To Boise and Back: Corporate life forms need you!

This is part two of my "Boise and Back" blog entry.

While putting my feet up in the exit row of a South West Airlines 737 I got to thinking about how corporations and people (natural people) have got themselves into this deeper and deeper symbiotic relationship. Its quite obvious that corporations need people, we are their consumers, their source of income, their lifeblood. But when it comes down to it, in vast parts of the world not only do corporations need people, but also people need corporations.

Now corporations are not real phyiscal entities, they are purely a legal fiction, they have no substance without a little legal document known as a corporate charter. The earliest corporate charters were issued by the Kings and Queens (and later the governments that replaced them) to groups of people to carry out a specific often risky task with special priviliges like limited or no liabilities and reduced or zero taxation of profits. In modern times charters are usually granted for an indefinite period and carry with them many, many substantial benefits.

These benefits allow corporations to accumulate wealth without most of the emcumbances that people have. They can escape many, if not all taxes (Enron / Cheney links), never have to pay death taxes, and seldom risk substantial penalties commensurate of the crimes they do commit. This accumulation of wealth has put corporations in the position to great things, things of such scale and risk that they are out of reach of all but the most wealthy individuals and non-government organisations. The trouble is, that by and large they don't do anything that is not connected with making and accumulating more money which is what economists call "growth". All the common measurements of corporate success are based on increases in revenue, profits and capitalisation. This should hardly be surprising: corporations exist to accumulate and protect wealth.

The problem is that over the last one hundred years or so people have become blind to the rationale behind some of the fiscally inspired "great" things corporations do. In fact we've become so blind that we've forgotten that governments can acheive great things without corporations. They can put a man on the moon (okay some people will argue and argue about that one), wipe out smallpox (doh, they forgot some and left it to get in the hands of evildoers), and stop genocidal megolomaniacs from taking over the world (I had to add "genocidal" just so you would know exactly which megolomaniac I was talking about). Unfortunately such activities are risky, require lots of cooperation between many groups, and are expensive. So few, if any politicians have the balls any more to risk their careers for the common good because they know when ever a government screws up there's always someone looking for a scapegoat to blame.

Naturally its in the best interests of corporations to continue this status quo of docile consumers fulfilling their manifest destiny of "I, consumer". And if some terrible event should come to pass that has us all hiding at home is it any wonder virtually the first advice from our president is to go out shopping. Heck yeah! When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping!

So how exactly do corporations continue to perpetuate the myth (that's my assertion, you can choose to believe whatever you want) that no matter what happens we must continue to shop 'til we drop. ? Well let me give you a little list.

They can force us to buy their products by removing all other choices. An example is when the big box discounters move into town and put out of business all the local small stores by using thier massive "economies of scale" (see below).

They effectively brainwash us with subliminal and often not so subliminal advertising that is everywhere humans are from a very early age. If you think "brainwash" is an unrealistic or unfair description of advertising why you do think companies like Pepsi, Coke and others are so anxious to sign deals to advertise their products in schools? Why can't they just call it quits until the proto-consumers have at least developed the skills to make an educated or informed product choice? They call it "developing brand loyalty" however if, for example, they were putting up advertising promoting certain political ideologies, religious beliefs, or something other than brand loyalty at school, we'd probably be outraged, call it brainwashing and put an end to it right away? Wouldn't we?

They can trick us by marketing products that are symbiotically dependent. For example marketing fast food as the great solution for quick and cheap nourishment that will free us from the chore of food preparation and give us much more time to enjoy life. Naturally they neglect to mention it is neither nourishing nor cheap (not to mention hell on the environment and small food producers) and all the time we free up will in any case be spent in front of the TVconsuming more advertising. So when we are poor and they then sell us the notion that we must be thin and wealthy and wouldn't a whole bunch of exercise equipment, health food, lip-o-suction, and get rich schemes be the perfect antidote for our miseries? And if at the end of it all we find ourselves depressed because we are unable to acheive their lofty ideals of health, wealth and beauty depressed, well why not pop in some anti-depressants to make all the worlds ills go away (just thinking about it makes me depressed!).

They can flat out lie to us. Worked great for Nike, and as long as corporations are able to claim the have free speech rights, it will continue to work for all other corporations.

They can pander to our inner selfishness. Yes that's mostly our own fault, but what, after all, is the constitution there for anyway? Its mostly to protect us from the selfish deeds of others and the world from our selfish deeds. If there were no selfish people then for the most part we could all just work it out. Above all we need protection from anything that seeks to exploit our selfish needs. This is kind of marketing that exploits them is basically another form of brainwashing - find something we have a weakness for (consuming), reward us doing it, and punish us for not doing it.

