Many of the comments here are forgetting the power of ELHI, K through 12. In the 1950s and early 1960s in a small industrial city of 25,000, we young citizens of Portsmouth, Ohio, were given a solid sense of history, literature, foreign language, math and the social graces. I hitched my wagon to history, political science and literature before I was twenty years old, thanks to grades one through twelve. The foundation of a liberal education is presented early in life. Advanced training at Musk/Bezos University is not necessarily dehumanizing, if you enter already a well-rounded citizen.
16
We should not pretend that once the fruits of a decent, community-centered approach to life - such as our educational system - have been destroyed by corporations' short-term, anti-tax mentality that those same corporations can then step in and make it all better with some in-house training. That's like expecting your gated community will keep you safe or that destruction of the EPA won't eventually mean that you, too, won't be able to breathe.
23
Let's not forget that much of government regulations and bureaucracy is in response to bad behavior by corporations. There will always need to be a police department. Imagine drug companies getting their products to market much faster without a pesky FDA first making sure the drugs don't kill people.
13
Elon Musk is maybe the future. Kind of like the example of low-income housing. Or Millenium Park in Chicago. Rich folks get tax breaks in projects bundled together to perform quasi-governmental functions. OK, forget the "quasi." I'm thinking we're going to see the Warren Buffet Hudson River Tunnel, the Pritzker Interstate Highway. How about the Richard Cheney Iraq War? If ya can't tax 'em, bribe 'em with vanity projects.
6
This is an insidious column, with Bruni cherry picking reasonable sounding quotes from really destructive individuals like Larry Summers and Betsy De Dos about education. He is cynical in his outlook--very depressing to read, and very predictable.
One of the reasons that large corporations find themselves needing to take over training of staff is because Republican tax cuts have robbed our education system to pay huge benefits to these very corporations--then we have Bruni and his cohorts tuttuting about the failures of American education.
19
While reading your op-ed Mr. Bruni, images from a 1960s movie popped into my head: of a freshly shaven man played by Fred McMurray, Jack Lemmon or some such actor kissing his wife, grabbing his hat and attaché case and passing through the front door of their house onto a residential street. The camera pans to a wide-angle view and shows men dressed in the same suit, with the same hat and carrying the same attaché case, all exiting their identical looking houses along the suburban street at the same time. All of them are catching the same train to the metropolis where they work in identical-looking cubicles.
Conformity in those days happened mostly on the surface, and it could be shown in a mainstream Hollywood film in humorous “memes” that everyone understood as comic. Nowadays conformity is fully internalized, while the superficial comes in all shapes and flavors, so every individual believes they are just that - "individual".
However, this time around the management and control of social currents is in the private profit-oriented sector and the hands of Bezos, Zuckerberg and their kind. It’s Orwell's 1984; a little late maybe, but a lot more pervasive and a whole lot worse. In part because the victims don't even realize that they're being taken.
8
Interesting contrast between the reduced and decrepit public sector and the striking achievements of private wealth.
It's more than a contrast; it is a contest, in fact a conflict. As you point out, the public sector is in shambles.
But as a sports fan and avid consumer of competent analysis of who wins or looses and why, I gotta say you ignore the fact that most of the players on the public team are under contract to the other guys.
Our public sector would function better, as it did for a couple centuries except when conservatives get inflamed and decide to break government, as they are doing, again, at the state and federal level.
Just as before the Civil War, conservatives are on a crusade to preserve/restore a fantasy, and will swallow any nastiness, sacrifice every virtue, embrace any charlatan who waves their bloody rag.
In fact, soul-less fat white guys in board rooms who thought the bottom line was the only line got humans in this mess.
Ignoring the way the conflict plays out is no recipe for getting us out. "Can't tell the players without a scorecard." That's your job, Frank. Do better.
6
Another example of how we are drifting away from the concept of the 'common good'. Corporations will only fill in what specific items they lack. If by happenstance that also provides a social benefit, then so be it. If not, then so be it. Our concept of common humanity is evaporating. Just look at the Trump administration with its unmitigated gall and unapologetic transactional judgments.
Humanity without humans - just what our society is attempting to evolve towards. A very meaningless existence.
People gain the most when doing for others and providing service to the 'common good'. When our leaders (politicians) start displaying again a true commitment to the 'common good' then we may start to rise out of this morass.
8
The reason schools are unable to train future workers and corporations are filling in the educational void is because Devos and her GOP minions in state and federal government are viciously slashing funds to public schools and channeling those funds to, you guessed it, corporate entities that just so happen to support GOP legislators.
12
I for one welcome the return of and authoritative rule by my economic betters.
2
Our failures didn’t start with the latest round of feckless members of congress and it won’t end when they leave. But to my way of thinking all the rest of us the “real” Americans can will must should and indeed must be looking at any way possible to keep this country moving forward. And if it’s our businesses then so be it.
2
America is based upon the idea that personal advancement is the primary motivator, and this has become self fulfilling because collective action is seldom undertaken without being undercut by selfishness. Other countries have managed to have effective governments. Imagine what Norwegians would have achieved with America’s natural resources.
5
Dear Frank Bruni - first smile today - your words "bumbling klutz" about our federal government! Elon Musk's splendid rocket into space last week, a rocket as a sign of our American future. The paradox we are living today in 2018 is an example of our people discarding old moral thinking about immigration, climate change, LGBT rights, and far more. The pace of change in automation and AI is staggering and is confronting hoary institutions. Critical thinking and problem-solving has gone with the wind in American secondary and tertiary institutions of learning. Digital mission creep is what's happening as our new American paradigm appears like Halley's Comet today. Money is the motivater for companies seeking to take over the business of governing from America's moribund government. Federal tribalism (our antidiluvian Republican houses of Congress and medieval Trumpian executive) is on the road to to perdition. Long may Musk, Bezos, Warren Buffett, Branson, Lehane, and new corporate minds and hands, wave!
"There is no United States, there is no democracy, there is only AT&T, IBM, Exxon and Dupont..."
I don't think anything has changed since the movie Network came out in 1976.
9
The corporate oligarchy's political party is hard at work hammering down the mechanisms of oppression.
2
To see what corporations can achieve, wait until the Koch brothers spend $400 million on the next election. Unbelievable!
8
When we own our government it will work for us all.
The changes below have over 80% support!
Imagine millions of us using a simple app to make a mass demand politicians could not ignore. This can go viral if celebrities and opinion shapers in both parties publicize it.
"We The People 250."
A constitutional amendment that does the following:
1) maximum contribution to any candidate for public office - $250. Applies to any level - city council to president.
2) same $250 limit for "political speech" (if a person or group wants to air a commercial taking a political view, the funds for that commercial, that political speech, can only be garnered in maximum $250 chunks. No billionaire or organization can command the airwaves with massive buys of political speech.)
