The Little Blue Book: The Essential Guide to Thinking and Talking Democratic by George Lakoff & Elisabeth Wehling

Author:George Lakoff & Elisabeth Wehling
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Politics, Psychology, Patriot Bookshelf
ISBN: 9781476700014
Publisher: Free Press
Published: 2012-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

We could go on. These are cases of corporate nuisance, intrusiveness, invasion, control, interference, oppression, theft, and even tyranny. When you add it all up, government by corporation is a major issue in American life, yet it is not included in public discourse.

There is a big difference between government by corporation and government by the representatives of the people. Corporations govern you for their profit and benefit, not yours. Governments govern citizens for the benefit of the citizenry as a whole. Governments govern openly. Citizens have imposed on their representatives a moral obligation to protect and empower everyone equally for the benefit of all. That’s what democracy is. Governments have a right to govern because citizens, by voting, have given them that power. Governments are accountable to citizens; they have to make their actions transparent and justify them. And citizens can vote out their representatives if they feel that they are governing badly.

Corporations, however, govern your life for their own profit and benefit, not yours. They are transparent about it only if government requires them to be through regulation.

Government by corporation is a major political issue because conservatives have popularized the idea that government limits your liberty while the free market increases your liberty. But the opposite is true: for the most part, government works to protect your liberty from corporations that threaten to take it away in all the ways listed above and more. It is government regulation that limits the “liberty” of corporations to inflict harm. Corporations, when functioning properly, create enormous good on a daily basis in America, but they don’t have to govern or threaten our lives to do so. For all of the above reasons, corporate governance of our lives needs to be part of public political discourse.

When you talk about the issue of government by corporations, keep in mind the details of what we outlined above. Extend the issue to examples that you may be specifically concerned with. Provide examples from your own life and the lives of citizens you represent or work for.

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