6/13/2012

What Can Business Do?

The wingnuts make a big deal out of the incompetence of government. Crazy Ronnie Wrinkles once said, "Government isn't the solution to the problem, government is the problem." He proceeded to prove, in that Republican fashion, that incompetent, corrupt government is definitely a problem. But Clinton proved that problem could be solved by replacing the incompetent fools with reasonably sentient human beings. We have had few such examples of competence or sentience from business.

Let's think about this uninformed, irrational claim, for a few moments. The wingnuts and little rich kids of the Republican Party want us to believe that everything should be deregulated because government does such a bad job. What do we replace government with, corporations?

Is there anyone dumb enough to want to put corporations in charge of their own water supply, planning the future and use of any of their natural resources, fire or police departments, or any nation-critical activity? Corporations have proven themselves to be over-priced, corrupt, and incompetent managers of the financial system, the military (both as fighters and as suppliers), prisons, transportation, the environment, social and healthcare services, and every other major human activity to which they've been allowed control and access. In the US, even the blame for many of government's big falures can end up pointing at the corporations the business chose to handle the task. Can you say, "Haliburton, Blackwater, General Dynamics, GE, Boeing, Lockheed, McDonald Douglas?” Feel free to insert [add-your-favorite corrupt and incompetent corporation] to that list. The reason humans invented government is because, historically, business has been an incompetent, corrupt, discriminatory, exclusionary, and expensive provider of critical services.

There is one thing corporations can do, make trinkets. Businesses can, also, manage the distribution of core consumer products efficiently without the "protection" of incorporation; food, clothing, housing, and transportation. The existence of corporations feeds the speculation economy; a useless, counterproductive cultural parasite that has been destructive since the beginning of civilization. Every time big, idle money has taken a piece of the pie, the pie has become inedible. Someone said, "I don't want to eliminate corporations. I just want to make them small enough that I can drown them in a bathtub." Exactly my sentiments. 

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