# The owner of everything



## V52

Hi, friends 
in a Italian-English thread we were speaking about the italian TV Reality Show "Grande Fratello" . Nothing new, I know, nothing different from all other countries. The tv communication can handle everything nowadays, but... It made me think of the real damages to have a "premier" who's "the owner of everything". I don't guess economic damages are so important or maybe the most important. In my life I never knew a year without a crisis in our economy, in the so called "Economic Italian Boom" of early Sixties neither. I don't know.. but i feel more and more every day the weight of an adaptation to the thinkings of "the owner of everything". And this process didn't start with his political activity, it started many years before, thanks to his television networks. Our youth mostly (but not only..), have a so pressing message about the sense of life: life is an image, life is changing your look to equalize it , maybe not to a political movement or to a trend (so normal I guess..) , but to the image that "the owner" has of life, the same he gave to programs of his television networks (for instance: women must be just young and good looking, men must be only smart and well dressed. Profit is so normal as work is. Winming is obbligatory ect ect ) . Finally aren't we risking to share his same... psicology? The same moral. Isn't this a new "ideology"? Can't this be as dangerous as the worst fascism? Or comunism, or any other "one thinking" style? (Pensiero Unico) This can be maybe worst, because we are going straight on to a "one feeling"!
I'm sure I'm not so original in my thoughts, but I'd like to share my opinions. Vittorio       
Will english mother tongue pardon my mistakes...


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## BasedowLives

I'm going to assumme you're saying that companies are instilling values on children rather than having them learned from more appropriate places (eg, the parents)? When i speak, i'm going to be speaking of the USA, and assuming that it's similar to Italy's system.

Business corporations exist for the sole purpose to make money, as that's the manner conducive to the economic prosperity of a country in capitalism.

There are CEO's and business owners that DO care about the effects of their products, and of future generations. But stock holders couldn't care less. People don't buy stock in companies to care for the future, they buy stock to make themselves rich in the short term.

And if businesses want to be successful, they have to look out for the interests of the stock holders, thus they have to do everything in their power to make sure the company is successful, even if that means selling images and ideas of what you HAVE to be in order to be accepted socially.

feel free to point out any flaws in what i've said.  i like to learn about this kind of thing.


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## LV4-26

There's a growing tendancy in developed countries for political power to fall in the hands of economical power, that is of the owners of the big means of production. The heads of state have often strong links with the big companies.

What is specific to Italy is that both powers are impersonated by the same single individual. 

In that sense, Berlusconi would be a bit like a metaphor made real.


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## foxfirebrand

Well, we have "owners of the big means of production" mentioned in one post, and callous indifferent "stockholders" in another. They are one and the same.

Stockholders consist of any and everybody who decides to buy a share of stock instead of an iPod, or a pile of shares instead of a weekend in Vegas. Or they hit it big in Vegas and do both.

Ownership is vested in them just as political power is vested in voters. People put their money in stocks and bonds and other instruments for as many reasons as there are stockholders, just as voters have their reasons for doing the political equivalent of spending.

Seeing "stockholders" as a monolithic group with a common attitude or motive, whether greedy or altruistic, is an exercise in fantasy.

Consumers-- now there's a group to focus on. Anyone here belong? Your spending choices are the votes that drive everything. It would be naive to say consumers only want this, or are only interested in that. Same-same voters, stockholders-- any aggregate of individuals you want to make sweeping and unwarranted assumptions about.

How about taxpayers?  If they're getting "all they are interested in" for their outlay, they are a _truly _evil bunch.

Compared to any time in history, people are increasingly free to do whatever the hell they want. My modest purchasing power is anonymous, and so is that of the man who in another age might've been a Duke or a Prince who commanded the same precedence in the marketplace that he did in the political arena.  Nobody is privileged, nobody is exempt. 

People are, however, passive. They vote and spend in feckless obedience to influences that pour out of their TV sets-- and believe in propaganda provided by institutions whose interests are served by an ignorant, impulsive populace. That we imagine demonic profiteering "owners" to scapegoat is beneficial to the purveyors of tires, neckties, double mocha-lattes and a marvelous cat-urine-masking freshness-in-a-spraycan product I just bought stock in and hope you'll all try and come to feel you can't live without. It's called Febreze, and if the security ends up stinking as bad as the commodity, I'm in real trouble.

You want to learn how things work? Care to hear an old man's opinion on who turns the demonic gearwork of our civilization and its economy? Tour your living space and make an exhaustive list of all the consumer goods you find in it. If you have economic records, tally the services you've engaged. Boil it all down to a list of the corporations who provide these things-- this may take some researching, but you'll find your internet-browsing skills can be put very effectively to this use.