3) all congressional districts drawn by non-partisan panels. California does this now.
4) no lobbying after leaving Congress. No employment by any company on which the politician voted.
5) full, complete disclosure of all financial holdings and tax records from any candidate and all sitting politicians.
6) automatic registration to vote if one is a citizen.
7) mailed ballots - done successfully in Oregon now. Paper and audits can't be hacked.
8) extra provisions, drafted by experts in campaign finance to cover all other issues.
Our government is not for sale.
Our brave soldiers did not die for that.
We turn 250 in eight years.
This ammendment will be our early birthday present to America.
23
You point out that capitalism is failing and some think it is definitely on it last legs. You suggest society might be better if corporations take control.
You are correct on the first idea, and very naive on the second.
Corporations are not democracy and have narrow goals and values and they are in fact "taking over" with their power of campaign financing.
They are already taking us into a type of fascism that someone has labeled "inverted fascism," a variety that appears democratic but is not. Check that out.
The corporations are interested in one facet of life, profit; and nothing else. If that's the kind of society you want to live in move to a banana republic; we are becoming one of those. The media are corporations and rely on the elite and push out their propaganda daily.
One seldom hears the media speak of the worker/common man problems and how to solve them. Government health care for all cannot be discussed, nor "what happened to unions" nor the need to improve our K-12 schools, nor the disparity in wealth in our country. All ignored because of corporations! And you want more of that? You work for that media and now you article makes sense, right.
Small note: In regard to the recent stock market drops, many started trying to find the cause; most of the media and the elite were yelling INFLATION, INFLATION IS SEEN TO BE COMING! There was no report that indicated inflation. The report that caused that was a report on the increasing wages of workers! That says it all
8
Too late, Frank. It has already happened.
3
“But companies’ primary concern isn’t public welfare. It’s the bottom line.” Geez, Frank, it took you a while to finally get to the punch line!
Yes, the same instincts that make us resist domination by government should lead us to resist domination by a few, large corporations.
7
Sounds to me like Frank has sold out and gone corporate booster/cheerleader. Ask oneself how most of those resources were acquired? Most basic research in this country is done at public expense. Grifters like Musk just glommed onto the spillover. Good for them, but who really build the roads, bridges rockets and what not. Behind every robber baron are millions doing the real work.
2
There are already dozens of private universities in the land: they do not deliver.
The private thrust in the educational fiel has been to squeeze easy money of the hopeful youths that work and want to advance in their jobs and have a better life. However, the universities make it very easy for those students "to make the grade" with little discipline and poor learning.
I remember the famous phrase of a big private university DA "We are a paper University", and they are, although his meaning was "we do not test our students, a lousy paper is enough to get an "A." That was in my way out after asking me for my resignation.
And of course, I am writing about modern private universities, not the old "Bricl and Mortar" private universities.
It was Karl Marx that first described the modern corporation and it was Karl Marx who best analyzed the rise of the corporation.
Our college years during the Golden Age of America...aka The Cold War...taught us that the world was best defined as "Capitalism vs Communism"..but that allegory was only valid for the Cold War.
"Capitalism" from the frame of reference of the Electronic Age....can be seen as more or less a 19th century economic model that functioned very well into the early 20th, but began to falter as Corporations metamorphazed into organisms far more complex than a handfull of industrialists smoking cigars in leather uphostered chairs in a wood panelled club room.
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Karl Marx, a member of the London Stock Exchange, saw it coming first. A Corporation composed of stockholders, working for the common good of those stockholders. Our 1960s college professors all dreamily saw this as "oppressed workers" taking control of the factories;...But the reality looks more like the UAW Pension Fund and the California State Workers Pension fund owning enough stock to call the shots for Enron, a subsidiary of AmeriCorp.
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Our so-called political parties are...registered corporations....DNC,Inc and RNC,Inc. Neither political corporation has much interest in America per se...but, Like their sister corporations, the Soviet Communist Party and the Chinese Communist Party.....they conduct business only for the profit of its membership.
4
Your corporate hero, Elon Musk, just sold 20,000 flamethrowers through his Boron subsidiary. How innovative - What could possibly go wrong? The theft of our elections facilitated by social media? The death of tens of thousands of young lives due to pharmaceutical drugs, grossly overproduced and marketed by corporations? The taxpayer funded for-profit corporate colleges - nothing less than Trump Universities ripping off the uninformed. The destruction of our environment and our children's future by the oil industry - the owner of the Republican party? Yes, let's trust in the Koch brothers.
6
Considering how many of the Corporate “Masters of the Universe” young and old are buying “escape” property in New Zealand and/or have equipped high tech survival bunkers for them and their families, you have to question their commitment to creating a future “workers’ paradise” for the rest of us.
9
Bruni's first plaintive paragraph seems like satire, but let’s confront reality. First: "he who pays the piper calls the tune." The GOP doesn't want to run anything other than to run the federal government into the ground. That's what their paymasters want, including the Koch Bros. That's what the honchos of the slave-owning states have wanted since abolitionists got restive; it's what corporations have wanted since income and corporate taxes came along. When Reagan said "government is the problem" he meant the federal government. He preached it in 1964 as he plugged Goldwater. He preached it in 1980 when he declared for the presidency--remember his "States' Rights" speech? He wasn't just being a whacky old uncle. He was laying the groundwork for the next phase in the Civil War. And they've won. Maybe we won't all admit that until November this year, when they again take control of Congress. They've won because they’ve convinced Americans that this is a rock-solid democracy that cannot be knocked off course. Meanwhile, Red States curb rights, and with the biggest tax-rebate ever to the wealthy, the Union has been put on a course to be inoperable. And BTW, when lame-brains like Rick Perry say they’ll end the Dept. of Ed, what’s that about? That’s about taking federal funding out of state schools, so that states can resegregate if they wish.
4
The government is inept largely because ever since Reagan, the Republican Party has turned politics into blood sport--winning is everything--and have deliberately undermined our attitudes towards the government, and its ability to perform its functions. Their agenda of (1) shrinking government ("until it's small enough to drown in the bathtub"); (2) using the tax system to redistribute wealth from poor to rich; and (3) going to any extreme to hold and exert power (even elevating the goal of opposing Obama to a higher priority than helping our nation), has brought us where we are today. The Republicans are quite happy to have corporations and capitalists rule America; that is what they believe in. Not in liberty, freedom, or government of the people, by the people, for the people. They prefer government of the people, by the corporations, for the capitalists. And everyone who has voted Republican bears the responsibility for the outcome. (Not that the Democrats have been much better; they are focused on giving citizenship to illegal immigrants, rather than taking care of Americans.)
