Corporatism:

Corporatism: the worship of money/the religion of consumerism
To: larry.@

Thanks for the article from the National Post titled "Kiwifruit Moralism" .
It was a good satire on left-wing/environmentalist movement.
As one who strongly identifies with liberal values and ideas
I offer the following by way of rebuttal.

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http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/20060317180751493=0D

When man's highest ideal and purpose in life is the acquisition of
money and men deny the existence of any power higher that the power
they feel they receive from being fabulously wealthy,they lose
their sense of right and wrong, and answer to no one for their
actions. They are worshipping false gods
They shut off their consciences, and run amuck over anyone in their
way to achieve goals that lead only to their own sense of importance
see "capitalism run amuck"
We have seen the ascendance of the corporate welfare state where
corporations who tout the free market economy are the new welfare
bums--the billion dollar babies-- blessed with massive government
subsidies/bailouts, the beneficiaries of preferential legislation, and
deregulation-- such that insider trading and corporate cronyism are
epidemic
The corporate welfare state has escaped the vicious
attacks handed the social welfare state as government has become
the hand maiden to the corporate welfare state.
 The media, for its part, has effectively been co-opted to this "out-of-control" corporatism
The corporate welfare state is brought to you by neo-conservatives.
They praise the mantras of privatization and deregulation-- the
vehicles of unmitigated greed. These practitioners have proven that
they cannot be trusted with the keys of the kingdom yet they escape
scrutiny because they control the agenda, the media, and most
importantly effective political opposition is lacking.
Neo-conservatives, and their corporate welfare state, also want to
eliminate, or at least minimize government as it quite simply gets
in the way of unmitigated greed-- so they can act without any
consideration for the public good or public consultation-and this
is just what is happening in the US now.
And this leads us to Benito Mussolini and that little word "fascism"
as corporatism too easily mutates/morphs into fascism.

"Fascism" should more properly be called corporatism,
since it is the merger of state and corporate power."
- Benito Mussolini

In, Lament for a Nation, Grant states
"Yet what is socialism if it is not the use of government to
restrain greed in the name of the social good"

The world has been taken over by the neoclassical market economy
theory and is going to hell in a handbasket, with environmental
destruction, human destitution and mass murder ... by hunger, sickness,and war
 growing by the day. This is officially called by our
economists and politicians as "the free movement of wealth creating
capital"
The neoclassical theory has become the biggest crime wave in human history

If the world hopes to save future generations, it will have to shed
all ideology based economic theories and start following the laws of
physical realities.


The neoclassical market economic system is built on the false
theory of so called "competition", including the twisted out words
of Adam Smith.
 He never said: "In competition self interest serves
the common good".
 A totally asinine and criminal statement, neither Smith, or any
sane person would ever say,.. yet it is being taught as economics.

My friends, you can complain and bitch against the actions of
corrupt politicians and their owners/handlers, the corrupt corporations,
but unless you start going after the universities, where this garbage
is being taught, you're wasting your time. Because they are basing
their actions on the theories coming out of universities, picked up
by corporations in courses on business management and administration.
The corporations own the government and so-called elected public officials serve the interests of their financial contributors and not their constituents.We the people need to reclaim our power and our lives! from corrupt politicians whose loyalty is not to those whom they have been elected to represent but to their financial backers.
If they cannot prove that they are worthy of representing us then they should be fired.

The highest priority for corporations is to maximize profits for their shareholders.
Politicians ,on the other hand, are supposed to represent and promote the public interest.
When elected officials devote more effort to creating opportunities for industries (private corporations)
than for the people who they have been elected to serve, they lose our trust and our respect--especially when industrial growth  comes at a cost to the public interest (such as environmental degradation/pollution)

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Taming Predatory Capitalism

JAMES K. GALBRAITH
In 1899 Thorstein Veblen described predation as a phase in the
evolution of culture, "attained only when the predatory attitude
has become the habitual and accredited spiritual attitude...when
the fight has become the nt note in the current theory of
life." After an entire century's struggle to escape from this
phase, we've suffered a relapse. The predators are everywhere
unleashed; and the institutions built to contain them, from the
United Nations to the AFL-CIO to the SEC, are everywhere under
siege.
Predation has again become the defining feature of economic
life.
Our first problem is to grasp this reality in full.
Postwar prosperity was built on a vast cut in the cost of security
and the achievement of peace in Europe and much of Asia. The
American role in the cold war system was to provide security; for
this the dollar's role as anchor of the world trading system was
our reward. But now, with Iraq, we are seen worldwide as the
leading predator state, promoting war as a solution rather than as
the ultimate economic and human horror. For this, many would like
to see our privileges revoked.
Corporate and financial fraud and political corruption form the
second great domain of predatory capitalism.
 DeLay, Frist and Abramoff are the names in the news, but the tone is set by the
leadership--Cheney of Halliburton and Bush of Harken Energy--a
large predator and a small scavenger, specialists in cronyism and
expert in nothing else. When predation becomes the accepted
business and political norm, the foundation of capitalism crumbles.
Markets lose legitimacy, investors fly to safety in bonds, and
authentic innovation and shared growth both become unattainable.
The solution must be not just a change of parties but a new
political class, including a new media not under corrupt control.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060417/forum/4=0D

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Large contibutions from special interest groups have eroded trust in our elected officials and corrupted our government". A different kind of candidate running a different kind of campaign,depends on the support of ordinary citizens and runs to represent/serve them, not lobbyists and large corporations.
We must elect leaders who are willing to serve, protect, and advance the public interest,rather than betray it!
The failure of the political establishment to protect the public interest is a betrayal of their mandate.
It used to be called treason; now it's called politics!

We must establish and maintain a clear separation between government institutions and corporations(whose loyalty is only to themselves)!
 The independence of the judiciary is deemed to be an essential part of the fabric of a free and democratic society.
Legislators/(those who make the laws) and the government  must also fulfill their role  independent
of the external influences of corporations and their lobbyists.
A lobbyist is by definition someone seeking to influence the outcome of government policy in their own favor!

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Murray Dobbin,a Vancouver-based journalist,author and social activist in his 1998 book titled "The Myth of the Good Corporate Citizen--Democracy under the Rule of Big Business" writes:


“Unspinning “ political issues: a citizen's guide to globalization

"As union, social and environmental activists, we know that the vast majority of Canadians share our progressive values of strong communities, sustainable development, and robust universal social programs;' 
"But somehow, when it comes to choosing governments, those people (including many union members) vote for parties that are slowly dismantling exactly the things people value.
"Part of the explanation is that the language used to talk about these issues in the media is determined not by us but by corporate and party media consultants, business think tanks and right-wing
spin doctors.
"What we are talking about here is how issues are framed."
"All of these effective conservative/right-wing "frames" make our job of promoting social justice much more difficult. -
"But all of them can be reframed from our values perspective. And that also allows us to speak about positive alternatives, rather than always reacting to what they do and say.
"That won't guarantee we will win but if we don't 'reframe' these issues we are likely to keep losing important battles:'