Discuss: Jurassic Park of the Free Market

In reading this article, I was fascinated by the author’s very apt and superb analogy of corporations, as controllers of providers of life essentials to modern humankind with reindeer which are in reality the controllers of Siberian nomads.  The author’s conclusion that corporations, unlike reindeer, are man made creations subject to change by their creators is refreshing.
Such a position carried to the ultimate would seem to be the solution to the imperialism practiced by nation states throughout history, inclusive at present of the United States. 
Alas, unfortunately complex problems are often not susceptible to such simplistic solutions.  Putting the tooth paste back in the tube has its own set of problems, exemplified by the various powerful members of the wealthy ruling class (for lack of better terminology) committed to the proposition that never shall the masses be permitted to even up the playing field.  And so the battle between status quo defenders and populists wages on and on. 
One fact, and one fact only, looms as the sure and unconquered enemy of corporate wealth and their creators.  That fact is the one that will permit the continuation of an organized community in the world of real people and the dissipation of our artificial masters.  That fact is that we live in a world of finite resources.  Change will come, but it will be from an external source, the end of the energy faucet of oil.  For more on this matter, go to http://nodsavid.blogspot.com/2008/05/is-it-over.html or http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/ for further review.

Beautiful Rebecca. But, these corp’s have more helicopters and guns and will be more free to use them on others in the “1st world,” esp if Palin should become president (a too distinct possibility)  Unmaking these corp’s is not going to happen unless some judges with integrity break down the 19century law that turned them into “persons.”
Nature designed us to live like those reindeer people, like the lovely 90 yr. old man talking with me about growing up in the Colorado mountains in the 1920’s.
Totally self sustaining and responsive to the needs of the sacred earth which sustained them. Lawyers and other filthy rich own the land now and have changed all the names of creeks and mountains as oil pumps appear one by one in all the shallow valleys once sacred Earth.

It is appropriate tonight to also remember the other 9/11 - Chile 1973. The military, supported by the US, bombed the presidential palace, installed Pinoche, and unleashed a horror of crimes against his countrymen and human rights to protect access to mineral rights extraction at favorable rates.

Yes, but there is a difference. The market controls corporate existence, and the market is the consumer.

If you don’t want to consume oil, quit driving. But you better find housing where you can walk to work.

And don’t eat the fruits and vegitables shipped into your cold northern climates during winter, because that is a benefit of the transportation industry. Canning your own wouldn’t be an improvement, because each of us doing this individually instead of depending on the more energy efficient mass production would increase rather than decrease our dependance on fossil fuels, converted to electricity and transmitted over the power grid or pumped through natural gas lines into our homes.

It is convenient to blame corporations, but it is a lazy approach to the problem.

“the market is the consumer” alleges Claudia. In a fair, transparent and frictionless world, there is a bright shining market on the hill. This is not that world. Here’s why: If gas was, say $10. a gallon, there would be a tremendous impetus for economy, efficiency and alternatives. Calculate the ‘true’ fully burdened costs, not the social shifted don’t pay to play costs, and you would see that. I hear that specious argument when employers justify illegals as cheaper and therefore more ‘worthy’ than their fellow citizens. The concept that rapaciousness and indifference to those less able to leverage the common infrastructures to personal gain has been the history of wealth creation in many industries in the US. If I couldn’t move my company without paying back the interest free loans, the land grants, the railroad tracks, the telephone system (all built with public funds, trust or land) The 30 years of funding of corporate think tanks results in the clouding of minds about the shared commons we all inhabit. It is not a zero-sum game, despite the drawbridges and gated communities. There is something fundamentally unbalanced in a society where 1 in 10 jobs are security, and there are more than 2 million imprisoned.

“Market is the consumer?”  LOL.
So, consumer choice occurs in a vacuum, huh?  Must be nice to live in a “lucky country”....

Every time a discussion winds up seeming to pit two opposites—-eg consummer laziness vs corporate abuse—-we can be sure the wisest and most effective response lies in the approximate and ever-shifting middle-ground, where BOTH poles—-consummer responsibility and corporate responsibility—- are taken seriously and as far as we can imagine.

    We need corporate reform AND we need consummer activism!! Let’s not fight each other, let’s get going!

Maia makes a good point. Once there is equity in the commons then we can work together. Clean air, clean water, healthy oceans are good goals. Who could possibly find fault with those basic, life affirming, earth stewardship efforts, right?
It’s basically the tobacco industry approach from the profit centered participants in the discussion. The attempts at dialog are difficult to continue as one watches the “wrecking crew” on double time, burning, drilling and clearcutting like there’s no tomorrow. This approach seems to be self fulfilling to some observers.