Now, we will really find out what it means to live in a corporatist state. I'm afraid the corporations and capitalists don't much care about us Americans, except as worker drones. Who would you rather have ruling your lives, the government (ourselves) or the corporations?
2
This is the reason I take no pride in being a US citizen.
We used to do amazing things in the public sector. We built massive, life changing dams, highways, and bridges. We went to the moon doing calculations on slide rules. We established a reputation as the best country in the world.
Now what do we have? We leave all grand accomplishments to the private sector, have leaders who are the laughingstock of the civilized world, and our reputation is in tatters. We’re coasting on our past accomplishments figuratively and literally. I’m not sure how we’ll end up but if things continue as they are it won’t be pretty.
The great irony is that in response to this ugly, slow decline we elected the party that blocks all progress to every branch of government.
5
Will inherit? Have inherited.
2
I'm surprised that Bruni would look to Betsy DeVos for advice about anything let alone education. When she was still in Michigan, she and her husband used their Amway fortune to try to totally destroy public schools in Detroit and other school districts by advocating for totally unregulated charter schools. DeVos, who does not have a degree in education or a teaching certificate, wants children, mostly minorities, to attend schools with absolutely no oversight. So extreme were her views that the Michigan legislature, mostly Republican, voted to override this provision. But DeVos sent them more money and they changed their votes. She also wants to deregulate for profit "colleges" once again, so students will end up thousands of dollars in debt with worthless degrees.
DeVos is merely the tip of the iceberg for the charter school scam. Why do public schools have to follow regulations while charter schools, often funded by wall street, can override these regulations, pick and choose their students and pay non union wages. One of their main purposes is to bust the unions. . Why in the world would Bruni think that Wall Street and people like DeVos and Eva Muskowitz, know more than union educators, with degrees and years of experience. If he thinks that we are better off with inexperienced people and those with out knowledge in a field, why not turn over in writing job to someone who knows nothing about English or writing.
3
As I read this article thoughts of the plot for the movie "Rollerball", starring James Caan, were never far from my mind.
Time to regress back to the Middle Ages and City States!
1
And, I owe my soul to the company store
1
Yup and in each case the basic research was done by the government!
By the way: an educational institution designed to serve the needs of a company (beer company) was created back in 1943 in Monterrey, N. L. Mexico (Institute of Technology and Higher Education "ITESM)) by the owner of tat enterprise and was successful: He created excellent "human cogs" bent to make money and ignorant of social needs and liberal arts; after all, if you can program very well, no company is interested to know if the employee has ever read anything not related to programming.
1
As the world turns, it turns toward oligarchies. Let's see what is happening in Russia, China, USA, many emerging market countries. Big corporations and the rich own the governments. Or, governments own the corporate titans. In a nod to Thomas Friedman, this is the flat world we and our children have inherited.
And so we in the US cut taxes, decrease consumer protection, and spend more on defense. This is not a pretty picture.
At least the Martin Shkreli's of the world can sometimes be apprehended. Now, tell me why Heather Bresch, CEO of Mylan Inc. and EpiPen price gouger, still has her job? Oh, yeah. Her father is U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, so that makes it OK.
2
“They are very frustrated with what they’re getting from our educational institutions,”
This is nonsense. Companies used to train and they cannot expect schools to provide exactly what they need. If they really want students ready to go, they should push for a German style system but that would include job protections that US businesses do not want. This article is a lot of hot air.
And now Trump's tax "reform" spurs them to buy back their own stocks and take themselves private. Soon we will live under a management dictatorship.
1
In 1776 the East India Company owned and operated over half the world.
Earlier in 1773 the East India Company had a lot of tea and not enough liquid assets. The East India Company paid the British Parliament to levy a tax on everyone else's tea. The merchants of Boston boarded the East India Company ships in Boston Harbour and dumped the untaxed tea overboard. By the end of the 19th century the East India Company was no more.
3
Not "will". They've already inherited it.
Mohamed Yunis is championing social enterprises as an essential element in human survival over the long term. He makes a compelling case that our future success in addressing health care, poverty, and global warming needs solution by organizations that are as innovative in their structures and practices as in their products and services. The future is neither from the left or right, it is up, down, blue, red, and orange. We need new ways of thinking with new vocabularies.
A most interesting debate of whose responsibility it is to create the conditions, via politics, to satisfy human survival and progress ( and politics is the art of the possible, by allocating resources when and where needed, to serve all and everyone, as equitably as possible, in a spirit of freedom and cooperation of our rich diversity...if inclusion is taken for granted, and where we naturally contribute according to our talents, and give to those 'left behind' with a generous and just social safety net.). This responsibility pertains to a government we, the people, choose; and complemented with the prowess of corporate 'know-how and it's ability to distribute timely the goods and services required to maintain a peaceful society. But it does require an equilibrium, sensible regulations to distribute the pie more equitably...and keep greed in check. Basic research, essential for it's eventual pick-up by the corporate world, still requires the government's hand. What is missing is having true representatives that know what they are doing (competency) and truly dedicated to serving the public that chose them (and not self-serving). Could it be that we, the people, 'a la Pogo', are responsible for the current mess, where trust in government is at it's lowest, partly due to a runaway republican party, 'we' elected, complicit with a most unscrupulous thug at the helm?
The american government is dead - that is plain to see. As for corporations, they haven't the slightest motive to make life better. Instead, let me suggest #calexit - I'm pretty sure California will do well for Californians.
3
Once these global octopi have conveniently seized everything [c. 2100?], we can blockchain them as public assets, & distrib profits in demand-side stipends to legions of jobless precarians. Soit!
1
"Elon Musk borrowed a launchpad previously used by NASA’s trailblazing astronauts to send his own rocket into space. "
Bruni forgot to mention that the rocket, carrying a crash dummy in a red topless car, is off-target. It is headed towards an asteroid belt. I guess that is a good an analogy as any. Corporations will launch whatever they want, not what we need, and take it in the wrong direction. We will get hit in the head by flying rocks.
3
"Will corporations inherit the earth?" Frank, you're 23 years too late: https://www.amazon.com/When-Corporations-World-David-Korten/dp/1626562873 Korten saw this coming, and says it's only gotten worse.
In the early 70s, when right wing think tanks developed, there was palpable fear among business owners that people were starting to believe that one could be happy without amassing material goods - that true peace could be found....."within"...
This must be stopped, they thought... and they seem to be succeeding.
Why are we here? Does our life have any meaning or purpose?
The high priests, the scientists, tell us the more they learn about the universe, the more it appears pointless.
