The Corporation - Official Trailer
Source: Common Dreams
March 6, 2020 | by David Korten
The concentration of corporate power is driving us toward catastrophe. We need new organizational models that serve the common good.
A better solution is to break up transnational corporations and restructure them in ways that assure community accountability. (Photo: Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay, CC0 Public Domain)
We live in a world in extreme crisis. By the estimates of the Global Footprint Network, the human species currently consumes at a rate 1.7 times what Earth's regenerative systems can sustain. Yet billions of people face a daily struggle for survival that strips them of happiness and fulfillment of their human potential.
A growing concentration of financial wealth puts ever more political power in the hands of fewer and fewer people. According to Oxfam, twenty-six billionaires now hold personal financial assets greater than those of the poorest half of humanity (3.9 billion people).
This rapidly accelerating environmental and social crisis is a direct and predictable consequence of global rules that facilitate a concentration of economic and political power in corporations.This rapidly accelerating environmental and social crisis is a direct and predictable consequence of global rules that facilitate a concentration of economic and political power in corporations—rules that provide minimum accountability for the consequences of how they use that power to monopolize markets, evade taxes, and operate in whatever place offers the cheapest labor and least environmental protections.
As Allen White has correctly noted, appeals to corporations to exercise conscientious self-regulation do not work. The reason is simple. Mentally healthy living humans have a conscience. Corporations are constructs of law. They have no conscience beyond whatever responsibilities the law may require of them—backed by strict enforcement.
Corporations that are under the control of individual humans—rather than the financial markets—may act responsibly when those individuals possess a deep concern for the common good. Such corporations, however, are rare – at least among those of any consequential size.
Most large corporations are captives of financial markets that drive the pursuit of short-term financial gain with no concern for the social or environmental consequences. Not only do they fail to serve the common good, but they are also driving us all toward civilizational collapse. Indeed, they are driving us toward human self-extinction.
These conditions create an imperative for urgent structural change. Fortunately, corporations are entirely human creations. Indeed, there is no equivalent in nature. If they do not serve our needs, humans have both the right and the means to change—even eliminate—them.
Corporate purpose
Allen White notes there was a time in the early United States when corporations were chartered only for a specific length of time to fulfill a designated public purpose, such as to build a bridge or a canal. The former colonies had fought a brutal war to gain their freedom from the abuses of imperial rule, including the state-sanctioned monopoly power of the British East India Company. They were acutely aware of the potentials for abuse of corporate power, and they wanted none of it.
Despite that early public awareness, corporate interests have been able to mount a relentless drive for power that has, over time, reduced US democracy to little more than an aspiration. Indeed, the United States has become a global driver of the processes by which global corporations pursue with impunity the destruction of Earth's capacity to support life. And ironically, they do so for the primary purpose of growing the fortunes of billionaires.
It is worth remembering that a corporation exists only when a government has issued a charter. There is no legitimate reason for any democratically accountable government to issue a corporate charter other than to serve a public purpose. Similarly, there is no legitimate reason why a corporation chartered by one government jurisdiction has any inherent right thereby to do business in any other jurisdiction unless granted that privilege by the people of that jurisdiction through their government.
That current law contradicts these simple truths is a consequence of corporate interests' ability to manipulate the legal system.
Current rules governing corporate conduct encourage and reward what should be treated as criminal behavior. Consider the following examples:
1. They allow corporations to reap the rewards of their decisions without bearing the full costs. For example, when they evade paying taxes, they evade paying their fair share of the costs of infrastructure, education, or other essentials of doing business.
2. They allow the corporation to assess value only in terms of financial costs and returns, thus ignoring the need to secure the health of Earth's regenerative systems on which all life depends.
3. They allow corporations to use their enormous financial resources and centralized decision-making to shape public opinion and pressure politicians to assure that laws favor corporate interests instead of public interests.
Calls for corporate responsibility generally assume that those who work for corporations, especially top management, are free to exercise moral responsibility on behalf of the corporation should they choose to do so. This ignores an important reality. Unless they own the corporation, those who lead a corporation only appear to be in charge. They serve only at the pleasure of financiers who compete for control of any corporation that is not taking full advantage of opportunities to maximize profits – which often means externalizing costs.
Business in service to community
Science is coming to recognize what many indigenous people have long understood: life exists – can only exist – in diverse communities of living beings that self-organize to create and maintain the conditions of their own existence. The concept is captured by the South African term ubuntu, which translates to “I am because we are."
