NationStates Jolt Archive

Why are Americans willing to give up national sovereignty to corporations?

Corporations increasingly dictate American foreign policy goals and values. The U.S. State Department and the Department of Defense have repeatedly stated that our foreign and military policy must protect U.S. "commercial interests." The prominence of the Middle Eastern oil reserves in our nation's recent history reveals corporate influence to a frightening extent. It is significant that many key members of the current administration, including both the President and Vice President, have come from the oil industry. Campaign finance contributions from corporations have reached record levels. Individual taxes for the middle class have gone up while taxes on the wealthy and corporations have gone down.

Welcome to the world of Rollerball (the original).

It's a serious problem that won't be solved unless we can have serious campaign finance reform. As long as it takes hundreds of millions of dollars to be president, corporations will rule. I guess we'll never fix this problem.

Why are Americans willing to give up national sovereignty to corporations?

Corporations increasingly dictate American foreign policy goals and values. The U.S. State Department and the Department of Defense have repeatedly stated that our foreign and military policy must protect U.S. "commercial interests." The prominence of the Middle Eastern oil reserves in our nation's recent history reveals corporate influence to a frightening extent. It is significant that many key members of the current administration, including both the President and Vice President, have come from the oil industry. Campaign finance contributions from corporations have reached record levels. Individual taxes for the middle class have gone up while taxes on the wealthy and corporations have gone down.

Welcome to the world of Rollerball (the original).

I've promised myself no trolling today, I'm trying to reform. But you are asking for it mister.

I've promised myself no trolling today, I'm trying to reform. But you are asking for it mister.

When five companies (AOL/Time Warner, Viacom/CBS/UPN, GE/NBC, Disney/ABC, and Fox/News Corp.) both produce and distribute the programming seen by the vast majority of Americans on broadcast and cable, Americans ultimately hear only the "voices" of those five corporate leviathans, no matter how many channels they receive.

That hurts democracy and ultimately sovereignty.

Why are Americans willing to give up national sovereignty to corporations?

Cuz we're lazy ... now pass me that Big Mac and be quiet ... the commercials are almost over.

I've promised myself no trolling today, I'm trying to reform. But you are asking for it mister.
You were already trolling in the "Why are Europeans so willing to give up nat'l sovereignty" thread.

You know, both the Europe question and the America question are legitimate. I don't think it's trolling.

When five companies (AOL/Time Warner, Viacom/CBS/UPN, GE/NBC, Disney/ABC, and Fox/News Corp.) both produce and distribute the programming seen by the vast majority of Americans on broadcast and cable, Americans ultimately hear only the "voices" of those five corporate leviathans, no matter how many channels they receive.

That hurts democracy and ultimately sovereignty.

Rubbish. Change the channel. Read something And before you embark upon this tired old "evil capitalists" control the media I suggest you look at freidmans critique of the self-same situtation in socialist economies.

Economic freedom is a necessary pre-condtion to democracy. For entirely self evident reasons.

I agree that America seems to be giving a large amount of power to corporations . The legal system and federal government seems to spend much more time satisfying corporations and less time satisfying the people.

Why do the taxes on the rich keep going down and the taxes on the middle class keep going up? Why are American soldiers fighting wars in the middle east oil zones?

Anybody every play Call To Power or Call To Power II? America (and, to be fair, the world at large) seems to be moving towards a government that CTP called Corporate Republic.

You know, both the Europe question and the America question are legitimate. I don't think it's trolling.

Well except the Europe thing is actually happening, and this thread describes a legal impossibilty.

If I'm president I'm following a strict foregin policy of isolationism. No protecting economic interests for me or the corporations. They can do as they please as long as they dont embezzle money, commit fraud, and the like

Well except the Europe thing is actually happening, and this thread describes a legal impossibilty.
So perhaps the war in Iraq fought on behalf of profiteering contractors or the wars in Central America fought on behalf of United Fruit Company et. al. were illegal. When do crooks care about "legal impossibility"? If something is impossible within the law, then they'll take matters outside of it.

