this morning was was pondering... (who built this country)

[TalkingDog]

This morning was was thinking about how this country was not built by corporations. It wasn't built by businessmen. It wasn't built by money or power.

First, it was built by people. Some of them by necessity, some of them by choice and some of them against their will.

But it was always people. Human beings. Who got up every day and slogged through the day. And sometimes someone would happen on an idea that made things easier or better for them and eventually for everybody else.

And when laws were passed and policy implemented, some had an inherent bias toward a certain color, class and sex. But people were allowed to find fault with those laws and policies; changing them with their collective voice.

When did that change? When did the work and will of the people become secondary to corporate interests?

This morning I came across this quote : This country was not built by men in suits, but it sure was destroyed by them.

I think that pretty much sums it up.

[randr]

1. I have always seen the country divided between profit makers and profit takers

As a designer/builder I have created dozens of fine homes that will last at least a century or more. They will be sold many times and each time the profit may get greater. I have created profit. The people who buy and sell the homes will be taking the profit.
This sums it up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxGGckAc1rs

[liberal N proud]

2. K&R

[msongs]

3. our financial structure consists of 2 pyramids, each the reverse of the other. One pyramid is

the amount of meaningful hands on work, with the base at the bottom where the lowest paid workers are doing the real work of creating. The other is inverse, with the widest point at the top. This is the income, where the people who do the least amount of actual work are making the most and the people at the pointy end on the bottom make the least amount.

Many businesses with management bonuses are also pyramid schemes. The people who make the pizzas make the least. The manager gets bonuses on the work of the actual pizza makers, and the regional managers make bonuses on the work of the regular managers. The regional managers do no actual work generating the wealth, they are just paper pushers.The higher up the scheme one goes, the less work generating wealth one does and the higher the income.

[Angry Dragon]

6. +1000

[Angry Dragon]

4. Another way to look at it

If you get rid of corporations, the people will survive

If you get rid of the people, the corporations will crumble

Which one really needs the other to survive??

[quinnox]

5. We built this country on

rock n roll... Sorry, I always hated that song and the OP title put it into my head.

[RevStPatrick]

7. This country was founded by corporate interests.

The first 200 years of North American history was largely the story of early corporate doings. The western hemisphere would probably still be inhabited by "savages" (not that that would necessarily be a bad thing!)if it were not for royal charters giving the multi-national corporations of the day free-reign.

Mind you... the multi-nationals in those days were just as (if not infinitely more) exploitative and oppressive than those today. I say all of this because you begin with a faulty premise. I think your history is wrong.

This hemisphere was built by corporations. And the people they exploited.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_West_India_Company
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson%27s_Bay_Company
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Bay_Colony
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Netherland_Company
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Company

Etc...

[TalkingDog]

8. I don't deny the stated historical facts.

But those bits of history are not everything.

People came here to escape oppression... hell they still do. And people came here to start a new life because the social strata were not nearly as defined here. We supposedly did away with castes and royalty we we set up a democratic republic.

The people who decided to pile all their possessions into a boat/covered wagon and cross miles of ocean/wilderness were not corporations. They were not sponsored by corporations. The majority of them did not work for corporations once they got where they were going. They cleared a piece of land (and probably killed a few native americans in the process.... I'm not saying they were perfect humans... just not corporations) and set to building a life. And when those collections of people grew large enough to form towns and cities they still weren't corporations.

In your estimation, how many people then worked for a corporate structure then, versus now?