The Unlimited Company
The multinational companies that now abound are destroying our world. They are no longer under the control of any nation state. They dictate to every country the terms on which they will do business. If any nation state declines they simply bankrupt it. The big corporation is now man’s worst enemy.
They have usurped centuries of accumulated knowledge and secreted advances and patented all manner of things that correctly belong to the people. It is now virtually illegal to collect and plant the seeds from your own garden. The list of such criminal activities is very long indeed.
They have bought up virtually all manufacturing capability in the west and moved it to low-wage countries where they have effectively enslaved the local populations to produce consumer goods at extremely low prices. They sell these goods in western markets at very high prices and make themselves very rich indeed.
They have acquiesced in the strangling of western manufacturing by the adoption of ridiculously restrictive employment and health and safety laws whose prime purpose is to destroy highly paid jobs. This makes it relatively easy for them to transfer jobs to low paid workers abroad.
The quid pro quo they offer is an endless stream of mainly useless consumer goods that are of doubtful quality, little utility and lead the majority of the nation into mindless pursuits watching and listening to pap. The media make much use of the cornucopia of crap to provide programs that would not tax the mind of rat. They have to invent perverse ‘celebrities’ because there is no longer anyone on earth with the talent, guts or competence to perform a play, a song or a poem without a ridiculous display of flashing lights and an extremely loud cacophony. We really have reached the lowest common denominator. The whole purpose of this is to placate the masses and stop them taking to the streets. Aldous Huxley in '1984' called it ‘Soma Tablets’. We do not need soma tablets: we have television.
Around two percent of the people on earth own around 90 percent of the wealth and control 90 percent of economic activity. They have got ever richer since de-regulation of the banks and internationalisation of companies removed the formerly sensible restriction on their activities. The vast majority of citizens have been lied to and cheated and conned and ripped off by a very small number of very wealthy liars and cheats. They call themselves Vice Presidents and Chief Executive Officers.
Once upon a time people who held these offices were highly respected members of society who created great wealth which was reasonably distributed amongst all who contributed. The executives were well rewarded with salaries typically fifty to a hundred times above average. Now these leeches have salaries well over 1000 times the pittance they pay their slaves in eastern sweat shops. Their annual bonuses are double or even treble this amount.
They have set themselves above the law in at least two ways. Firstly they are so rich that no-one else on earth could possible fight them in court. Secondly, even if someone could do this in a court, they would simply move their operations elsewhere to avoid any possible sanction, award or punishment. They effective are the law. You do things their way or not at all. You pick up the scraps at their table or die.The whole point of the limited company was to licence men to enable the creation of wealth in the interest of the licensor – the people. Why on earth would a people licence men to rip them off? But that is what we have done. We have created a monster in the form of the limited company and allowed it to escape from its original sensible bounds and now it utterly dominates us. The company has developed a life of its own and its only purpose is to promote and grow itself.
The limited liability which it enjoys gives it a stupendously ridiculous advantage over mere men so that no-one can ever compete with it. The individual has responsibilities as well as freedoms. The company has freedom but no responsibility except to a very small group of investors whose logical wish is to see it success for ever more. That is the monster we have built. Even the very highly paid executives of the monster are utterly expendable. No-one can control it as there is no mechanism by which is can be brought to heel.
The multi-national corporation is exploiting the resources of the world at such a rate as to destroy it before many years are passed. We will tame the corporation or it will destroy us. Frankenstein was a kind and friendly monster compared to this.
Colin Walker