Rubbish. Change the channel. Read something And before you embark upon this tired old "evil capitalists" control the media I suggest you look at freidmans critique of the self-same situtation in socialist economies.

Economic freedom is a necessary pre-condtion to democracy. For entirely self evident reasons.

Economic freedom?!?! What we have is socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor.

Each year, U.S. taxpayers subsidize U.S. businesses to the tune of almost $125 billion, the equivalent of all the income tax paid by 60 million individuals and families. The U.S. government spends more on welfare for the richest corporations than it does on programs for the poor.

Ralph Nader correctly pointed out that, "Corporations have perfected socializing their losses while they capitalize on their profits."

Economic freedom?!?! What we have is socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor.

Each year, U.S. taxpayers subsidize U.S. businesses to the tune of almost $125 billion, the equivalent of all the income tax paid by 60 million individuals and families. The U.S. government spends more on welfare for the richest corporations than it does on programs for the poor.

You don't know what soveriegnty is do you silly>

Well except the Europe thing is actually happening, and this thread describes a legal impossibilty.
Please, you don't think major corporations who contribute to campaign funds and start PACs have the ear of the congress, senate, and president? Money is power, and power builds wealth. It's a never ending cycle. The corporations have taken over our government to a large extent.

Unfortunately, the problem of corporations having undue amounts of influence is a problem all over the western world, though the problem will be greater in America. The western orld has willingly taken power from the hands of it's democratically elected governments and put them into the hands of the agents of international finance. I think there needs to be far greater controls on the political clout of corporations. One think I think they should definitely do is have state funded political parties to curb finance's corrupt activities. I would also like to see a change of the world economy to encourage the self-sufficiency of nations and importing mainly what we are incapable of producing, but that would be a system far too radical for any politician.

1. Supremacy of authority or rule as exercised by a sovereign or sovereign state.
-Well, the US government pays more attention (read, panders) to the interests of corporations. I would say that a corporation has influence that outweighs that of thousands of (organized) individual citizens.
2. Royal rank, authority, or power.
-Since America never had royalty, I would say that the rich and powerful elite today play the role of royalty. They've got all the money of royals, the commoners pay the same kind of attention to the rich that they used to pay royals when they had all the power.
3. Complete independence and self-government.
-This would be absolute soveriegnty, but I think that we would agree that the ability of corporations to manipulate or create laws is increasing (self-government) and have the run of many media outlets and the consumer economy in general. (independence) Don't like a small company competing with you/ making something better, buy him out/ lobby to change the law so he can no longer compete with you. (more self-government)
4. A territory existing as an independent state.
-Not exactly applicable here, but I suppose they can buy a lot of land and do what they want with it.

Please, you don't think major corporations who contribute to campaign funds and start PACs have the ear of the congress, senate, and president? Money is power, and power builds wealth. It's a never ending cycle. The corporations have taken over our government to a large extent.

Whos idea was it to let corporations "lobby" for government support, anyway? How else do you explain that smoking is still legal and the oil industry is being subsidized? I'd really like to know how lobbying is legal, how praytell do normal people get listened to by the government?

A fourth branch of Government not specified in the constitution and thus not well regulated has emerged.

This is the advertising/publicity branch.

The same people who sell you toothpaste, disposable floorcleaners and SUV's sell America their presidents and representatives. It takes money, lots of it to conduct a successful campaign, you have to hire the best and saturate the media. Of course somebody has to foot these enormous bills, the taxpayers refuse to do it directly. So they do it indirectly.

Corporate America pays for the real expense of the elections, the advertising.
Not out of any civic duty, but because it's a sound financial move. They get a return on their investment. If Joe Taxpayer raises an objection to any of the rewards they reap, the same advertising blitz can usually molify him into believing it's all in their best interest.

