Alex
05-13-2010, 02:14 AM
If the idea that government cannot enhance one groups speech (public's) at the expense of another (corporations) holds than every law dedicated to supporting or allowing for puffing, sponsorship or lobbying needs to be thrown because these all act to elevate the voices of those behind corporatism at the expense of the public’s voice and generally at the expense of the average individual’s voice.
This is a trick that turns on language. The corporations are composed of the 'public' and the public is more basic and prior to. Corporations are an arbitrary construction much shunned by the framers. Society is for the sake of society and parasitic commercial speech is not even secondary relative to political speech and earlier SC rulings recognized this and newer rulings have no power to change this basic relationship. Society is not for the sake of commerce and commerce, even when cast in terms of livelihood, is not special especially where there is an adequate 'safety net.'
Throw out the notion of corporate rights. Legal convenience or not, such a construction is redundant in practice because those who benefit most directly from controlling the corporate voice also retain their private voice and this notion of ‘rights’ is the basis for that speech inequity. Also, those who exercise more direct control over a corporation are even able to use the resources of other vested parties (not just stock holders) to generate speech that would act against the interests of those parties. Every corporation is a fiefdom, a totalitarian instrument for the concentration of power and speech and like a whole built out of fractals the whole resemble its component parts.
Throw out debt as speech or money as speech. This is really just slavery to those who got there first it’s a lottery winner take all set up.
Also, get rid of the corporate veil or anything that allows the aggregate entity to act irresponsibly to unilaterally shift the burden and the risk to others. Even as we want to get things done we can’t build a sustainable democratic society out of rigid hierarchical militaristic secretive components.
Really one can’t have speech without privacy and anonymous speech, but one can have neither with rampant corporate secrecy. Corporate secrecy and its related suppression of speech are the true sources of errant corporate power- no corporation needs either. IP laws need to be changed to reflect an emphasis on over all standard of living vice production, the only gain from IP should be just enough, and never more than is required to prime the pump. Biotech and Pharma are horrible arguments to the contrary, in reality biotech has been a commercial failure because the understanding is still very weak as are the theories- and the same goes for Pharma. How many drugs actually work? According to a study commissioned by a major EU state about 1% and the rest is just puffed up speech or placebo. Under the current system, Pharma as an approach suppresses more promising approaches like stem cell.
While we are at it, what has been the opportunity cost in jobs of allowing the speech of the phone and cable company to drown us out for a decade? Well we are a decade behind where we should be and on a plan to take a decade to get there. The missing jobs must run into the millions.
This is a trick that turns on language. The corporations are composed of the 'public' and the public is more basic and prior to. Corporations are an arbitrary construction much shunned by the framers. Society is for the sake of society and parasitic commercial speech is not even secondary relative to political speech and earlier SC rulings recognized this and newer rulings have no power to change this basic relationship. Society is not for the sake of commerce and commerce, even when cast in terms of livelihood, is not special especially where there is an adequate 'safety net.'
Throw out the notion of corporate rights. Legal convenience or not, such a construction is redundant in practice because those who benefit most directly from controlling the corporate voice also retain their private voice and this notion of ‘rights’ is the basis for that speech inequity. Also, those who exercise more direct control over a corporation are even able to use the resources of other vested parties (not just stock holders) to generate speech that would act against the interests of those parties. Every corporation is a fiefdom, a totalitarian instrument for the concentration of power and speech and like a whole built out of fractals the whole resemble its component parts.
Throw out debt as speech or money as speech. This is really just slavery to those who got there first it’s a lottery winner take all set up.
Also, get rid of the corporate veil or anything that allows the aggregate entity to act irresponsibly to unilaterally shift the burden and the risk to others. Even as we want to get things done we can’t build a sustainable democratic society out of rigid hierarchical militaristic secretive components.
Really one can’t have speech without privacy and anonymous speech, but one can have neither with rampant corporate secrecy. Corporate secrecy and its related suppression of speech are the true sources of errant corporate power- no corporation needs either. IP laws need to be changed to reflect an emphasis on over all standard of living vice production, the only gain from IP should be just enough, and never more than is required to prime the pump. Biotech and Pharma are horrible arguments to the contrary, in reality biotech has been a commercial failure because the understanding is still very weak as are the theories- and the same goes for Pharma. How many drugs actually work? According to a study commissioned by a major EU state about 1% and the rest is just puffed up speech or placebo. Under the current system, Pharma as an approach suppresses more promising approaches like stem cell.
While we are at it, what has been the opportunity cost in jobs of allowing the speech of the phone and cable company to drown us out for a decade? Well we are a decade behind where we should be and on a plan to take a decade to get there. The missing jobs must run into the millions.