Now determine just where it is that you find the information on which your political opinions are based. It's hard to be honest about this one, so be forewarned. If you're "educated," chances are this happened in an institution endowed by foundations and tax money directly traceable to the corporations on the list you made earlier. If you ingest a lot of op-ed from print media, watch a lot of "news" on TV and rely to a fair degree on TV, movies, radio and the CD-purveying "music" industry for your entertainment, the owners at the source of all these products (and the means of conveying them) will be those same corporations.

If you do this exercise strictly and exhaustively, you will probably end up identifying yourself as a typical consumer and a mainstream voter. In other words "the owner of Everything."

There is a half-page "short form" you can use if you don't want to itemize all the information above, and it will determine with fair accuracy whether you have met "the owner of Everything" and it was you. It consists of the simple yes/no question, "do you pay taxes and/or receive government benefits of any kind."

Is the answer Yes?  Then you own it because you've bought into it.  
.


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## LV4-26

> If you're "educated," chances are this happened in an institution endowed by foundations and tax money directly traceable to the corporations on the list you made earlier


 It took me quite a long time to read - and understand - your whole post. I'm not sure what you mean by the above.
The schools and universities I went to were only run by the State and I've never heard of any corporations directly or indirectly endowing them. The teacher that taught me had their own independant opinion (different for each). But then maybe I've missed your point here.

I partly agree with (what I understand to be) the global "spirit" of your post. Agreed, the average indivudal like you and me isn't an innocent lamb that would be manipulated, alienated and oppressed by evil monsters. Agreed (but did you actually say it ?), we are actors in the overall system and we participate in its endless reproduction. Agreed, scapegoating is a fundamental element in human sociology, some sort of basic "reflex".

By the way


> That we imagine demonic profiteering "owners" to scapegoat


 (underlined by me)
Would you agree that this is nowhere to be seen in our posts ?
Would you, by any chance, think that this is what we've actually got in mind ?


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## BasedowLives

possibly, what he means by the part you quoted first, is that schools receive lots of funding from big businesses.  (eg, coke)  that's my guess.


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## lsp

LV4-26 said:
			
		

> There's a growing tendancy in developed countries for political power to fall in the hands of economical power, that is of the owners of the big means of production. The heads of state have often strong links with the big companies.
> 
> What is specific to Italy is that both powers are impersonated by the same single individual.
> 
> In that sense, Berlusconi would be a bit like a metaphor made real.


Impersonated (pretend to be another, deceive by imitation) is a "false friend," I believe you mean personified (represent in human form).


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## LV4-26

BasedowLives said:
			
		

> possibly, what he means by the part you quoted first, is that schools receive lots of funding from big businesses. (eg, coke) that's my guess.


 Thanks BasedowLives, that's what I'd understood as well.
But I guess there must be a cultural difference here between US and France. The schools I went to were State schools, run by the "Education Nationale" civil service and there were no private interests whatsoever taking part in them.
Private schools (or non private but receiving funding from companies) do exist in France but they're not the ones that naturally come to my mind when I think of the words "school" and "university".



			
				lsp said:
			
		

> Impersonated (pretend to be another, deceive by imitation) is a "false friend," I believe you mean personified (represent in human form).


 Oh, thanks a lot lsp, you're right, that's what I actually meant.
My first idea was to use "_incarnated"_. Would that fit ? (just a short yes/no answer will do, don't go into details. I don't want to make this thread go too much off-track).


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## foxfirebrand

BasedowLives said:
			
		

> possibly, what he means by the part you quoted first, is that schools receive lots of funding from big businesses. (eg, coke) that's my guess.


Yes, and also alumni.  To say a state-funded school is independent of corporate interests is-- well, do you believe the government itself operates with pristine immunity in that regard?  Makes its political _and financial_ decisions without regard to lobbyists and other special-interest groups?

France has been mentioned.  The government of that country is *very* intricately involved in the economy of its people.  Protectionism is practiced, for example.  "Government" in the abstract aside, the _individuals_ who run that country have their own covert financial interests-- is anyone here naive enough to overlook the wealth amassed by high-placed European political leaders, thanks to the policies they have long implemented regarding Iraq?  Search for and learn some of the information now coming out about the "oil for food" program, by groups empaneled to investigate the UN scandal-- it is a tale of corruption and cynicism you won't find in the "mainstream" media, especially in Europe.