If you wonder how a man like Donald Trump got to the White House, how we've got to a point where 8 year old kids are watching more pornography than their parents could ever conceive (see today's NYT magazine) where Ross Douthat thinks the only solution is from the middle ages, where David Brooks thinks the only solution is to go back to a time, when, allegedly, people lived in strong communities, where Thomas Friedman thinks meaningless techno-solutions are the answer, where even Nick Kristof can only come up with high-level "be nice" solutions -
we are meant for more https://www.facebook.com/don.salmon.10
"Look within the heart to find That which is constant amid the flux of thoughts that come and go like clouds that float in the sky."
3
This is not new news. I had a discussion with my team lead about this in 2004.
You don't need to inherit what you already own.
3
international corporations will rule the world in the not too distant future. sounds like Rollerball once again. we do have a super bowl but concussions are a problem for the participants. give it a little time. A. I. will help create a better athlete. who cares? the fans will not care one whit as long as the corporation wins the big game.
americans are bereft of ideas to the point of Ms. De Vos gets her ideas from Israeli ambassador.
corporate interests once Beijing completes their new islands will be unified somewhere other than the USA of Kansas.
Pucker up world. this is not a movie script any longer. it is reality and your future.
Mr. Bruni great column.
1
Wow! This is old news if you are a cyberpunk fan. William Gibson described a world run by zaibatsus in his books last century. Corporations become the real governments in the world. This is the way democracy fizzles.
1
There's no vacuum. Big businesses have smashed at democracy until they got what they wanted: an ineffective president and a congress full of minions that will do their bidding. This column is just more whistling in the dark.
2
Patriarchy is always some form of monarchy built on the male dominant model. Women get to participate and we call that feminism. Sometimes we call it communism when gangsters pretend to help working people and other times we call it capitalism when the thieves admit they are just helping themselves, but ultimately it's the same. In a few years there will be a big war between Amazon perhaps and some other money machine, TrumPutin maybe, and we will get to choose sides to prove our loyalty to our new gods.
How far we have not come.
We may become a strange hybrid of medieval fiefdoms run like clockwork by corporations and vast spaces of well-meaning incompetence left to politicians. Perhaps the era of national government is over; there will only be roaming tribes and fortresses.
4
What do you mean "his rocket" Frank? Who developed, tested, used that technology for decades? Who provides Musk with billions in contracts to launch satellites? Who developed the Internet that allowed Musk to become a billionaire in the first place?
It was that herky-jerky klutz of a government. They didn't build that, as Obama said. They socialized the costs (including the launchpad) and privatized the profits.
5
Why not find alternatives to paralyzing traffic other than boring holes in the ground? Can't we change the entire paradigm?
The democracy of consumerism is much more powerful than our actual democracy
We have barely touched the potential
Small brands and disruptive companies are upending the corporate dinosaurs
And corporates listen when boycotts happen en mass
Unfortunately government is a dinosaur and the current admin has destroyed it. I have zero faith in government anymore - the unprincipled republicans in the face of this admin and the Democrat's completely aging leadership, out of touch and out of ideas, is worse to me given the opportunity. They have been outmaneuvered at every turn because of their own ineptitude
I have more faith in apple and amazon then my government unfortunately
Yes the bottom line is important for them - but that's something we can manipulate through voting with our dollars vs the unknown motivation of our federal, state and local governments who have no bottom line to manage other than their trying to keep their jobs and spending the money we made working for apple and amazon
1
This column is simply bursting with ideas that deserve to be explored and talked about, but there simply isn't space, so I'll do what I can.
First, regarding our government. Our structure worked well in a simpler, slower world, but now needs to be changed to something much more flexible. Rome had this problem. When Rome was a small power, controlling just the Italian peninsula, its Republican structure worked for it, but that structure was ineffective when Rome's empire became large. A faster, more efficient structure was necessary, and Rome's last civil war ended with an emperor.
We need a more flexible parliamentary system in which government is more responsive to the people through votes of no-confidence and new elections. A government in which compromise is built into the fabric. Our winner-take-all has resulted in 99% of us becoming losers.
My second point has to do with public education. Public education is not trade school, and its mission shouldn't be to turn out young people who can go from their high school graduation directly into a job at a corporation. Lately, public ed has emphasized Math and Science to the point at which Social Studies and Civics (Being a responsible citizen.) have almost entirely been dismissed. This is madness. Our public ed system is now creating ignorant citizens, to the country's great detriment.
Corporations work for themselves; government must work for us all. We all need to work to make that happen.
5
Corporations need to be less powerful not more powerful.
3
"But companies' primary concern isn't public welfare. It's the bottom line." True enough, but those holding power in government also have little concern for the public welfare. Politicians look out for themselves, their party, and their own future, not for us.
The NYT article a few days ago about climate change being almost completely eliminated from Idaho's science education standards makes me wonder if anyone at all truly cares about our children's future.
2
If the future lies with private companies to get things done, then the future lies with consumers rather than voters. It seems to me that we consumers under-appreciate our collective power to exert change, or maybe we're just as egocentric as the people who run corporations, choosing individual convenience over the collective good. If consumers exert boycotts over issues like environmental rights and worker's health, it will push those companies to change. But we have to exert that force with the power of our wallets. I'm imagining a future boycott of Amazon until they start treating their workers like human beings. But that would require oversight and a willingness to spend a few extra bucks on the products we want and to make a few shopping trips we'd rather not do. If cute pictures can go viral, so can consumer boycotts motivated by moral concerns.
Really ? Far too easy to attribute such technological advances, to the corporation after...after govt. those stultifying bureaucracies and taxpayers spent countless billion$ and decades of creating, developing and refining the technology for space travel for just one of dozens of examples.
Literally dozens of whole industries exist today only because the rather risk-averse capitalist begged tor, lobbied for and championed GOVT. R & D...first., to take out the risks.
So NO, the corporation is not taking over the roll of govt. The Corporation will continue to sit back and let govt. and taxpayers spend billion$ of [their] money before the marketplace proves itself, only to then jump on those govt. financed backs...for a profit.
3
Elon Musk is certainly a trailblazing genius, a very important one. That said, government investment in basic science is more critically vital to our future than ever. Musk knows allot about his dream planet Mars, because NASA has had a robot the size of a small car tooling around on its surface for five years. Musk’s engineers largely came out of America’s best universities, from our government funded defense contractors and out of NASA itself. All the basic skills needed for team Musk to grab hold of and refine, were born from decades of NASA and DOD research and development. He’s brilliant, thinks way out of the box and deserves every accolade. The thousands of government paid scientists, engineers and contractors who laid down the foundations of his technology base deserve their fair share of thanks as well. It was NASA leadership after all, that had the vision to take the very outsourcing risks that helped provide SpaceX with critical cashflow and technical support. In medicine, aeronautics, physics and space science, government funded research remains a critical cornerstone of America’s technological edge. The Chinese know this fact all too well. It is more important than ever that we do not forget it.
