Dear Friends, all,
Our friend, J. Walter Plinge, encourages us to offer a set of solutions to
deal with the power triangle:
-money, land, corporate governance
I've copied, at the end a copy e-correspondence that offers a solution set
to these issues.
Please do share it around.
loads'a e-hugs
john
***********
Copy e-correspondence at end
----------
>From: "J. Walter Plinge" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: econ-lets <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, turmel-egroups <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
UNILETS <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: Money and Energy... or PCBs
>Date: Fri, Oct 27, 2000, 12:00 PM
>
> Not long ago Cal wrote to the econ-lets list about the two ways
> to control people: Money and Energy.
>
> That's partly right I suppose... but Energy is a subset of Corporate
> Dominance, which is
> a subset of Money.
>
> I see it as a pyramid, something like this:
>
>
> 1) Money (the form of currencies used) is the Prime tool
> of control used by:
>
> A) Politicians
> i) National 'elections'
> a) War machinery monopoly
> b) Education monopoly
> c) Labor conrol monopoly
> d) Science monopoly/cartel
> d) Religion monopoly/cartel
> d) Law monopoly
> ii) State Politicians, etc
> iii) Local Politicians, etc
>
> B) Corporations
> i) Media monopoly/cartel
> a) TV... etc
> ii) Consumer products monopoly
> a) Energy
> b) Food
> c) Transportation
> d) Communications
>
> C) Banking
> i) Banking/Money 'services' monopoly/cartel
> a) Goal #1: Centralization via one world
> currency/ one bank (or a cartel of a few banks)
> ... anybody heard of a bank merger lately?
>
>
>
>
> The temptation is to put Bankers at the top of the list, but bankers
> don't call ALL the shots, nor do politicians nor corporations. The Type
> of money we now use was determined by a coalition of the three,
> Politicians, Corporations, and Bankers (PCBs) at Bretton Woods. And the
> PCBs have selected the Optimum form of money to secure their dominance.
> That is to say that if another form of money were used - a Sane one, for
> instance - their power would diminish.
>
> Well, that's the way I see it anyway. You can focus on energy or
> education; it doesn't matter, nothing changes. For instance, moving
> education from the public sector to the private sector changes little;
> indeed individuals still have Some control at the local political level,
> but no powers in the corporate level, so corporate schools will mean a
> loss of individual control.
>
> Not much is going to change until the root
> cause is eliminated, and right now the ONLY thing I see with
> real possibilities is local currencies.
>
> If anyone has suggestions or a different view, I'd be very interested in
> hearing about it.
>
> JWP
>
Copy correspondence here:
Dear John (John St John from john courtneidge)
Thanks in abundance for sending this: I've tucked some comments in your nice
essay at j: (I hope they help).
I think that we are in complete agreement.
In that regard, I copy the Fair World set at the very end: it is based upon
increasing levels of 'right relationships' :
i.e.:
guaranteed incomes for all within upper and lower boundaries (implies no
need for personal taxes)
corporate restructuring into appropriate co-operatives
realigning land ownership/stewardship (from for-profit owners into those
co-operatives)
profits recirculation from those co-operatives via community banks
money and credit creation (by those not-for-profit, public service
community banks rather than the present for-profit financial system)
money lending and credit making (ditto)
regulated inter-national economic activity
gifting to those less fortunate (i.e. the guaranteed income point,
delivered on a
global scale)
One question is what (we?) might do next.
Spread this word around?
Lobby politically for action?
Whatever?
e-hugs
john
(Fair World stuff at the end)
**************************************
From: "John H. St. John" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: essay
Date: Tue, Nov 7, 2000, 3:36 AM
Who Owns This Thing?
By John H. St.John
Page 1
We are aware that almost every material thing we own or covet is
manufactured by corporations. If some mad Communist got rid of the
corporations; what would we ever do without them? No Microwave, no Toyota,
and no job. Still: what were once natural disasters, are being blamed on the
corporate giants. Our televisions and radios bombard us with maddening loud
aggressive hype. The popular culture is dominated by vulgarity and our
political leaders have become the creatures of the corporation. Meanwhile
nature is giving loud protestations because of her displeasure with the
poisons being inflicted on her. Wealth should bring happiness, but instead
it is cursing us with dope and despair. Something is wrong. Something is
terribly wrong and ordinary people are beginning to realize that it stems
from the insatiable greed of the corporation.