The war in Iraq ruined a sweet financial deal for _individual people_ who in the collective still manage the political (state) and economic (corporate) structures in Europe.  If you are a European, it's no wonder why your leaders had an obstructionist, anti-war policy, and continue to propagandize virulently against developments in the first democratic Arab state ever established.  Or do you think such people act out of high-flown principle?  Your option-- but in my day young people were a whole lot more skeptical than all that.

Are you cynical about "democracy" in Iraq?  Since your leaders have long displayed that attitude, and it has come out in the press, chances are you frame these issues "cynically."  I suggest to you that true cynicism would consist of questioning why your own "cynicism" coincides exactly with that of your leaders-- they have profiteered, you haven't.

Are you pro-Sadam?  (or, as you might define it, anti-war-in-Iraq?)  Chances are you derive your views from the education you got in state-supported schools.  What a coincidence that they produce an electorate who agree with their leaders.

Ages of mass skepticism, usually among the young, arise spontaneously and sporadically-- we had a doozy back in the 60s, but it was co-opted by the Powers That Be within a decade or so.

I hope I live to see the day when young people who wonder about power and politics once again rise up and say "wait a minute!"  If I see signs of an outbreak of it anywhere, I'll pass word along.
.


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## lsp

LV4-26 said:
			
		

> Oh, thanks a lot lsp, you're right, that's what I actually meant.
> My first idea was to use "_incarnated"_. Would that fit ? (just a short yes/no answer will do, don't go into details. I don't want to make this thread go too much off-track).


Yes (personify might be more common).


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## LV4-26

Thanks, lsp. .


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## LV4-26

foxfirebrand said:
			
		

> France has been mentioned.  The government of that country is *very* intricately involved in the economy of its people. .
> .


 So you do agree (sometimes I find it hard to figure out what and who you're actually disagreeing with) with what I said in my first post about the political and economical sphera having strong intricate links ? Though you expressed it much more cleverly than I did, of course.
Only I would have put it the other way round : "the _economy _of that country (and of many others for that matter) is very intricately involved in the _government_ of its people". I'm not sure to what extent this makes a difference.

I still find that in my school-years time (1958-1976), the school system (and many other things) was apparently more dependant to political interests than corporate interests. And that the tendency has been inverted since.(not sure the last sentence is clear and correct English). Or do you deny that there's been any evolution ? Or would you say the difference between those days and the current days is that coporate interests were mainly home interests and that they've shifted to international interests. ?

Or have I missed your point completely ? (not at all impossible )


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## foxfirebrand

LV4-26 said:
			
		

> I still find that in my school-years time (1958-1976), the school system (and many other things) was apparently more dependant to political interests than corporate interests. And that the tendency has been inverted since.(not sure the last sentence is clear and correct English). Or do you deny that there's been any evolution ? Or would you say the difference between those days and the current days is that coporate interests were mainly home interests and that they've shifted to international interests.


Well, I don't think you've missed my point first of all.  Second, I'm not trying to parse the political/economic connection in favor of one facet or the other-- to do so dogmatically I'd have to be more privy to the inner workings of things.  They are connected, we seem to agree in general-- and you make a good point about things becoming more international.

What I was objecting to was the us-vs-them mindset that imputes such saturnine motives to "owners," and ignores the degree to which ordinary people *are*, in the collective, those owners.  I teed off much more on the assertions about stockholders, for that reason.  Why would anyone believe "they" only buy stocks for short-term profit?  Isn't that the exact opposite of how it is, in practice?

But neither you nor LV4-26, who have done most of the posting on this topic, were the culprit who set off my barking on that topic.  I see areas of agreement and overlap in what the three of us are saying, and yes, this has been pointed out without my giving it much acknowledgment.

What I thought was glossed over, and therefore (I) wanted to emphasize was, the extent to which "the system works."  If there are problems and inequities, I tend to see them more as a function of public apathy or complacency, a kind of pseudo-cynicism that says "I'm just the little guy, no exertion I make can effect much of a change," which then leads to "it is someone _else_ who is screwing up the world."  Those evil owners, the venal "stockholders"-- and I guess I saw an anti-private-sector implication in the notion that schools that are tax-funded are not dominated by "corporate" values, and that people who went to public-funded schools came out of them with objective minds and a good critical perspective.

Well, I should be more specific and say that if any of us have developed such assets, it might well be in part _despite_ our educations and not because of them.  The more you and LV4-26 clarify your positions, the less inclined I am to go on a pessimistic rant about it.

I don't mean to tag you as a "culprit" in any serious sense, BasedowLives-- I think you could make a relevant argument about short-term vs long-term goals, but without asserting such a sweeping knowledge about how the average buyer of stock shares behaves, and why.  