They can scare us with fear based marketing which has proven to be particularly effective in the post 9/11 years. 3M and HomeDepot can tell you all about the benefits of 300 million consumers rushing out to buy duct tape and plastic sheeting. Granted 3M weren't actually the ones who thought that idea up, but any marketing person who had would have had a brilliant career ahead of them. When it comes down to it most of advertising is after all either fear based or greed based (see above). And if anyone says the government doesn't have an marketing influence just look what happend when Bush senior uttered the infamous words "I don't like brocolli". So yes, of course they have you by the balls. Now when big corporations team up with big government and start whispering in each other ears and dipping in each others pockets.... Well you know even if you're not going to buy that SUV because it'll make you feel successful/more important/more powerful, you'll certainly but it because you're afraid of driving a small car because its just so much safer.... After all what happens if you're in your little 30+ mpg mini and one of those big SUVs out there hits you and squashes you like a bug? If you ask me if the world wanted safe cars all they would have to do would be to put a twelve inch sharp spike right in the middle of the steering wheel. We might even get out and walk once in a while!

They (and in case you've forgotten, we're talking about corporations) can sell us their products under the misconception that we are actually doing some good. Okay, that comes under the lies category too, but I think there's enough of a distinction between lying about the goodness of a product, and (no matter how crap the product is) lying about how buying it will do good. Yes sometimes the measurement of doing good is very hard to define. But lets not forget when a company starts bragging about not using sweatshop labour, chances are they are now simply using "minimum wage" labour which, as the 20% of Americans living poverty know, even in America is not even close to a "living wage". Goodness knows what living on minimum wage in a third world country is like but it'll surely make any trailer park, food stamp funded existance seem like luxury. So yes, we'll easily swallow the story that the WTO is good for creating millions of jobs around the globe in the nations poorest countries. But lets not forget that what is really happening is we're putting our own local workers out of work in exchange for exploiting cheap labour of others in far off, out of sight countries like Vietnam. Then we concentrating the profits of their labours in few mega-corporations for the benefit of maintaining the "economic growth" of the first world nations and the bank balances of a few super rich CEOs and lucky investors. This is probably the least efficient way of helping someone who is living in the gutter far from site. After all do you think you'd really miss a $0.25 tax on each pair of sneakers made in the USA that goes directly to someone in a country that would otherwise have been making them for you?

Finally, for the most sinnister way in which corporations are now infiltration our lives. They can devote vast resources to removing peoples fundamental ability to live a life independently of their products and influence. As an example, how about Monsanto marketing hybridized grain to farmers in India based on the claim it will vastly improve their crop yields? Heck yeah, I'll have some of that, three bags full! Unfortunately they forgot to tell them the important fact that hybridized grain doesn't breed true so the farmers can no longer hold back some seeds for next years planting. So now each year they have to go back to Monsanto and buy more grain to plant which was previousl free. So the spend a significant amount of money to do so requiring yet more grain to be planted to make a bigger profit. And it turns out the same grain is less resistant to local diseases so the farmers now also have to buy pesticides to protect it. Then cross pollination causes the hybridized grain to contaminate non-hybridized plantings of farmers nearby. Pretty soon the farmers find themselves sucked into an unbreakable cycle of consuming Monsanto and other big-bio companies' products and pursuing ever larger profits of scale to maintain their increasing dependency. Of course this is all no surprise to any Western farmer - the small farmer is all but extinct in this part of the world except where heavily subsidized by the state.

Ultimately those who do not buy into the story of economic growth are no good to corporations. Hence to maintain the falacy that corporate growth is the only useful measure of success for society, society will have to evolve at the behest of corporate influence to marginalize, exclude and eliminate these "un-consumers". In such a society it will be impossible and illegal to grown your own food, to generate your own power, to refuse government mandated medication, school your own kids, build your own computer, access media or communicate with others without monitoring, to act anonymously, etc. etc. the list goes on.

This may seem laughable but every one of them is something that has roots in ideas extolled by todays corporations as being "good for business", and consequently being lobbied for with big corporate donations (lets face it - bribes) in Washington. And when good business is the only measure of success of our country, then opposing success is opposing our own country, which is ... un-American... right? See, they've got you... its un-American no to support big corporations and to not go shopping.

So shouldn't you be afraid, very afraid?

Nah, just kidding, I'm just messing with your head. Really, I was making it all up, go to bed, take a Paxil, don't worry about it. Tomorrow's going to be a brand new day and you can go out shopping and everythings going to be alright!