I played the Marxist game in my youth and found out that it was a gross
mistake. I even continued playing in this game when it became obvious that
Joe Stalin was nuts. Like the cowboy in "The Westerner", who when asked "Why
do you lose your months wages in that crooked poker game?" I might have
replied that "It was the only game in town". Some of my old comrades are
still clinging to this illusion in spite of its having been "thrown in the
ash can of history". The total collapse of "The Great Experiment" left me
nothing but alcoholism and personal disintegration until I found help,
sobered up, and began an honest re-evaluation of the whole thing.
When Nikita Krukshev pounded his shoe on the table and loudly stated: "We
will bury you!" he was not talking about the bomb. He was still convinced
that there was such a thing as a socialist economy and that it was so
superior to the capitalist economy and that it would drive it out of
business. Nikita believed that the Russians would swamp the world market
with inexpensive, high-quality merchandise. History proved otherwise but
some people proudly call themselves socialists. Certainly there are certain
things that a democratic government should do. It should be responsible for
furthering education and the arts. It should provide health-care for all
citizens. It should be in charge of justice. It should be the owner of those
utilities that are monopolistic in nature. It should regulate commerce and
protect the natural environment, but it should never control the means of
production.
Here I side with the conservative: there is no economy other than the free
market. If I am against the corporations; it is because they are eliminating
the free market and are merging into international conglomerates that are
able to fix prices.
Page 2
After the fifties and the virtual dissolution of the American Communist
Party as a result of cold-war McCarthyism; I found myself totally
disillusioned with Marxism. I became a house-painter because this was an
occupation where it was difficult for the FBI to ask my employer: "Do you
know who you have working for you?" Construction contractors dont give a
damn who they have working for them so long as they can paint. Neither did
the neighbors who wanted a fence painted inquire as to my political
associations. I got my own contractors license and eventually acquired three
offices, seven trucks, and a whole herd of employees.
Painters are not business men and soon my business went belly-up. The bank
repossessed all of my vehicles; the government claimed an enormous sum for
back taxes, and the state revoked my contractors license. I found myself at
the age of sixty with no possible way to earn a living, a wife and five
children who had to eat . . . now! . . and homeless. My wifes brother
suggested I go on welfare. This was a novel idea to an ex-businessman, but I
had no other recourse. If only I had incorporated! The simple act of
becoming a corporation would have solved my whole problem. I could have
bankrupted the corporation under chapter 11 without hurting my credit. None
of my private assets could be touched by creditors because the corporation
would have assumed the guilt for my bad management. Corporation law firms
would have minimized the damage and I would not have lost my contractors
license because I would have been merely an employee of the corporation. By
the simple act of owning a controlling interest in a corporation I would
have had all the pride of ownership without really owning the corporation.
This is what "limited liability" means.
Today the media is headlining the Firestone-Bridgestone-Ford recall of
millions of defective tires; tires that blew out and killed over two-hundred
people. It has been established that Ford Motors knew about the defects over
three years ago but did nothing about them. This is not the only instance of
corporation criminal behavior. Over three thousand defense contractors have
been convicted in federal court of defrauding the government. Twelve hundred
of them are still being given government contracts. The list of corporate
crimes is endless and some of the crimes were heinous, but we cannot throw a
corporation in jail. Neither can we throw the Ford family in jail because
that is why they incorporated in the first place. "We didnt do it; the Ford
Motor Car Company did."
