From: Paul Hughes (paul@planetp.cc)
Date: Fri Sep 01 2000 - 22:38:15 MDT
hal@finney.org wrote:
> Corporations are a matter of people getting together cooperatively to
> organize their efforts. How can it be evil for a group of people to
> voluntarily organize, and to offer jobs to others? Every aspect of
> the process, from the formation of the corporation, to the job offer,
> to the acceptance, is voluntary and agreed to by all concerned.
Evil? Who said anything about evil? For matters of clarity lets keep the morality issue
out of this.
All I'm trying to do is open a can of worms that I think needs to be opened. For
starters, when I use the word corporation I'm referring to ones large enough to influence
public policy and legislation at both the state and federal level. Companies with a legion
of lawyers the size of small cities.
Michael Lorrey talked about the tyranny of a majority infringing on the minority. I agree
with him on this - and applied to corporations you have large corporations changing the
legal framework to suit their own financial interests as is clearly the case with the DMCA
and its obvious infringement on the 1st amendment.
What I see advocated here is the almighty dollar. I just now remembered Bucky Fuller when
he said, "You can either make money, or you can make sense." What I see advocated is
putting corporations and their profits above ALL else. If it comes down to free speech or
lost revenue, free speech has got to go. DeCSS anyone? If it comes down to right to bear
arms, or lost revenue - the guns have got to go. If it comes down to right to
unreasonable search and seizure or lost revenues - right of unreasonable search has got to
go. Drug testing anyone?
The rights of ownership instill on their owners a certain freedom and autonomy from
tyranny. So now you see corporations increasingly moving away from selling and replacing
it with leasing. .NET anyone? At first you could pay just once $49.99 to own your
software. But with leasing, you will pay $10 today, and tomorrow and the next month, and
so, and so on. "And oh, we decided that to continue to use our service, its going to cost
you $30 a month! Sorry, we found out that you used our service to disparage our companies
good name - service terminated!"
And at the current clip of mergers and consolidations, what choice will you have left? If
the only game in town is the large corporation, then that means that for a good part of
your life if you care not to live in a tent, you will have to give up your individual
sovereignty and freedom while employed. And without the so-called government that
everyone around here likes to knock around, they would probably own us full-time - company
leased house, company leased cars, company owned shops. Thank god for the semblance of
law and a legion of law enforcement to back it up. What am I saying? This is all a
first. But it has become obvious to me that corporations could give a damn about me and
my freedoms. At least the government has the pretense of a constitutional guarantee of
freedom.
The biggest 'bug' I see in a free-market is there are no gauruntees of freedom -
Everything is up for grabs!!! All that matters is the almighty buck, he with the most
money wins!
Paul Hughes
http://planetp.cc/
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