I think there's a basis, in the next round or two of discussion of this, to focus on areas of agreement.  What about the cumulative effects of purchasing decisions we all make, as a force in determining corporate policy, and along with it, the political agenda of nations, and even blocs of nations like the EU?

What about the impression I get, and am dismayed by, that the young-adult generation today seem in close agreement with their political leaders, the corporations who profit from their purchasing choices, and the values promoted in mass entertainment?  Are there areas of resistance and criticism that I've overlooked?  Aside from anti-this and anti-that rhetoric that differs not at all from what is provided by the media?
.


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## LV4-26

Who are you actually addressing, FFB ? I mean you're quoting me (LV4-26) (hence I assume you're answering me) and seem to address BasedowLives. ("you and LV4-26"). Are you sure you didn't wake up a little too early ?


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## Swettenham

foxfirebrand said:
			
		

> The war in Iraq ruined a sweet financial deal for _individual people_ who in the collective still manage the political (state) and economic (corporate) structures in Europe.


And created a new one for many American individuals.



> Are you cynical about "democracy" in Iraq?  Since your leaders have long displayed that attitude, and it has come out in the press, chances are you frame these issues "cynically."


I am a touch cynical, though probably not so much because of the cynicism of European leaders nor the optimism of ours, but more so the awesome bloodletting and looming civil war.



> Are you pro-Sadam?  (or, as you might define it, anti-war-in-Iraq?)


This statement would strike me as more reasonable had Saddam attacked us.  Incidentally, you seem to admire the efforts of young people in the 60s.  Were they pro-Ho Chi Minh for being anti-war-in-Vietnam?



> I hope I live to see the day when young people who wonder about power and politics once again rise up and say "wait a minute!"  If I see signs of an outbreak of it anywhere, I'll pass word along.
> .


The problem is that the only thing accomplished in the 60s was (though imperfectly) Martin Luther King's dream.  As far as the hippies, they failed.  _They made us skeptical_— of the true value of "people power."

Well, what we should have learned is that protest movements have a greater chance of reaching some measure of success if they are carried out in a mature, adult-like fashion, as was the Civil Rights movement.  Don't dilute your practical agenda with a "get freaky on drugs and fuck everybody" protocol.  But that's what happens when you let kids do all the skepticism D)— they act like kids.  They make it a party.

When will the adults be skeptical again?


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## Swettenham

A couple years ago I learned from a college professor that in the United States, three companies own all the major music labels and thus are responsible for practically everything we hear on the radio and TV (and, if I remember correctly, the Big 3 themselves have nothing to do with music— like GE.  They just have a hand in every industry that they can get their hands on).

There is a song by a band that refuses to be on major labels, Operation: Cliff Claven, that addresses the idea that big companies feed us our self-images:

Start treating people like meat
That's all they're ever gonna be
One day there won't be people at all
All there will be is paper dolls


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## foxfirebrand

LV4-26 said:
			
		

> Who are you actually addressing, FFB ? I mean you're quoting me (LV4-26) (hence I assume you're answering me) and seem to address BasedowLives. ("you and LV4-26"). Are you sure you didn't wake up a little too early ?


"You nor LV4-26" was meant to include Vittorio52, who started the thread.  I was teeing off on issues each of you had addressed, or one issue seen from two ends of a spectrum.  Later in the post I made a remark to BasedlowLives.  Confusing.  Bottom line, I was making points of my own, or on the way to.



			
				Swettenham said:
			
		

> And created a new one for many American individuals.


Well, that's mediaspeak if I ever heard it.  There's a chance it could be true-- but neither you nor I know enough about it to contravert the stated goal (installing a 1945-Japan-like constitutional government) and make a moral equivalency between our policy and that of the decadent pocket-lining Euro leaders.  Saying "Halliburton" three times as you spin in place and strew a magic circle of powdered brick and fingernail parings-- doesn't pass for a reasoned argument, based on facts.

Time will tell.  With their wealth, the Iraqis stand to become a major economic force and thrive as a nation-- and an economic rival at times, as Japan is.  History, not agenda-driven media rhetoric, will sort it out.

And the point you make suffers from the disadvantage of ignoring the endemic bribery and other venal crimes that cost Iraqis their lives and condemned them to a hellish civic life-- all being committed by the same people who screamed about "sanctions" being at the root of Iraqi depravations.  The other unfortunate thing about your _riposte_ is that it embraces, in a sin of omission, the very cynicism I was criticizing.