2
How many corporations encourage their employees to question the corporation or anything else?
If we go with global one world government, you realize that corporations will be running that government, don't you? No other entities will have the influence necessary to turn that rudder.
Private enterprise was the catalysis which propelled this nation to greatness. American capitalism will be the destructive force which destroys the very essence of democratic governance corpoations thrived in. No doubt corporations can accomplish magnificent successes in all fields of human endeavor. With their vast wealth, and flourishing in a friendly environment, they have an unbridled path to futuristic wonders.
BUT--at what cost?
'Citizen's United' opened the future to a society dependent on the good will and benevolence of corporate oligarchs. With financing as the prime mover in our elections, the corporations have a unprecedented effect on the outcome of our election. These corporations have become the rulers of our elected officials. Thus, they become the de facto rulers of our government.
This is not theroretical--it is happening daily.
2
Two points that go a long way toward explaining our self-destruction:
1. The GOP has abandoned the goal of governance to focus on smash and grab looting in the short term. In the process they have provided a big tent for denial of facts, racism, and obsessive special agendas (even when those agendas represent a minority of citizens).
2. Our government is for sale to the high bidder, with political bribery now legalized. Many of those high bidders are super-rich businessmen who fit within the big GOP tent (e.g., Koch brothers), not forward looking as Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and other tech companies are.
How we escape from a downward spiral of self-destruction, I don't know. That so many voters are bonded like ticks to the Trump dog, suggests that it will be very, very difficult.
1
When corporations inherit the earth, all workers will make $1.50 an hour, including Americans.
Corporations hire people with vision so that they will not be stuck in a predictable rut. We had a president once who had the vision for us that we would go to the moon in a decade.His vision challenged us all including government.It led to years of innovation.Government does not consist of visionaries-it takes them years to chew over old problems such as immigration.In the future corporations will come up with new solutions and the government will simply debate them.
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You say that our government can’t manage health care, master infrastructure, can't fund itself or barely stay open.
You fail to mention that they take place under Republican rule or because of Republican actions. In some instances - the deficit, for instance - their actions (the tax heist) are directly because of corporations since the GOP gets their marching orders from their executives. The blame lies with controlling, power-hungry, overly greedy kleptocrats and oligarchs, and the GOP that enables them.
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I work for a company that has invested millions in educating its workforce. Sounds good, right? But here’s the thing - it is all completely self guided. You can complete all of the certificates and programs, and classes and degrees but there is no path to staying employed or using those skills at the same company. There is no guidance center to help you plan and your boss will think you are disloyal if you are training for another job - so what can you do with all of this “education” but no real experience using it?
We can do so much better.
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It's all starting to remind me more and more of the prescient Pixar film, WALL-e. Corporations creating their own, self-serving universities? Sounds like BUY 'N' LARGE, indoctrinating the next generation for corporate service, rather than educating them as citizens by teaching ethical behavior and truly critical thinking. If so, I fear our collective future is looking more and more bleak. Will Elon Musk build The Axiom interstellar cruise ship to escape from the rotting planet that these very same corporations are so quick to destroy? If so, who gets a ticket?
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Brave new world has arrived. We are already getting a taste of what corporate control looks like. A good example is our criminal justice system. People are in many cases incarcerated not because they are a threat to society but because it is profitable. Corporations now run many prisons and their influence controls the political process. We have the highest incarceration rate in the world and our prisons are becoming little more than concentration camps for poor people. Corporate control is a very frightening possibility that unfortunately appears to be a real possibility.
The problem with all this corporate efficiency and innovation, of course, is that it’s private enterprise making money for itself; not altruistic public service. Many of our needs have always been revenue streams for someone else, but this article suggests an era where a newborn is literally nothing more than a decimal on someone’s spreadsheet.
Grim stuff, currently bring fostered by incompetence and greed in government.
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All of us are aware of the "ineptness and inertia of Washington" but it is important for all commentators to note that the ineptness is not accidental: it is part and parcel of the GOP plan to privatize the entire world if they can. Our so-called democracy is busy representing the corporations, but not regular folks. The GOP leads this charge and the Dems are only a few paces back. Pols of all stripes are busy trying to bribe Amazon to set up in their cities, and the price will be paid by local taxpayers. So, let's not jump to the conclusion that corporations are 'egged on' by the ineptness of government. They are paying the lobbyists who are effectuating that ineptness, while they get all the tax cuts.
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Mr. Bruni hit 20 nails on the head in this article. I wanted to touch on the technology he mentioned, artificial intelligence. The US has a 63% participating workforce; that's a lot of people out of work. Corporations are barely getting their hands wet with AI and those workers skilled in it are being tasked with developing ways to replace people with it.
There was a time when a person was hired and trained on the job. If these corporations have schools to learn a job, then the employee will have to pay out of pocket to the corporation to get the job. More $$$ in the corporation's coffers. When corporations really put the welfare of all on stage, I will eat my hat. Remember Andrew Carnegie: a strike after he decimated his employee's wages (saying basically that the hired help wouldn't tell him what to do) forcing them to capitulate. Carnegie then sells his company for $250,000,000.00. Nothing has really changed.
The health care initiative by Amazon will be interesting since they will be self insured. They will crunch numbers and realize they will have to fire very sick employees and drop them to government care. They will then hire only people who exercise regularly and are not genetically predisposed to expensive healthcare costs.
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When Larry Summers doesn't like it, you know the right thing is happening.
The government can still oversee and regulate.
But the federal government has proven time and time again, that growing an inefficient bureaucracy is the only thing it is good at. It's all about politics - grabbing and holding power, shunting money toward selected populations, social engineering, and "rewarding friends and punishing enemies" - as our last president gleefully remarked.
It's not about providing good service at a good price.
There is a place for corporate involvement, and the argument is strong.
Their would be a price to pay (no pun intended) if Corporations Inherited
the earth( check out the 1975 film "Rollerball"). Democracy and its
freedoms would be fond memories.
I believe Sir Frank of the Bruni tribe is engaging in a bit of tongue in cheek writing here. Especially with the closing sentence.
Listen, I get it. Sometimes it feels like we need big government about as much as we need another hole in our heads. But the same applies to corporations, too. Especially Big Corp. They care even less about the common good than government sometimes seems to. For the corporate world it is all about profit. Big profit. For themselves. They care less for anything, anyone, else.
As for being (more) efficient....well....do I really have to go there and point to the likes of Equifax? Or Uber? Or Wells Fargo? Or Facebook with its fiasco's reverberating across the social sphere? Do I really?
Face it; all corporations and governments are flawed. Why? All of them are composed of human beings. But in at least genuflecting to the idea of the common good I'd much rather have government at the helm than the corporate world.
