[kj] Killing joke and Communism

[B. Oliver Sheppard]

I think the documentary _The Corporation_ is a good antidote, and ina ny 
evet simply more accurate, than America: From Freedom to fascism.

It tracks the development of the entity known as the "coporation" as 
being the primary unit of economic production and distribution in the 
United States.

Many folks are surprised to learn that the legal entity known as the 
"corporation" in US law was not created until the 1880s in the U.S. It 
was a way for individuals to acquire wealth while escaping 
responsibility. This artificial entity, the "corporation," technically 
made the money, which was paid out to the folks behind it; while if the 
corporation did anything heinous, the "corporation," since it was its 
own separate legal entity, like a human, could be held responsible, and 
not necessarily the people behind it. "Piercing the corporate veil" is 
the term for getting at the folks behind corporations, who are really 
its masters. Like holding executives at Enron responsible instead of 
simply just this abstract legal entity known as "Enron."

This is why Ambrobe Bierce, in his late 19th century _Devil's 
Dictionary_, defined a "corporation" this way: *

Corporation*: n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit 
without individual responsibility.

In any event, prior to 1880, in America joint stock companies or 
chartered companies existed, but they are different from corporations. A 
company might be assembled for a particular task -- say, building a 
bridge. A state, like Vermont, would grant a charter to that company so 
that they could do this as a unit. Once the brigde was buit, the charter 
was dissolved/rescinded, and the company was over.

In th 1880s that changed, and corporations could be created with no 
other purpose than to "make money," for an indefinite period of time, 
forever, yet were still regarded as individual persons, asigned a TAX ID 
instead of a Social Security number, and privy to the same 
Constitutional rights formerly reserved for the people only -- like, 
rights to freedom of speech, etc.

What many people don't realize is that states still have to issue 
corporate charters for corporations to exist. And there is a movement to 
revoke the corporate charters of many companies that have not behaved in 
the public interest. Politicians are not eager to do that -- because 
guess where most of their election campaign comes from? not the Joe 
Sixpacks dealing with the effects of, say, a corporation's environmental 
damage -- but from corporations.

The documentary The Corporation traces the history of "The Corporation" 
and how now it is so culturally ingrained into US life as a simple fact 
of existence that many folks forget corporations did not exist as such 
before the 1880s and were controversial arrangements from the get-go.

-Oliver




Brendan wrote:

> Christ on a bike, things are going downhill when the fascists start

> putting out their own conspiracy theories, thought that was for hippies

> like us?!

>

> The feral right annoy me too, I was over at my friend's place the other

> day and his Dad, who is head of one of the larger japanese car companies'

> presence in NZ, was there. He's always going on about his right agenda,

> he's another one who believes in Ayn Rand's self correcting perfect market

> bullshit...but he's too dumb to have done any research into it so didn't

> even know who Ayn Rand is...

>

> Anyway get this, I know all this sounds too good to be true (I almost

> wished I had it on tape...), but they are adopting 'environmentally

> friendly' policies at his behest, even though in his words "there's not a

> scrap of scientific evidence to support global warming"...merely as  PR

> exercise.

>

> Waste of time talking to people like that.

>

> Oh and at my cousin's baby's party recently, I met a guy who works in

> marketing, someone asked him how to promote a particular product (a class

> of small yacht), and he unabashedly told him to get a couple of kids with

> cancer out there and publicise it...everyone wins, they get an experience

> they otherwise wouldn't have, and you get your good publicity.

>

> Fucking unbelievable...Cancerous Kids Marketing inc. I know it all sounds

> too good (bad) to be true but both instances happened within the same

> week.

>

>

>   

>

>