Saddam attacked people, and peoples, prodigiously.  Was it "us" he attacked?  Did Hitler?  Our allies the UK could pump their own North Sea prosperity if a hostile Caliphate grew out of the combined territories of Iraq and a forcibly-acquired Kuwait (for starters)-- how would the rest of Europe be faring now?  Their rhetoric is "anti-war," but so was their diplomacy in the 1930s-- the track record for avoiding war by a preemptive and preventative foreign policy is dismal.  There is a large-minority faction within the U.S. that also shrinks from such an approach.

You predict doom, civil war-- forgive me if I point out that you almost seem to _preach_ the idea.  I do like your distinction-drawing, in analyzing the Counterculture, between their accomplishments and failures.  A similar breed of Idealists (but skeptical of U.S. power) thrived in the thirties, along with the anti-fascist minority in Europe-- for them came wrecked dreams too.  A certain blindness to the nature of Stalin and his regime was the crucial factor-- _plus ça change...
.
_


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## V52

I'm reading all your opinions, pardon me, I need time to translate everything... sorry...
Vittorio


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## BasedowLives

> Seeing "stockholders" as a monolithic group with a common attitude or motive, whether greedy or altruistic, is an exercise in fantasy.


what other purpose could you see in owning a share of a corporation?  i know, that if i did it'd be to make money...

and as far as consumers...yeah, there's not a whole lot you can do about consuming products of giant business, short of banning them completely (see arcata california banning restaurant chains)


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## Outsider

The founders of modern democracies were careful to separate executive power, legislative power, and judicial power, and they did their best to separate religion from state. Unfortunately, they did not foresee the rise of economic power and media power. Our generation, and those of our children and grandchildren, are going to have to deal with that new threat.


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## BasedowLives

Outsider said:
			
		

> The founders of modern democracies were careful to separate executive power, legislative power, and judicial power, and they did their best to separate religion from state. Unfortunately, they did not foresee the rise of economic power and media power. Our generation, and those of our children and grandchildren, are going to have to deal with that new threat.


_"corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed"_ - abraham lincoln

when corporations were first invented, they didn't have nearly as much power as they do today. They were authorized by the government to exist for a certain amount of time, then they had to disban. Then, people decided that they needed to be more powerful, so they extended the same rights that people have, to that of a corporation. So corporations, are essentially defined as "moral" people, and have all of the same rights.


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## Outsider

Did you mean to write "legal people" instead of "moral people"?

It should perhaps be added that the rise of the power of corporations is not something new. In the 19th century there was the age of the so-called Robber Barons. But media power, with the strength that it has today, seems to be a new player in the political circus.


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## BasedowLives

Outsider said:
			
		

> Did you mean to write "legal people" instead of "moral people"?
> .



" _fictional person,_ a _legal person_, or a _moral person" that was what i paraphrased._


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## foxfirebrand

Outsider said:
			
		

> It should perhaps be added that the rise of the power of corporations is not something new. In the 19th century there was the age of the so-called Robber Barons. But media power, with the strength that it has today, seems to be a new player in the political circus.


Yes-- just as the Republicans took on the abuses of laissez-faire Corporate rule (in the late 19th c), and gained a lot of political capital by "trust-busting," so someone is eventually going to go after the too-powerful Media.

I could care less which political party picks this plum.  The average person is beginning to get fed up with media excess, and I can see people don't like being manipulated, and deny it's happening, often when I'm trying to make the case that it is _exactly_ what's happening.  Well, rather than try and win the argument, I hope we'll all be able to put the emphasis on solving the problem-- and soon, within the current generation.

Third-party movements fail on the perception that they are "one-issue" parties.  I sometimes think that Media-busting is going to be such a big enough issue to put a new party on the political map.  That plus the fed-up feeling so many people have for one party or the other-- or a "plague on both your houses" thing I hear expressed more and more lately.

As for the motive for buying stock (for BasedowLives), I was objecting to the idea that it's always for *short-term* profit, and that shareholders are therefore indifferent to farsighted considerations, such as sustainability (in the lumber industry for example).  I don't own any stock myself, by the way (the comment about Febreze was facetious)-- but I am confident that I'm right about most people looking to Wall Street for long-term investments.  I wonder if you might  know  a few on-line "day traders" who speculate, much as a casino gambler would-- and you're basing your idea of "stockholders" on them?  Most portfolios are conservative, "measured growth" or even "income-generating" in their strategy.  You put the money on time-tested securities and leave it there indefinitely, with the hopes of eventually owning enough stock to retire on the quarterly dividends you receive-- where your capital investment isn't even touched.

For one thing, capital-gains retaxation of investments that appreciate-- are a real disincentive against buying and selling at all.  Even if you guess right every time you pick a speculative short-term stock, the 18-30% chunk the government bites out of your profits almost guarantees a losing game.
.


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