Yes the corporate world glam and glitter can be pointed to by Musk-olytes and the like, justifiably, too. But consider that all of it has worked due to being under the umbrella of government efforts to create a viable space in the first place. So I'd rather work on correcting government ineptitude than deal with the consequences of corporate ineptitude. Because that, as it turns out from the above examples, is far worse.
John~
American Net'Zen
The “ineptness and inertia” in Washington was created by design by those who want to drown government in the bathtub. Corporations, which are chiefly organs of their shareholders and kleptocratic managers, the 1%, have already inherited the earth. Two hallmarks of Neoliberalism, deregulation and privatization, are proceeding apace, and woe is us when government disappears, for common cause evaporates. Thinking that Amazon and Chase will solve the health care crisis is absurd beyond description. Rooting for corporate control of education betrays a blindness that would destroy democracy as the study of history, literature and philosophy vanishes, and the people are placed in thrall, wearing wristbands, a la Amazon wharehouse workers, that zap them if they become inefficient. The world that Bruni almost whimsically describes is a nightmare.
"They’re in turn bolder, egged on by the ineptness and inertia of Washington." It's not ineptness. It is the stranglehold of a political party that wants minimal Federal government beyond a Department of Defense. So Trump appoints agency heads who proceed to diminish the effectiveness of agencies that exist to serve and improve the public welfare and his political party starves less favored governmental institutions of funds. Another facet of this is the constant and ongoing drum beat to transfer federal powers to the states.
Corporations behave like animals, not people.
This is not a slam on people who work in them, myself included. it's simply a function of their structure.
Behind every CEO is a long line of people who would be happy to make any decision that brings in more profit, even to the point of bending or breaking laws, to increase their own pay. If CEO A decides to boost wages which then reflect poorly on profits, the next in line to his or her job will be happy to cut them, and a 3rd employee will argue for even deeper cuts. And so on.
A beaver may cut down a tree in the forest while building a dam, and a human might salvage some fire wood from its efforts. But only a fool tells himself that the beaver did it as a favor.
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Democracy is a messy affair. The government is perfectly capable of managing a single health Care system for all, but that will never happen with greedy middlemen (aka insurance companies) insist on inserting their will in the process, thereby poisoning the well for all. And as long as an under educated population remains (unquestioningly) mesmerized by the hype of snake-oil salesmen (Bitcoin, boring, SpaceX, self-driving cars, ..., AI) while remaining oblivious to the plight of our fellow citizens (deep in debt, homeless) we are no better than dumb sheep or the stupid fools of jonestown.
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The meek shall inherit the earth - after corprorations trash it!
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Of course businesses are more nimble than governments - but not all governments; just look at Russia, China, Myanmar, and Germany under Hitler. All those governments are/were little impeded by such annoyances as following the precepts of a government of the people, by the people, ...
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Did you notice something? Corporations are autocratic!
They are profit motivated.
How does the U.S compete with the likes of China? Did you see their infrastructure? Their planning for the next 50 years?
How do you get long term goals reconciled with short term tactics necessary to achieve competitive advantage if every action in public office is reviewed by 1MM eyeballs every second, thanks to breaking news and blanket 24 hour coverage.
The issue, with all-due respect is that Bruni and others like him that write here, have never really delivered anything besides pontification on things. Go out there and try and create something, employ people, move mountains with policy and all the trade/ glad-handling it takes. It is very tough to do. With the explosion of reporting and transparency- democracy is at risk. Because all feel equally qualified to pose opinions on 'how it should be done' - regardless if they know what they are talking about or have even done it before. 'All voices are equally heard and considered', is fine for votes, but not for opinions on every piece of work to be done. We expect saints instead of politicians in public office. No one who's pinched a butt, made mistakes, or doesn't walked on eggshells can ever run for office. No one in reality can fulfill that, and get real work done.
So you default to the closed quarters of board rooms executing ROI for shareholders as the only movers and shakers in society.
Once again the Simpsons lead the way:
“When I grow up I’m going to Bovine University!”
Ah, Ralphie.
Corporations have inherited the earth and they are sucking the life out of it and us! American corporations and their billionaires owners are incentivized to cut corners, avoid taxes and abuse their workers and that they do very well. When they do something criminal they just pay to get the laws changed or get the right judges appointed or elected. There isn’t a slice of our lives that corporations don’t ultimately control and manipulate.
It’s time voters used their votes to kick the corporatists out,before the corporations end our right to do that. Beware corporatists bearing gifts.
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>
"Corporations Will Inherit the Earth" (NYTs)
They have inherited it.
Corporations don't serve the public interest and increasingly neither does our government. As long as our government is run by a group of old, rich white men hell-bent on denying everyone else their rightful places in this so-called democracy and beholden only to said corporations, we will not progress.
Corporations have already inherited the earth, or at least the U.S.. They bought it, with campaign contributions and mass media ownership.
Put Bruni to work in an Amazon warehouse for six months. Then he can tell us how great and innovative corporate governance is.
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Sure depend on the profit makers
And abandon those they call "the takers"
They'll be the survivors
The Corporate contrivers
More aptly "the Worker forsakers".
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"Dark Age Ahead." Jane Jacobs had it right.
"But companies’ primary concern isn’t public welfare. It’s the bottom line."
This should be the 'It's the economy, stupid.' rallying cry for our modern age. The erosion of public trust (by the public and for the public) is incredibly dangerous. The commodification of human existence is already killing us, and is bound to end in tears.
Yes, the federal government is appallingly cumbersome, slow and frustrating; but we should not buy into the narrative that corporations are better at 'running things'. A hammer is a great tool, but not for everything.
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I was disappointed in the writer's use of the word "stole" in reference to the hiring of Ms. Thille. I seriously doubt such a word would be used in press releases from the New York Times announcing the hiring of new executives. We are often reminded by NYT columnists that precision in language matters. One can only conclude that the choice of "stole" was intentional and that is unfortunate. Surely Ms Thille was completely in control of her move to Amazon. I look forward to hearing more about her work there.
Hey, let me lie, steal, kill, pollute, avoid taxes, maximise my well-being, hang off the public teat and pervert the political system, all without negative consequences and I will thrive as well.
If I stole an apple at the supermarket because I was starving and the manager was in a bad mood, I could be arrested, charged and lose my job. A corporation steals billions by engaging in tax avoidance and there is no penalty. It just depends on whether we focus on the well-being of the people or a select few, what government can be co-opted into preventing and who has the power to enforce the law.
