This is a great piece by John Perkins. I also appreciate my husband’s spot on response: “Just a reminder that the power of corporations is not ‘god given’, that democracy and capitalism are not the same thing, and to quote Ursula K. Le Guin regarding the inevitability of capitalism, the same was once thought about the ‘divine right of kings’.” ― Molly
By John Perkins
Although popular history portrays the American Revolution as an idealistic uprising, it was driven by economics. The East India Company controlled world trade, as well as many of the policies of the British government. Its abusive actions in the colonies led to the Boston Tea Party and ultimately the Revolution. After independence, the US Congress perceived corporations as threats to democracy and determined never to allow them to have such power again.
Laws were passed that restricted the granting of corporate charters to companies only if they guaranteed to perform a public service. No company was allowed to purchase another. On average, charters were limited to ten years. After that, as a condition for renewing its charter, each corporation had to prove that it had in fact served the public and guarantee that it would continue to do so.
These laws lasted for roughly a century, until John D. Rockefeller and his associates convinced legislators in the states of New Jersey and Delaware that in order to best serve the public in a new industrialized era, the rules needed to change. Efficient oil exploration and processing, they argued, could not be done in ten years or on a small-scale. What was required were new laws that encouraged long-term charters and consolidation of financial and technological resources – in other words, monopolies. Known as “enabling acts,” these laws would, their proponents promised, generate huge profits that could be taxed. The taxes would fatten government coffers – which in turn would pay the legislators and other politicians higher salaries. Other states quickly followed. Rockefeller and his cronies created conglomerates that purchased their competitors or drove them out of business; their monopolistic tentacles eventually spread across the planet.
Sound familiar?
It gets worse.
After Milton Friedman won the 1976 Noble Prize in Economics, the idea that corporations should maximize profits, regardless of the environmental and social costs, became the overarching goal of business. It also led to the extremely rapid growth of global corporations. Local companies in countries as diverse as Japan, Korea, Germany, UK, China, and the US expanded and quickly took control of governments.
Through an assortment of strategies, including financing political campaigns, maneuvering their executives into high government positions, hiring armies of lobbyists, flooding consumers with extensive public relations and marketing crusades, and promising – as well as threatening – to impact economies by locating their facilities in – or removing them from – cities and countries, these companies have elevated themselves to positions of great power.
The East India Company shareholders of the 1700s are peering down at us. Their mouths are watering.
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