As a veteran of WWII; it came as a shock to find out that Ford and General
Motors were being sued by former slave laborers for their suffering in Nazi
Germany. It struck me that while I was climbing the cliff at Omaha Beach;
General
Page 3
Motors and Ford were manufacturing war materials for the enemy. I wondered
why it took over fifty years for me to find this out, and why the source of
this information was a group of people that I probably liberated. Here we
have corporations displaying their patriotism by making arms for both sides
in the war. This would be
treason if a human did it; but they not only did it; they concealed their
being on both sides of the same war. Why didn't our government let us know
that two large defense contractors were working for the enemy? How much more
corporate crime and treason exists?
I just returned from elementary school where I enrolled two grandchildren.
Good God! After raising eight children I am now doing grandchildren. I
refused to sign a paper asking whether the children were White, Hispanic,
Black, or Asian. I told the girl in the school office that these kind of
questions were only asked by Adolph Hitler. In spite of our vaunted
freedoms; I have watched my country adapt some of the worst characteristics
of the fascist. Who watched the vicious beating of Rodney King without
wondering what kind of people could do a thing like this. When corporations
rule, fascists rule, and only a fascist government would have millions in
penitentiaries, and keep armed forces in thirty two different countries.
Farben and Thyssen and Krupp, as well as General Motors and Ford
corporations bought the boots for Hitlers Brown Shirts. Without these
worthies; Hitler would have been nothing but another psychotic, screaming
obscenities on the Hochplatz. The banners and torches and propaganda were
typical corporation hype. The swastika was the logo.
World War II ended fascism as an ideology. Never again would sane people
consider it. But this has not kept the corporations from manipulating public
opinion. They control higher education as the givers of grants. They send
their speakers on to C-Span. They have over twenty tax-exempt foundations
dedicated to voicing the virtues of predation as an economic system. There
is Rand Corporation, The Heritage Foundation, and the American Enterprise
Institute with over 200 corporate CEOs on its executive board. The book
publishing industry has already become one big corporation. Many syndicated
columnists are employees of one of the corporation foundations, and talk
radio has been turned over to conservatives.
But of course you already know all this. Perhaps you are ready to listen to
a proposed solution.
Page 4
The corporation is a mechanical construct. It takes in human beings and raw
materials at one end and it excretes profit at the other.
j: . . . and it excretes profit, pollution and trashed humanity at the
other (?)
Today profit means little to a stockholder; todays stockholder is a gambler
and his ownership has been turned into gambling chips for the Wall Street
Casino. The importance of profit to an investor is that it indicates whether
or not he has a good wager. The holders of a controlling interest and their
CEOs with their stock options and enormous salaries are different. They are
the force that turn a business operation into a predatory machine. Their
power arises from the reality that while they own nothing but an enormous
investment. They control a business valued at billions. They have all the
advantages of an owner without any of the drawbacks connected with ownership
liability.
We must tell these power people to either buy every last single share of
common-stock if they want to exercise the rights of owners. This is the
problem: we must restore ownership to the corporation. Someone has to own
the damned thing!
There would be no need for revolution if the idea presented here were acted
on. A simple Supreme Court decision could do it. I call for the outlawing of
common-stock
and its replacement with a new document: LIMITED PARTNERSHIP STOCK. There is
one hell of a lot more to owning something than holding a piece of paper. If
one owns something; one is liable for any damage the thing might cause. If
you own a pit-bull and it eats a neighbor child; you are liable and not the
pit-bull. We must insist that the sharp division between an owner and an
investor be made clear. Why should the corporation be the only thing on
earth with this special dispensation?
There are four main types of business ownership: Sole proprietor;
partnership; limited partnership, and the infamous corporation.
j: and also co-operatives (so? five?)
Under a limited partnership the limited partner may have nothing to do with
managing or directing the company. He is entitled to a return on his
investment in the form of dividends and he can sell his limited partnership
share on the open market like one would sell a note or a mortgage. Replacing
common stock with limited partnership stock would rid us of the fiction that
the stockholder is an owner and establish his true situation as an investor.
The reality is that a corporation is a limited partnership without any
owner.
j: Vaclav Havel (unwittingly) calls this 'Auto-totality'.
There would be no loss or change for the stockholder or the worker. They
could continue producing wealth as they are doing now. The only difference
would be that management and worker would not be trapped in the Hitlerian
fuherer prinzip. They would be free partners in the running of the business.