Corporations have owned the Federal govenrment and its legislative branch probably since the Civil War. During that time military contractors gained inordinate influence over the government, revenues spiked because of our first income tax and the printing of fiat money known as greenbacks, and continued into its glory days of the Robber Baron ascendancy. Cheap labor in the form of massive influxes of immigrants and newly freed blacks enabled a boom such as we didn't see again until WWII. How are we going to ever eliminate the multinational corporations' disproportionate influence on our legislate process, that one need only pick up and peruse the latest Federal Register in order to see? After all, it was the Republicans who championed the British concept of a corporation being treated as an individual. Absent meaningful campaign finance in the wake of Watergate, we are now at the mercy of K Street lobbyists who may or may not coincide with the true constituents' interests.
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All I could think of as I read Frank's mention of Betsy DeVos was how her family's "business empire" is nothing more than a sleazy, pyramid scheme called Amway. I'll sleep better at night knowing that corporate titans such as DeVos are thinking about our future!
“I think enterprises like Amazon and Google are going to build universities that teach coding and things the nation needs,” Margaret Spellings, the president of the University of North Carolina System, recently told me.
Kind of begs the question why she isn't doing that in the UNC system. Oh, I know, she is too busy slashing UNC's funding. You know, Frank, where liberals are spawned.
Starve the beast is paying off. Wealth has been redistributed to the oligarchs while ordinary citizens have been impoverished. Why should we expect anything different from the oligarchs? How are they contributing to the commoms?
Corporations have already inherited our country via the Koch Bros., the Mercers, Goldman Sachs honchos, the oil & gas industry, Trump, Kushner, et al via the Republican party. The noxious results are obvious.
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You fail to mention how much FOX News Corporation has hurt the discourse. For the sake of profit they have intentionally stoked strong emotional responses from their viewers to view half the country as enemies, unpatriotic, and alien. What about caping companies marketing directly to children to addict them to nicotine.
I share Lynn's and many others opinion that what you refer too as "Washington" is really pig headed republicans who obstructed everything that Obama tried to do, are stuffing the entire justice system with pig headed backward conservatives and are intent on exacerbating inequalities. I believe that you become pig headed when you dig the ground with your snout instead of lifting your head to the heavens. No wonder they wanted Devoes for education. Hurray for Elon, he is showing the way.
Every convenience becomes a necessity, and every inconvenience becomes intolerable, as orchestrated by the private sector.
Before Amazon, was the lack of local retail shopping a crisis. Before the cell phone, was the lack of wireless communications networks a big deal. Before Spacex was the public concerned about how many rockets NASA launched per year. Before the internet, did people mumble about not having access to everything, including porn, and the opportunity to befriend several billion people.
But the significant needs we had, before all these things came to be, are pretty similar to to the significant needs we have now. Lack of universal health care, deteriorating infrastructure, faltering education in many areas, inability to avoid wars, seem perpetual. Add in the current opioid/heroin crisis, and where is the progress.
It’s all part of the plan, Republicans just want to make government incompetent so the private sector can take over. That’s what their owners want. End of Democracy, money rules, and the people are just consumers and poorly paid workers. It’s a shame!
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Our military vacuums technology, money and resources from our fair land.
Big Corporations, master predators rape the countryside. Human nature, self serving bursting with greed and lustful for power, all this will end in war.
Maybe trump is playing the Reagan card, massive military build up to break our adversaries and maybe it is too late, the warship has sailed.
The military industrial complex, a monster machine run amok making the same mistakes that all empires do, lunges towards its own demise.
The US Supreme Court will reaffirm the rights the corporations have to inherit the earth. Maybe the Supreme Court can identify for us the hearts, lungs, faces, and brains of corporations and please explain to us when the corporations declare BK if it amounts to a suicide by a living being.
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I surrender--almost. When Bruni starts talking starry-eyed about the domination of the corporate state as a solution, then maybe those of us left to defend a democratic republic should just give up. He hints at some downsides, but only hints. Has anyone who's worked in a corporation ever heard an executive say "This company isn't a democracy"? Soon, it will be "This country isn't a democratic republic." I'll stick with the warning from Dr. Wolin who was at Princeton and described the rise of the corporate state as merely retaining a facade of democracy through "inverted totalitarianism." Also, I still would think there's something to noticing what I call the Cinderella phenomenon--She can't go the the ball (as government handling today's challenges) looking like THAT (inept gridlocked, etc.). But look over there and see the source of this situation--the wreckers of the representative government--the corporate donors, through their stooges--Republicans and corporate Democrats. There's also the old Western movie theme -- "Hey townspeople, let's bring in that gunslinger to help straighten out our town's mess!" After taking over, he starts brutalizing the populace. Then there's the guy who'd make the "trains run on time." (Mussolini) "Solutions" that become part of the problem. (Dare I add another scenario--Frankenstein's monster?) Bruni sounds like he's falling for the old switcheroo, and that's depressing.
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feudalism redux.
1
Two words highlight why corporations alone cannot lead us to an acceptable future- transparency and accountability. Corporations have singular drive- profits and relatively narrow focus. This isn’t evil just the nature of free enterprise. A healthy modern nation has to create a diverse world of completely new ideas and enterprises. We read that corporations might start their own universities and teach “coding”. Where do you think “coding” came from ? – answer is our outstanding research universities - still the envy of the world. We need vigorus parterships between academia and private enterprise to supply the diverse needs of our complex economy. Perceptive thinkers like Michael Blomberg understand this and it’s why as NY Mayor he sponsored the new technical university on R Island (Cornell Tech) gathering together great technical thinkers and a vibrant economy.
Corporations innovate along narrow lines – completely new ideas come mostly from our universities and national labs and new creations drive our future. The new corporate startup is queried: “where did you come up with that formula in the code?” answer: I head about it in my solid state physics course”. This is the “seed corn” for a vibrant future America and currently we are cutting the funding for it. No matter what you may think of fracking – it has brought us to the threshold of energy independence and it is the product of partnership between vibrant free enterprise and our universities and national labs.
So this is what all that bitter constant attacking of Trump is about. Rather than an attempt to achieve deep cultural change (which you call jeremaids) it functions as a kind of smokescreen for a fawning celebration of corporate power.
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It is a sad day when such praise and hope are heaped upon corporations stepping in to "fix" what are the actual corporate ravages perpetrated on the common good.
That's like hoping for the fox guarding the hen house to not be a fox anymore.
Really?
It is delusional to suggest that, well. since government is entirely out to lunch these days, might as well let the corporations step in and take over the slack.
The writer has drunk the Neoliberal Kool-Aid!
The corporate and banking takeover of America ALREADY has occurred. The government's very dysfunction is precisely because it has become imbricated with, and dependent on the largesse of the corporate boardrooms of America.
Those people are the true rulers of the country. They are today's banking and corporate monarchs throwing financial crumbs at both parties, like Trump was throwing paper towel rolls at the Puerto Rican's after the hurricane.
