Corporations Are Parasites

Liberals and Conservatives both agree that modern corporations are a vital and necessary economic force in society. The difference between the two is merely a matter of degree. Conservatives/ Republican Party want to allow corporations free rein to exploit markets without regulatory interference. Liberals/Democratic Party want corporations to be less heavy handed by placing a vaguely defined minimum of regulatory restraints on their exploitative practices.

In the last 100 years corporations have become bigger, richer, more aggressive, and thus more powerful. In the United States, corporations are now the dominant force in civil society. They have become the dominant force because of a Supreme Court decision in 1886 known as Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railway where a distinction was made between natural persons (human beings) and legal persons (corporations). The Supreme Court ruled that legal persons had the same rights as natural persons. Then came a succession of Supreme Court rulings expanding the rights of legal persons culminating in a Supreme Court ruling (1976) known as Buckley v. Valeo where the court ruled that money was free speech. Since corporations are the richest private organizations in society, according to Buckley v. Valeo, corporations enjoy the most free speech. The more free speech corporations have the louder corporate voices become drowning out other voices. As a direct result politically, the corporate agenda becomes the agenda because nearly all of the decision makers (Liberals and Conservatives) have become servile lackeys of the corporation.

Conservatives/Republican Party talk incessantly about the need for government to stay out of free markets because the invisible hand of the free markets will ultimately create economic efficiencies through price competition thereby making life better for people in general. In bumper sticker fashion. ”Regulation is Bad. Freedom is Good.” The problem with this economic conception is that it is nothing more than a myth. The American economy is dominated by oligopolies that do not compete over price. Instead these oligopolies compete through advertising: “Buy my stuff and you will save money!”

An oligopoly is a market condition in which the production of identical or similar products is concentrated (to the tune of at least 40% of market share) in a few large firms. Examples of oligopolies in the United States include the steel, aluminum, automobile, gypsum, petroleum, tire, banking, energy, and beer industries. The introduction of new products and processes can create new oligopolies, as in the computer or synthetic fiber industries. Microsoft sells more than 80% of the operating systems in the U.S. market. Oligopolies also exist in service industries, such as the airlines industry and the food industry. Oligopolistic practices include the practice of “dumping” in order to destroy the competition. Several years ago a national hamburger chain moved into a medium size central Texas town. The town had been served by several Mom and Pop hamburger stands for years. Circumventing existing unfair competition laws in place in Texas at the time, the hamburger chain advertised locally that they would take coupons, including super market coupons. The hamburger chains pricing scheme meant that every hamburger sold was sold at a loss. Within two months the Mom and Pop stands went out of business because they could not compete at a price point that was not profitable. After the Mom and Pop stands closed, the chain stopped taking coupons. Price competition ended and the national hamburger chain controlled the entire local market. Months later another hamburger chain moved into the local market but there was no price competition between the two. The same kind of hamburger sold at the same price in each hamburger store.

The raison d'être for corporations is to get bigger, richer, and more powerful. The logical future for corporations is to replace their competitors, dominant and eventually control the entire market, and in the long run, either reduce or even eliminate government regulation. Conservatives applaud and encourage this corporate behavior. It is also no exaggeration to conclude, however, that corporations are at their core irrational, politically anarchistic, and economically parasitic. And like all parasites, corporations will kill their host and in the process commit suicide. The problem for all of us is the fact that the corporate host is civil society and the entire physical planet.

Liberals/Democratic Party will argue that the best way to deal with corporate power is to capture the government and use the legal system to control and moderate corporate excesses. They will say that since the corporation was a legally defined entity, it should not be difficult to legally rein it in or put it out of business all together. These people forget that the modern form of government is an invention of the corporation and at the same time, organically, the modern corporation is an invention of the modern form of government. This can be seen symbolically where the business suit, the uniform of the corporation has become the uniform of the government. Over the last 100 years the entire government has been transformed into a creature that primarily serves the interest of the corporation. It has been the Supreme Court in conjunction with the United States Senate that has managed this transformation over the last 100 years because the Supreme Court and the Senate has been staffed disproportionately with Conservative pro corporate lawyers and businessmen.

For example The Supreme Courts ruling in “Citizens United v. Federal Elections Committee (1/21/10) swept away all restrictions on corporate spending thereby allowing corporations to overwhelm the election process. The decision was 5-4 where the five justices (sic) who ruled in favor of corporations are all corporate lawyers or Republican Party operatives. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy was a corporate lawyer in his father’s practice in San Francisco and Sacramento. While in Sacramento Kennedy also worked as a lobbyist for Republican Party causes when Edwin Meese, special advisor to Ronald Reagan, advanced his career. Antonin Scalia began his legal career at Jones Day, where he worked from 1961 to 1967. Jones Day is an international law firm specializing in corporate law and is currently the second largest law firm in the United States, with approximately 2,400 lawyers and gross annual revenue in excess of US$1.4 billion. Clarence Thomas was a corporate lawyer in the pesticide and agriculture division of the Monsanto Company. Thomas’ mentor, who also shephered Thomas through the Supreme Court confirmation process, was Senator John Danforth whose grandfather was William H. Danforth the founder of Ralston Purina. Samuel A. Alito also had his career advanced by Attorney General Ed Meese when Meese had Alito appointed Assistant Solicitor General, Deputy Attorney General, and United States Attorney for New Jersey. Chief Justice John Roberts was a corporate lawyer for Hogan & Hartson, the oldest major law firm in Washington D.C. According to Chambers & Partners Global 2008: The World's Leading Lawyers for Business, Hogan & Hartson is recognized globally for its excellence in the following areas: data protection, international trade, real estate investment trusts, life sciences and technology, media and telecommunications.

The key for the future of the planet is to disband the corporation and replace it with an economic system that is not parasitic but sustainable. Just as any attempt to make a pig fly of its own accord, any attempt at reforming the corporation using the modern form of government will certainly never get off the ground.