Instead of the whip they would have the carrot of knowing that the success
of the business is their success. The business should not even halt in its
operations. Now it will have metamorphised from a carnivorous robot into a
social organization.
I can hear Rush Limbaugh scream: "You Communist bastard!" "You are going to
take my property and give it away to the hired help." Cool down Rush. The
only property your common stock contains is a call on dividends. Investors
dont own a business . . . they invest in it. The new owners would still owe
you for your investment. The corporation is a legal person. The Santa Clara
Vs Southern Pacific
Page 5
decision of 1867 made this clear. It also has all of the rights of a human
being under the IV Amendment. The same IV Amendment that freed the slaves.
If you really had
ownership of the corporation you would be a slave-owner. This is the problem
this essay tries to solve. A legal absurdity.
If the corporation were turned into a cooperative with one vote per employee
instead of one vote per share of stock; we would have solved the problem of
having an unowned robot using frightened accountants to do its decision
making. Giving the company to its employees does not damage the free market
system. Cooperatives would compete with other cooperatives,
sole-proprietorships and partnerships, but there would be no unowned
businesses allowed in this competition.
The government would not have to change at all. If it did; it would be
because it would no longer be the plaything of corporate CEOs. The
conversion of the old carnivorous corporation into a social organization
should bring parliamentary reform and true democracy to our government.
To my old comrades of the Left: :You proposed to turn the tools of
production over to the workers, but instead you turned them over to the
government.
j: Here is key: we need decentralised, local (but globally conscious)
social production. We've tried all the rest: lets go for the only
alternative, the best!
Making the workers owners of the new cooperative, that had formerly been a
corporation, would realize the ancient dream of the economic reformer and
the tools of production would wind up in the hands of those who use them. I
am sorry to deprive you of your barricades but while you are feverishly
searching for an elite to wage class war with; bespectacled accountants are
killing us.
There would be no worker ownership of common stock because there would be no
more common stock. I am calling for the conversion of corporations into
cooperatives. United Airlines stock is employee owned but it has not changed
the relationship. Some employees have more shares, (and more votes) than
other employees. This stock is still traded and this company is even facing
a pilots strike. As a cooperative there would be one vote per employee, and
top management would be elected.
So as not to re-invent the wheel. There is a great cooperative movement all
over the world that could offer their experience and expertise in the
change-over. I imagine that the problem of decentralizing these giant
systems would not effect their efficiency because the age of the giant
factories is over, and they are pretty well decentralized now into separate,
and more manageable size.
The Gates, Murdoch, Turner type organization with their chain saw Al CEOs
dominate, the corporation. But not so with the cooperative. With every
member of the cooperative being fully liable. It is unlikely that one of the
new cooperatives would risk criminal behavior to increase the bottom line.
After the Bhopal India disaster that took thousands of lives; Union Carbide
still had to pay a price, but the following year they posted a one-percent
gain on the stock market. Like the old Russian aristocrats riding in sleigh
through the steppes, and being chased by a pack of wolves; they simply threw
some serfs off the sleigh in order to slow the wolves down.
Page 6
Here is the greatest danger from the corporations: Decisions that should he
made by scientists, programmers, or engineers, are being made by MBAs.
(Glorified accountants.) These egregious decisions are burning our
rain-forests, polluting the oceans, spraying acid rain, destroying the ozone
layer, global warming and climate change, and using terminator technology
against the world food-supply. The robot corporation has a backbone
consisting of a hierarchy of MBAs reaching up to the CEO who is the creature
of the majority interest. All are committed to short range profit with one
eye always on the bottom line. The MBA with the most single minded drive for
short range profit keeps his job. The MBA with a conscience loses his.
Our enemy is no longer the bloated aristocrat in lace cuffs, it is Miniver
Cheevy.
