The U.S. Corporate State Has Become the Monarch Our Founders Despised

[Triana]

The colonists who wrote the founding documents of the United States detested the British Empire, and vowed to do whatever it took to gain their freedom and sovereignty from a foreign power that was depleting the wealth of the country without giving anything in return. Just as King George extracted wealth and resources from the colonies for his own gain in the 18th century, the current U.S. corporate state is extracting wealth and resources from the American people, at a much greater rate than King George could have ever hoped for. If the outrage that swept the U.S. in the last months of 2014 continues to escalate, 2015 may just be the year that a new revolutionary movement coalesces to bring this hopelessly corrupt, parasitic, and toxic system to a halt.

It’s important to distinguish the U.S. government from the corporate state, of which the U.S. government is merely a servant. The corporate state is forcing Americans to work longer hours for less pay, destroying its finite natural resources, installing puppets in Congress who will acquiesce to its every request for fewer regulations and lower taxes, and incarcerating more Americans than any other country all in the name of higher profits. Like a foreign empire, the corporate state will continue to feed off its colonies until the colonies have no more wealth and resources to extract. Just as the colonists did with the British Crown, we must vow to cast off the corporate state before it’s too late.

A Modern-Day Colony Built to Serve the Modern-Day Aristocracy

While our legislative branch is meant to adequately represent the people, 80 percent of the current Congress is white and male, 92 percent is Christian, and more than half are millionaires. To contrast, women outnumber men in America, the average American’s median wealth is just under $45,000, and only 4 percent of American households have a net worth over $1 million. To be fair, the framers of our Constitution originally only intended for rights to be granted to white males who owned land (and they didn’t even count the Irish as white), but they loathed the British imperial aristocracy and rule of the rich that had become commonplace in both England and the colonies. Even the intellectual father of capitalism hated the generational accumulation of wealth.

“A power to dispose of estates forever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fulness[sic] of it belongs to every generation,” Adam Smith lectured. “The preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural.”

THE REST:

http://www.occupy.com/article/us-corporate-state-has-become-monarch-our-founders-despised

[Faryn Balyncd]

1. K and R... (And that's a great quote from Adam Smith.)

I was not aware of that statement of his regarding generational accumulation of wealth.



But it is clear that the intellectual father of capitalism would not have thought highly of the corporate state, any more than he thought of the entrenched interests of his day:

"The interest of the dealers [referring to stock owners, manufacturers, and merchants], however, in any particular branch of trade or manufacture, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, and absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens."

(Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1991), pages 219-220)

"This monopoly has so much increased the number of some particular tribes of [manufacturers], that, like an overgrown standing army, they have become formidable to the government, and upon many occasions intimidate the legislature. The member of parliament who supports every proposal for strengthening this monopoly, is sure to acquire not only the reputation of understanding trade, but great popularity and influence with an order of men whose numbers and wealth render them of great importance. If he opposes them, on the contrary, and still more if he has authority enough to be able to thwart them, neither the most acknowledged probity, nor the highest rank, nor the greatest public services, can protect him from the most infamous abuse and destruction, from personal insults, nor sometimes from real danger, arising from the insolent outrage of furious and disappointed monopolists."

(Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, page 368)

"The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."

(Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, page 220)

"But though the interest of the labourer is strictly connected with that of the society, he is incapable either of comprehending that interest, or of understanding its connexion with his own. His condition leaves him no time to receive the necessary information, and his education and habits are commonly such as to render him unfit to judge even though he was fully informed. In the public deliberations, therefore, his voice is little heard and less regarded, except upon some particular occasions, when his clamour is animated, set on, and supported by his employers, not for his, but for their own particular purposes."

(Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, page 218)

''When the regulation, therefore, is in support of the workman, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favour of the masters.''

- Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

''No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed and lodged.''

Adam Smith
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/16/business/economic-scene-the-many-faces-of-adam-smith-rediscovering-the-wealth-of-nations.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print

[JEB]

2. Corporate life span should be set by law.

50 years seems plenty.

[moondust]

3. Adam Smith

seems to be suggesting a reasonable cap on inheritance. That would also tend to discourage some of the risky gambling of desperados trying to become billionaires.

[leanforward]

4. Thanks for the Adam Smith quotes

I've not done a lot of reading of A. Smith. But what you quoted makes sense. The GOPers move for privatization is plain wrong, which guarantees moving money out of state and up stream. Trickle up works great, obviously. Trickle down is not. We can't replace a CEO, but an elected representative can be replaced, unless we are out voted by the corporate $. Funding government funds the local economy.