We have two choices. We can spend our resources on war, security, walls, fences, borders or we can spend our resources meeting the needs of ALL people by creating an economy of sustainable abundance, which would make obsolete all of those needs for security. Which do you choose? Chris Agnos, Founder of Sustainable Human.
The strangest aspect of a corporation is that it is literally an entity unto itself with all the attributes we ascribe to a person. In 1886, U.S. corporations were granted personhood based on a clerical interpretation of a supreme court justice’s comments framed from the 14th Amendment (rights of citizenship and all rights therein). This was further reinforced with the U.S. 2010 supreme court decision of Citizen’s United (political spending and campaign financing is a form of free speech that is protected under the First Amendment). So, a mega-corporation with offices in the USA can throw as much money at an election as you do an individual can do. Somehow, I don’t think my retirement bank-balance is equal to say Exxon-Mobil’s spare cash drawer. And having the ability to heavily influence elections is only the tip of the iceberg on what corporations can do. As I said in the last post, since the early 1980’s corporations have literally changed their purpose from one where all the stakeholders (customers, employees, shareholders and the community) were considered in all corporate decision making. After the 1980s, all that was seen as of value was shareholder value. It was also at this time that corporate economists argued erroneously that stock and shares prices captured a corporation’s true value. This meant that shareholders had more direct power over corporate governing boards and that executive pay be tied to shareholder financial returns – i.e. the CEO gets huge bonuses for keeping stock value high even if the company is plunging into the toilet. While there had always been an ‘elite economy’ (see earlier post The world Economy – are we really doing better? Measurement is everything!) eager investors sought to buy more stocks, artificially pump up the share price and then sell for quick profits. The resulting cost is to the rest of the stakeholders who suffered stationary wages/salaries, massive downsizing of company workforces, increased automation (you don’t have to pay wages or benefits to a robot) with initial investment in technology, transfer of manual jobs to other countries paying workers slave wages and longer hours, and the systematic destruction of labor and trade unions that once protected workers’ rights. Another major change is with decreased community as individualism is increasingly promoted transforming the social fabric from one of caring for each other to a dog-eat-dog society where fear and anxiety are prevalent.
Workers in fear of losing their jobs and no longer with union representation rarely make waves. In the past 20 years, I have had many friends in large companies that did large downsizing. It often happened on a Friday near the end of the pay month. My friends would tell me that everyone would come in on the end of month Friday dreading what they would find. If they found the office door had been re-keyed the night before, or that they could not log-on to their office computer, it was only a matter of minutes before a Human Resources Manager and a couple of security guards would come by to escort them off the companies premises – instant lay-off. If, however, they were not laid-off, then they had another anxiety laden month to ponder what they might do if they were selected next time. Morale as you might expect was in the toilet, but those keeping their jobs were unlikely to complain (except to each other). All this redefinition by business on the emerging world of Customer Value instead of Stakeholder value meant a decline on what is happening in real terms for the labor force, but customers who can afford to buy stuff enjoy more innovation and customer service. After all who doesn’t want the iPhone25 when it eventually comes out – OK, that’s sarcasm, and I’m not even an Apple customer. If you are one of these customers, don’t act surprised when new innovations keep coming out that require you to update continuously – gotta have the newest doo-dah to impress everyone. Welcome to the make-believe economic world that is being used now where “the economy steadily shifted from creating value for the benefit of all to the extraction of value for the owners of assets, and the consequences in terms of steady economic decline and worsening income inequality” – the new feudal system coming over the horizon.
Bruce E. Levine, author of ‘Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite’ states that the U.S (and many other western countries) are no longer true democracies, but corporatocracies – “partnerships of “too-big-to-fail” corporations, wealthy elite and government officials.” If you currently enjoy a good lifestyle, take note of your earning power. For most you will notice that everything just seems that much more expensive overall than it was even a year ago. Your pay is rarely keeping up with cost of living and inflation. You may still have surplus expenditure for fun things, but notice how it has been diminishing slowly. As corporations begin more and more to be the controllers of society, you will start to notice things getting worse more quickly.
In the U.S. corporatocracy [and incidentally many western nations], as in most modern tyrannies, there are elections, but the reality is that giant corporations and the wealthy elite rule in a way to satisfy their own self-interest. In elections in a corporatocracy, as is the case in elections in all tyrannies, it’s in the interest of the ruling class to maintain the appearance that the people have a say, so more than one candidate is offered up. In the U.S. corporatocracy, it’s in the interest of corporations and the wealthy elite that the winning candidate is beholden to them, so they financially support both Democrats and Republicans. It’s in the interest of corporations and the wealthy elite that there are only two viable parties—this cuts down on bribery costs. And it’s in the interest of these two parties that they are the only parties with a chance of winning. Bruce Levine.
That’s the reality acting out now, but the good news is that this sad course is reversible, and very easily so at this point. I have talked often within this blog that we have full decision-making power on what is going on in our lives. We actually have the control, but we have to exercise that control by making decisions that benefit us and everyone else around us. As long as we live in fear we do exactly what the Cabal want. We all have Personal Sovereignty, yet so many people give their power away to feel ‘safe’ from all manner of things that the corporate systems actually creates to keep us in line. Stop listening to the bullshit that comes out of the mainstream media and corporate advertising systems. Start looking at what is happening and make decisions for yourself – real decisions that emphasize a flourishing future, not one that merely keeps you in some status quo you do not like. But if you open your eyes to the game being played where you are the patsy, you will start to see all manner of small and medium businesses and local governments that are already creating a new world for us. Find them and support them. It will be different, but better can only come with real change. Start thinking more spiritually about how all humanity is connected and stop listening to the voices that preach hate and use fear to create the divisiveness among us. We all have more in common that we have differences- viva la difference!
TBC….
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