An academic might teach you that corporations existed at the time of the
Etruscans but the first corporations stemmed from the British East India
Company. This organization was started by the Merchants of London, (a guild)
in order to take advantage of the growing trade with India. Shares were sold
to distribute the danger of loss from shipwrecks and piracy. Trade was so
profitable that the feudal aristocrats wanted a piece of the action. His
lordship did not want to sully his hands by "engaging in trade, so he became
a stock-holder. This worked well for the Merchants because the feudalists
gave them a navy to protect their ships from pirates and competition from
other countries like Holland and Spain. Soon India, a formerly wealthy
food-exporting nation, became the property of the British Raj and
periodically was wracked by famine for over 300 years
Soon other corporations added their stock to the new stock-market. The Royal
African Company who took over the slave-trade. The Pennsylvania Company, The
Dutch East India Company, The Hudson Bay Company, and many others, but it
was the East India Company and its domination of King George that led to the
American Revolution. The Boston Tea Party was to protest the stamp tax that
protected the East India Companys monopoly on the sale of tea. The downfall
of the East India Company came as a result of its challenge to the
sovereignty of the British crown. I expect the fall of the modern
conglomerates as a result of their challenge to the sovereignty of the free
peoples of the world.
The trend is obvious. Mergers between giant conglomerates are resulting in
monopoly control of pricing. Their unabashed use of child, prison, and even
slave labor, and their rape of the worlds resources by virtue of their
corruption of local politicians is becoming a world scandal in spite of
their ability to control the media.
Page 7
The giant arms dealers are providing the latest killing devices to African
tribesmen, and Balkan hereditary enemies. They have sown land mines all over
the world - mines that are killing children. Land mines that are made in
China have internal mechanism that were manufactured by Motorola. They are
continuing to mine and produce uranium and its deadly by products and their
paid congressmen resist non-proliferation of atomic weapons. As time goes on
their inhuman and anti-human nature is meeting opposition from the world
population. If their internal contradictions result in another world
depression. Their very existence could come under question.
If we are not going to repeat the horrible mistake of becoming communist
dictatorships.
j; (Check out George Orwell's terrible visions!)
If we are not going to fall for the rant of some demagogue who will prove
worse than our own sold-out politicians; we must wake up to the reality that
the real political struggle is not between a working and a capitalist class
but rather is between giant robots and humanity. It seems strange to me that
people can believe in aliens from outer space, but can not believe the
truth. We are dominated in every facet of our life by gigantic robots! They
are challenging humanity itself! If this were understood; what conservative
would take the corporation shilling? If I were to write a manifesto for
today; it would not be to the workers of the world; it would be to everyone.
It is time for all human beings, no matter how conservative they may be to
consider this alternative. OUTLAW COMMON STOCK!
The resistance to corporate domination is coming from the Greens and not the
Reds. Greenpeace and the Sierra Club and many other upper middle-class
environmental organizations are the vangaurd of this revolution. They
organized and led the massive demonstration in Seattle against the World
Trade Organization. Labor joined them, but the connection of the leadership
of the CIO-AFL to the two-party system is still solid. Professionals like
trial lawyers and physicians see themselves threatened by tort reform and
the HMO corporation domination of the medical profession. Teachers are under
constant pressure as the corporation goons with their vouchers attack
universal free education. The enormous quantities of soft money being poured
into political parties is a scandal to the world. The two party system is
becoming exposed as the crooked wrestling match that it is.
The whole solution to most of the worlds problems lies in the fact that the
corporation is an illegal subterfuge to avoid investor liability. No one
owns a corporation. Given the great power of the controlling interests who
sit on the corporation boards; the corporation is nothing but a license to
steal. The simple act of changing common stock to limited partnership stock
would clear up the confusion. An investor is an investor and an owner is an
owner. Under civil law a limited partner can have no control over a
business. He bets his money win or lose. The obvious trick of shredding
ownership into small pieces and using them as gambling chips on the Wall
Street Casino is fundamentally absurd. The ordinary stockholder could care
less about the actions of the corporations represented by the stocks in his
Page 8
portfolio. He buys and sells on a whim or a rumor. The only people who could
reasonably object to eliminating common stock would be the Murdochs and the
Gates who hire and fire CEOs and impose their own carnivorous ethics on the
corporation. Why would they object? Because making them limited partners
would expose the fraud. They are owners when it suits their fancy, and they
are innocent bystanders when the corporation dumps oil on the Alaskan coast.
