|
Comment on this article |
View comments |
Email this Article
|
|
Defeat Corporate Communism |
Current rating: 0 |
by Rich Zubaty
Email: richzubaty (nospam) hotmail.com (unverified!) |
03 Nov 2002
|
|
New book excerpt explaining how everything we thought was bad about communism is what's wrong with corporatism |
Defeat Corporate Communism!
What the hell is Corporate Communism?
(partially excerpted from the new book The Corporate Cult by Rich Zubaty)
Remember every bad thing you ever heard about communism? Well that's corporate communism.
Remember hearing that people living under communism have no Civil Rights? Ever work for a corporation? When you punch in your time card you punch out your Civil Rights. You have no rights to free speech or free assembly or due process of law on the corporate jobsite. They can fire you if they don't like what you say or how you look. It's as if you entered a foreign nation located on U.S. soil. Guess what? You have. The Microsoft nation. The GE kingdom. The Boeing principality. Corporations are foreign economic nations operating on our soil.
Remember hearing that communism is a centrally planned economy? Well that's corporate communism. Cuba ranks 72nd on a list of centrally managed economies. The first 71 are global corporations. Of the 100 largest economies in the world 51 are now corporations and only 49 are countries. General Motors -- the 22nd largest economy in the world -- is larger than Denmark, Thailand, Hong Kong or Turkey. GM is now the largest private employer in Mexico. Wal-Mart stores is larger than Israel or Greece. The instant we were unburdened of Soviet-style centralized economic planning we were colonized by corporate-style centralized economic planning -- a.k.a. the global economy.
Mom and pop operations are being driven out of business and you get to order burgers with bacon or burgers with cheese or burgers with fries. No homemade stew or fresh-baked cherry pie on the menu. Each day there are hundreds of hours of TV time telling you how to play the "market", but none -- ever -- telling you how to form a union or make investments in small businesses in your very own community. Corporate communism takes over the marketplace and removes choice -- the opposite of what it claims to do. You only get the books and movies and music they want you to have because they control the distribution of EVERYTHING. Corporate communism has a stranglehold on distribution.
Remember hearing that for all its noble ideas communist society is actually run by a few anonymous drunken thugs? Well that's corporate communism. Right this minute some men and women are sitting on barstools deciding what clothes you will wear and what cars you will buy and what entertainment you will "choose" and even how you will vote: Republicrat. The "one true" corporate party -- with two happy faces.
Remember the posters of Lenin and Mao and the annual party rallies? Ever go to a stockholders meeting and hear them cheer the fearless leader for firing employees and keeping "profits" up? Millions of people lost jobs in the go-go nineties -- meanwhile we were all being told, every night, how great things were going.
We are awash in "feelings" and dehydrated from lack of ideas. We are suffocating in a Wal-Mart of the Soul. We are spoon-fed rhetoric about "free markets" and "freedom of speech" and the "free press" -- meanwhile everything we do, everything we have, everything we think, everything we are, is dictated by corporations. |
See also:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/5225/
|
|
Libertarian Double-Speak |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
03 Nov 2002
|
Mr. Zubaty (who seems to be some sort of libertarian crank) and I had already begun a discussion of his semantic shenanigans on SF IMC yesterday before he started spamming and link-pimping the IMC network with it. It is reproduced below and available at:
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/11/1540804.php
Get It Straight
by ML o Saturday November 02, 2002 at 08:13 AM
Corporations operate under the system of capitalism.
Corporate capitalism has nothing to do with communism, whether it is theoretic or existing communism.
Repressive regimes can come in many flavors. It is important to realize that repressive rule is independent, and not dependent on, the operative economic system.
This sort of confusion has deep roots in the Cold War theme of socialism=evil and capitalism=good. Trying to account for the differences in the systems based solely on ideological and economic organization is simplistic and reductionist. It is far better to consider what any system does for the good of the people living under it, independent of the claimed value system. Reality, not ideology, is the final determinate of whether a system is good or evil.
There is no doubt in my mind that the corporate system is evil, but it's not because of any claimed resemblance to communism. Rather, it is because capitalism itself is evil.
THEN
Motor Mouth
by Rich Zubaty o Saturday November 02, 2002 at 09:41 PM
Boy you are tripping all over yourself. Open your brain. The same thing that is wrong with capitalism is what's wrong with communism -- top-down centralized planning of every detail of our lives. The opposite of a free market.
THEN:
That's Interesting and Revelatory
by ML o Sunday November 03, 2002 at 09:55 AM
Capitalism as the "opposite of a free market."
Since the so-called (and sacrosanct) "free market" is the supposed highest order and most important principle of capitalism, admitting that such a thing is impossible under capitalism is a rather interesting point of view.
What system do you propose to give us a "free market" with and how does that effectively differ from capitalism?
At least socialists have the wisdom to concede that there really is no such thing as a "free market."
THEN:
Corporatism
by Rich Zubaty o Sunday November 03, 2002 at 11:46 AM
The whole reason I write books is so that I don't have to repeat these things ten thousand times. However...
Capitalism is as old as one guy trading a bunch of bananas to another guy for a pig. Each has an investment in his product. Corporatism is the idea that large entities should control both pigs and bananas, setting the prudction standards, wages and prices of both.
The REASON communism and corporatism duked it out for 50 yerars is that each wanted to be the "large entity" at the top deciding how pigs would be raised and the price of bananas. They are different sides of the same coin. Opposing ideologies that both try to centralize our economic lives and oppress us at the same time. Thus, for lack of a better Abbie Hoffman stule soundbite: Corporate communism.
www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/5225/
THEN:
An Inaccurate and Misleading Description
by ML o Sunday November 03, 2002 at 12:34 PM
Well, I see where you're going with this, which is to pretend that it is not capitalism, per se, that is at the root of the evil that permeates our society. Rather, you would have us pretend that this situation has nothing to do with capitalism.
I think a far more accurate description of the situation is Corporate Capitalism.
I don't think there is much to learn from your book, other than obfuscation of the reality that surrounds us. Demagoguery like yours is a prescription for totalitarianism and social darwinism. |
