Chris Hedges: Time to Get Crazy

[TahitiNut]

6. It's not just BP.

Union Carbide. Exxon. Enron. ... the "Hall Of Infamy" merely identifies those corporations whose egregious conduct became so obvious, so excessive, so overwhelming that no amount of spin and deception could keep it from the global public's vision.

The global corporate colonialism of today is akin to the age of European monarch dividing up the (known) world into fiefdoms and colonies ... where the power of governance created the entitlement to engage in rape and exploitation without fear of liability for the harms inflicted. "Corporate capitalism" is, in essence, the very same thing. Capitalism is, and never was, about the worker owning the means of his own production. The worker has never been without liability for his tortious behavior. That has always been "sovereign immunity" -- the absence of recourse when the sovereign (monarch or state) inflicts a harm. Affording 'limited' sovereign immunity to the wealthy acting behind the legal fiction of a 'corporation' is the very essense of an entitlement.

Once upon a time, it was rationalized that such an entitlement was a "deal with the devil" ... created by our democratic republic in order to induce investment in projects and activities for the Public Good. For a time, it was felt that the state was superior to and in control of those entities which it created. It's no longer clear at all. When the state is owned, then it becomes subordinate to the interests of our new sovereigns ... the wealthy in control of the global corporations. Yes, it can be called a "plutocracy" ... but that's really not sufficient. "Corporatocracy" seems more appropriate to me.