corporations

There is an implicit notion in our culture that corporations equal capitalism. Nothing is more false. 

Capitalism is the notion that folks make products or offer services, each with a relative value. The customers have the option of this pair of shoes or this house painter, and they base their choices on the perceived value each vendor offers.

It's actually quite a good system. Honest competition, along with a bit of salesmanship, lets the customer decide the best value or the vendor who most suits them. We learned about it in high school.

The corporate right to make money has always superseded our right to live.

I repeat. The corporate right to make money has always superseded our right to live. Do you need it again? The corporate right to make money has always superseded our right to live.

The coronavirus has revealed the deep level of unfairness built into a culture where corporations rule the day. COVID-19 has revealed the folks who are important to keep society intact. And we know it is not the barons of corporate America and their political lackeys who are taking an honest lead.

Sisters and brothers, we are separated and broken. Fearful for our lives and livelihood. For our families and friends. This is not an easy time. Epidemics are stressful, and our shit was already all broken. 

I could go on and on about the latter, but we already know. Glaringly, corporate greed and human health are incompatible. COVID-19 is providing the magnifying glass on the corporate behaviors that have been wrecking our lives and our planet for decades, corrupting our political process and encouraging endless war.

For those of us who study where we are as a culture, a corrupt and dark place where we approach self-annihilation, a clarity is arising. Even with the disasters set forth by nation-states, religious zealots and worse, one entity has been at the heart of our chaos.

Let me tease further. Our wars, the misery of millions, dirty water, shitty food, environmental devastation, climate chaos, and people and planet failing even now, they all have a common cause, a single source of currently unmitigated power. Welcome, friends, to the now failing world of corporatism.

Corporations.

So it's clear that corporations, since their 'modern' inception in 1600 where Queen Elizabeth first allowed the charter of East India Company, have sped the introduction of technology and fostered global trade. It's equally clear that they've outlived their usefulness.

When the United States was initiated, there were clear restrictions put in place to avoid the worst of European corporate abuses. This because our founding fathers were well aware of the abuse of power already being exercised by European corporations.