motivated people.

We will take the power back!

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Keep Corporations on a Tight Leash

Monday, November 22nd, 2010

Politicians dependent on corporate donations, along with slews of well-funded lobbyists, ensures a consistent shifting of the system to benefit the corporatist agenda. Trademarks, copyrights, patent laws and other protectionist acts can stifle innovation and hamper new markets. Nearly complete domination of the mainstream media gives unprecedented control over the social consciousness and the manipulation/fabrication of consumers.

We no longer have capitalism in our world, if we ever did indeed have it. Capitalism is like survival of the fittest for business. It encourages competition, promotes innovation, and benefits consumers with lower costs and the products we demand.

The economic system that rules our world, with America at the epicenter, is capitalism’s bastardized offspring – corporatism. Corporatism is a form of tyranny. It actively blocks threats, hates competition, and can manipulate free markets along with governments and consumers all in a bid to maximize shareholder earnings.

Put simply, corporatism is when big, powerful entities use their might to make things even better for themselves. And these gains are made most often at the detriment to everything else – small businesses, employees, consumers, and the health of the planet.

The more powerful corporations become, the more influence they will exert over the world’s system. And what they want is not a better world for you and I to live in. What corporations want, as soulless entities, is more earnings, more profits, and a higher share value. That is all. Any exhibition of philanthropy or humanitarianism by corporations is rarely anything more than public relations to improve their image.

Corporations will take as much power as they can, for as long as we let them. This is why it is imperative that we – the people of earth – cooperate to counterbalance the influence of these business behemoths. To ensure that they are ultimately working for our benefit (and not the other way around) we need to keep corporations on a tight leash.

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