The purpose of all human institutions—including corporations—must be to serve human well-being and the health of the planet on which we all depend.This basic frame of how life organizes is demonstrated in a very personal way by the human body. For each of us, our body consists of tens of trillions of cells and micro-organisms that self-organize beyond our conscious awareness to create and maintain the vessel of our consciousness and the vehicle of our agency. On a far grander scale, the countless living organisms that comprise Earth's community of life similarly self-organize to create the conditions on this planet essential to life's existence.
The purpose of all human institutions—including corporations—must be to serve human well-being and the health of the planet on which we all depend.
Please go to Common Dreams to read the entire article.
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Ed.'s note: The following is an outline of what corporations have stripped from us including the United States Government which is a private corporation that was structured to protect its own existence. The United States Corporation is not there to protect you. Think of the US as a farm and we are being harvested so that might place our collective circumstances in better context.
Source: It's Not The Law
Are You Aware . . .
• that we haven't had a valid Congress in this country since 1861?
• that there are no valid Article III [The Judiciary] courts in America today.
• that all Common Law Courts, with respect to our rights as specified in the Bill of Rights came to an end in 1933, and this was formally announced in 1938?
• of the reason why Common Law Courts could not function in America today?
• of the difference between a Jury Trial and a Trial By Jury?
• of the difference between The Constitution for the United States and The Constitution of the United States?
• of how today's courts justify ignoring your rights specifically spelled out in The Constitution for the united States?
• of the difference between the first, and the second of the 13th Amendments?
• of the difference between a DEFENDANT and/or The Accused?
• of the trap involved when signing a bank signature card?
• that your name spelled in upper-case letters is not an identifier of you?
• of the difference between an attorney and a Lawyer?
• that very few attorneys are Lawyers?
• that law schools in this country stopped teaching Law in the early 1970s?
• that attorneys are the only unlicensed professionals in America and why?
• that when an attorney refers to his client, that it is not a flesh and blood man or woman that he is referring to?
• that an attorney cannot represent a flesh and blood man or woman?
• that the act of hiring an attorney automatically eliminates your strongest defense in a criminal case?
• that you have a choice of getting involved when someone sues you?
• that those acting in the capacity of the federal government have formally declared war on the American people and this declaration was hidden in legal code as a justification for legitimizing this treasonous act?
• that the IRS is not an agency of the United States government?
• of the reason why the IRS attempts to provoke you to anger with their notice and demands and what you might do to turn it around on them?
• that the Gun Control Act of 1968 applies only to Residents and visitors to the District of Columbia
• that the Gun Control Act of 1968 was nullified by a hidden amendment for the purpose of preventing any successful challenge of its constitutionality? (A non-constitutional, or invalid act has no force or effect, and therefore, there would be no reason for the Supreme court to consider a challenge to it).
• that the United States Post Office Department was abolished in 1970, and all personal were transferred into the private United States Postal Service, "USPS ?"
• that we have no right to home delivery of mail in the united States?
• of the reason why the United States Postal Service discourages "General Delivery" of mail, and prefers that we choose home delivery instead?
• that each State, such as the state of Utah (the physical area), has corporate counterparts such as, This state of Utah (the District of Columbia), UTAH STATE, and THE STATE OF UTAH?
• that if a federal judge asked if you lived in "This State," that he was setting a trap for you to secure a pretense of jurisdiction?
• that there are at least four different privately owned corporate entities called United States, identified by subtle variations in their use of upper and lower case letters?
• that the Social Security system is and always has been voluntary?
• that you probably do not need a Driver License, and never did?
• that since 1933, what is called the "United States Government" is a privately owned corporation?
• of the reason why you cannot pay a debt with a Federal Reserve Note?
• that you discharged the very debt you agreed to pay the moment you signed a loan agreement?
• of the difference between a Republic and a Democracy?
• of the implications when using the two-letter state names and Zip Codes encouraged today?
• of the hidden message directly below the signature line of personal checks, and why it is so significant? (Check it under a 60X microscope)
• that all crime has been defined as Commerce, for an excuse to "regulate" it and profit from it? Everything from prostitution to murder is listed as a commercial activity in 27 CFR (Code of Federal Regulations) 72.11.
If not, you might want to read, It's Not The Law, by Wayne Frank Barbuto©
I paid a high price for the information contained in this book, and detailed answers to these questions are just a small part of what it contains.
________
Ed.'s note: Have a listen to how these private corporations managed and run by psychopaths spend your money. There are some who argue society needs psychopaths. From the above material that is a difficult supposition to accept.
Adam Andrzejewski | The Depth of the Swamp
Related:
Who or What Is Empire? The American Empire is not America. It's not even the United States Government
The Disturbing Link Between Psychopathy And Leadership
The Psychopath's Game: Gaslighting Through Silent Treatment
Political Ponerology: The Science of Evil
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