Or at least sidetrack him with something else. It's so easy to convince the yokels in this country to ignore the hand in their pockets by pointing out some moral outrage 'over there'. Watchdog groups are easily outspent, slick ads don't have to make real sense or even contain the truth, repetition works.

Welcome to 21st century America. Land of the Free Market, Home of the Brave Ad Campaign.

By sovereignty I assume you mean rule of state. The answer my friend ripples throughout the pool of human history: Corruption!

And when it comes to corruption, Wattiland's #1!

I recommend the works of Benjamin Barber, especially Jihad vs. McWorld. He writes frequently about the threat to democracy posed by the corporate, consumer culture.

"In many respects, we now live in a society that is only formally democratic, as the great mass of citizens have minimal say on the major public issues of the day, and such issues are scarcely debated at all in any meaningful sense in the electoral arena...In our society, corporations and the wealthy enjoy a power every bit as immense as that assumed to have been enjoyed by the lords and royalty of feudal times."

Robert W. McChesney, Making Media Democratic

What we need is to place democratic controls on economic power. When we have a system where someone who has not been placed in political power by the democratic vote of the people it is totalitarian, yet when you have the same situation in regards to economic power it is called capatilism. What we need to due is put all forms of power under democratic control.

Gosh, do you think the folks who ponied up $40 million for the inaguration expect anything in return for their investment?

By comparison the total extent of Thomas Jefferson's inaguration ceremony involved a walk back to his boarding house, after his swearing-in at the Capitol, where he had lunch.

What we need is to place democratic controls on economic power. When we have a system where someone who has not been placed in political power by the democratic vote of the people it is totalitarian, yet when you have the same situation in regards to economic power it is called capatilism. What we need to due is put all forms of power under democratic control.

The issue is that for this to happen the power the wealthy have over our democracy will have to be reduced. It's a chicken and egg problem: to stop the rich from controlling our votes you have to make them poorer by putting their wealth in the hands of the vote, but if the vote is already in the hands of the wealth...

I have a few ideas for functional solutions. First: raise the president's salary. In today's world the president can't live presidentially without being corrupt. Second: define accepting money/gifts from lobbyists as accepting bribes. Third: to make it enforced give rewards to those who discover the president to be corrupt.

In case you folks didn't know, we just passed "campaign finance reform" into law. It stopped much of the corporate money going directly to the candidate, as well as the union money, though it can go into the general party funds. It also restricted free speech, although SCOTUS didn't see fit to stop it, in that no outside party can criticize a candidate by name inside of 60 days to an election. If I started "Selgin against Idiots", and advertised directly against Candidate Idiot with my own money inside of 60 days of an election, I would be breaking the law.

As to corporations controlling the government - what do you people think corporations are? They are made up of - you guessed it - PEOPLE! And guess what - they EMPLOY thousands of people, just like you and me. And the people at the top generally got there through their talent, ingenuity, and hard work.

I WANT the government protecting our commercial interests, because if they don't, more than likely, people within that corporation will lose their jobs.

"In many respects, we now live in a society that is only formally democratic, as the great mass of citizens have minimal say on the major public issues of the day, and such issues are scarcely debated at all in any meaningful sense in the electoral arena...In our society, corporations and the wealthy enjoy a power every bit as immense as that assumed to have been enjoyed by the lords and royalty of feudal times."

Robert W. McChesney, Making Media Democratic
To assume that the power of corporations or rich individuals is equivalent to that of feudal lords is a tremendous overstatement.

A feudal lord ruled absolute. His word was as if from on high, and he could do as he please. He was allowed to be corrupt, he was allowed to rob, steal, rape and kill. But, in the US corporations cannot do these things. They are constrained. Corporations do not decide who lives and dies, they can impact policy, but they are not a single unified force, as a Midievil Lord would be, but divided, often competing interests. The view is

Why are Americans willing to give up national sovereignty to corporations?

Who says I am?