Nice work! It is like giving Willie Sutton a license to rob banks.
Perhaps you wonder: "If this is such a great idea; why hasnt some one
presented it before? Perhaps they did, but few people want to upset the
apple-cart. Those who might be interested in upsetting apple-carts want to
see a glorious revolution . . . preferably with them carrying the banner.
Actually the only change would be to give the tools of production directly
to the workers. These are the people who now run the corporation. Since the
corporation is totally dependent upon the employees , and everyone within a
corporation is an employee; why havent they united and demanded that they be
given ownership? They are the only people with any possible claim to
ownership. The answer is that anyone who voiced such a ridiculous idea would
be laughed off the job, or possibly thrown out the window by the corporation
gestapo.
A reactionary is just what the word indicates; he or she reacts. Like toads
the only way to get them to move is to touch them on the tail. Why are
todays activists so reactionary? Why do they have to wait until the
corporation craps on the living-room floor before they demand it clean up
its mess? Why not go for the corporation throat? No honest court can justify
the legalization of a machine designed to avoid responsibility.
j: Good to e-meet someone thinking of the productive future!
There are brave people who search the sea bottoms for buried treasure from
some Spanish Galleon. When they find it, and fight off the claims of the
beurocrats, they usually get to keep it. A young boy found forty thousand
dollars in San Diego and took it to the police. They couldnt find an owner
and they gave the money to the kid. I have often thought: "The corporation
General Motors is not owned by anyone, and it is just lying there waiting
for some one to claim it." Why dont I lay claim to General Motors? Nobody
owns it. Finders keepers! Of course I would be strapped down in some
psychiatric ward . . . but in fact: I found General Motors . . . At least I
should get a finders fee.
j: But do you really want to be an owner?
How about accepting temporary stewardship of that which needs temporary
stewardship, and letting the rest sit within the Commonweal?
Goodly work, john
****************************************************************************
*****************
The Fair World Project
*** To Create A Fair, Safe and Peaceful World ***
To do this we must transform the economic system in which we live, so that:
o People, acting locally, but together in a healthy global community,
are in full control of
their lives.
o Where everyone works for the benefit of all: caring for the long-lived
well being of the whole global ecology and all its inhabitants.
** Here, then, is the Fair World action plan **
1) *Co-operation not Coercion*
Convert competitive, market-based businesses into workplace
co-operative partnerships and reorganises monopoly activities as stakeholder
co-operatives, with all co-operatives demonstrably operating according to
the (continuously evolving!) Seven International Co-operative Principles.
2) *Pre-distribution not Re-distribution*
Share out the created wealth through nationally collected
co-operatives taxation, distributed into local, democratically-controlled
Community Banks and, so, make money and credit available for responsible
wealth creation and community development.
3) *Global stewardship for needs not private ownership for profits*
Provide for human needs (health, life-long education, libraries,
telecommunications, transport and so on) on a free-at-the-point-of-use
basis, retaining money as a means, only, for discretionary purchases.
4) *Fair, guaranteed incomes for all*
Introduce guaranteed fair income for all, within upper and lower
brackets and, so, do away with personal taxation (income tax, sales taxes
etc): an end to intra-national exploitation.
5) *Banking as public service - not as global warfare*
Abolish money lending and credit-creation for profit by operating
banking a as community-controlled public services.
7) *End global exploitation through financial speculation*
Reintroduce international exchange controls as necessary.
8) *All our sisters, our brothers: and all our brothers, our sisters*
Make capital grants (not loans) to developing countries: an end to
inter-national exploitation.
Please share widely and deeply!
*** The Fair World Project ***
******************************************
contact: john courtneidge
13 North Road Hertford SG14 1LN (UK)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (+44) 01992 501854
**********************************************************************
Anti-copyright: please print this material as freely as you will, and share
with those not, so far, 'on-line'.
Thanks!
j =0)
************