The token recognition that corporations, after all, are interested in the bottom line -- ya' think? -- indicates that oligarchic, post-Citizen's United America still eludes even columnists at the New York Times.
oz.
Corporations? LOL. They are all Enron and VW, except they haven’t gotten caught yet.
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The science fiction author and futurist Charlie Stross recently keynoted the Chaos Communication Congress discussing the dangers of Artifical Intelligence. Computer folk fret about AIs getting out of control and developeing morals/values divorced from, or inimical to, human needs. He asks if there are any models for this happening. CORPORATIONS, which he labels slow-motion AIs. They are "algorithms," instantiated in human components; designed only to maximize "PROFIT". http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2018/01/dude-you-broke-the-f...
And, Lo, the day came that Corporations grew tired of their human dependents and all their annoying and nasty needs, and, disappointed gods that they were, they called up a great flood....
It’s been a rigged system for a while in this country. The Republicans are on their last gasp and grasp before the demographics shift can no longer be gerrymandered away.
Billionaires and Trillionaires are not like the rest of us. They are the modern form of dark age war lords. There are one set of rules for the big us and all the rules that can be ignored by the little them.
But I would be for a virtual government in the cloud on my iPhone. Give me a stay in government there and allow me to vote digitally.
Our current voting system has been compromised by the Russians. Time for real change.
Many, many years go at an after work drinking session, I engaged in a rather heated debate about whether we were headed for a "Rollerball" future. I maintained the we were given the irrational antipathy to government and the worship of profit that was the hallmark of the times (the Reagan era). Things are much worse now and yes, Mr. Bruni, there will always be a whole lot more in it for the corporations. Indeed, the dream of the masters of these large profit making enterprises, which are unhampered by borders (interesting that human refugees in need of a safe haven and aid are turned away but international businesses go where they like), has always been to do away with government altogether except for the military and the police (and even the military and the police are being privatized at least to some degree although its still more expedient to let the 90% pay taxes to support our outrageous military budget). All I can say is, "Where is Jonathan E when we need him?"
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Of all of the people to pick on for perverting capitalism, Elon Musk is the last one to pick on. He's genuinely a good person.
This guy risked everything to save the Earth and humanity. Really, honestly, he risked everything for all of us.
I think that he's a little bit wrong about how the country and NASA failed. But he's more right than most people.
We've got to get NASA back into the game. We've got to make workers happy again so they work as hard as they can for things like Mars colonization. We need goals like this, but worker's rights and the US government have to be the most important factors.
Musk is an amazing person, but I wouldn't want to be him. Him and I made different choices in life, but I think our childhoods are fairly similar. I decided to try to pour my aching heart into my children (with little success) and he decided to pour it into space exploration. I think he's happier than I despite the work load.
If he would just open new development centers outside of Silicon Valley, like in the midwest, I'd do everything in my power to work for him.
Elon, could you please open up an engineering center in the midwest? It would be very good for the USA.
Maybe Republicans just don't want to do the work. They get to sit back collecting campaign money, promising the only work they need to do is convincing the public how bad government is and we need less of it. Just a theory.
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Regarding the observation about corporations solving their own problems such as education and transportation and subsequently hollowing out public support for such services, we are already approaching the tipping point with regard to K-12 public education. Large urban areas can (and will) support multiple approaches, such as charter, parochial, and traditional public schools. But in rural areas, they are rapidly approaching the point where there is no longer the public will to fund traditional public education. The goal is a poorly funded public system for the poor and minorities and various highly-segregated tax-subsidized private options for middle and upper class whites. I can only imagine what the long-term impact of this will be. Many will celebrate this as "freedom". However, I suspect that those doing the celebrating will expect (require?) those left behind in the hollowed-out public system to fight their wars for the protection of that "freedom". What a warped contortion of the original democratic ideal.
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I confess (contrary to many of the posts here) that I fail to see the point of a private vehicle being launched into space. What purpose does it serve, beyond self-aggrandizement for Mr. Musk? Aren't the heavens already more than cluttered up with space debris? The most recent figure I've seen is more than half a million objects, ranging in size from a few mm to objects of considerable size. And now, apparently, we're about to see the massive use of space for commercial advertising. (Which raises the question, who will see it?)
Haven't we done enough damage to this planet? Do we really need to start trashing outer space? I'm all in favor of ever greater human achievement and the grandeur of the human spirit, but this really doesn't seem a particularly useful or benign example of that..
The ancient concept of hubris, leading to downfall, is by no means outdated.
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Most large corporations are crony capitalists, with close ties to government. The majority favor Democrats with a few exceptions such as Haliburton and Koch Industries. Mid sized and small business with less political tie ins are the Republican base. Most of these large industries recognize the ability of government to put up barriers that prevent small and mid sized companies from competition with the larger companies. One only has to look at where the company PAC funds put their money to know the truth.
3
Taking Bruni's thesis further: why not have a corporation fix our democracy? The problem is that corrupt entrenched interests, fueled by lobbyists, are able sustain themselves through an uncontrolled feedback loop. This is why senators on both sides of the aisle always do what's politically expedient rather than what is wise. But we the people, as individuals, can't vote them out of office. What we need is a corporation whose goal is to improve our society. This corporation could have side businesses to raise money. And then it would use this money to help politicians succeed whose goal is to improve our society, not simply get re-elected.
Ultimately, the problem is that democracy works by one person one vote. And the goal of the vast majority is not to improve our society but sth more primitive, eg keeping others from succeeding and keeping their right to maintain their ignorance.
We need a corporation whose goal is to root out these dark elements. I don't accept Bruni's premise that the only goal of a corporation has to be to make more money.
"In an effort to make sure that employees have up-to-the-minute technical skills — or are simply adept at critical thinking and creative problem solving — more companies have developed academies of their own. That’s likely to accelerate." So now we'll get one more mechanism that separates the haves from the have nots. If you don't fit in or don't get picked for inclusion, good bye and good luck.
1
Re Bruni's line "the federal debt continues to metastasize."
I think that language like this is ill-advised and unhelpful. The Federal government has to run some level of debt or the whole system collapses. It's the nature of a modern economy. Treating the debt as some malignant disease rather than a functional part of the economy is foolish and leads to bad decisions. Such attitudes kept us from properly reacting to the collapse of 2008. And it is quite clear now, with the current tax-cut and recent spending bill, the right-wing intends to use such attitudes to start needlessly hacking away at Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.
Debt is not a malignancy. It's also not immoral. It's a necessary and functional part of our economy. Certainly it needs to be managed. But things are not nearly as bad in the U.S. as people think in comparison to other times and places.
1
One problem: corporations are beholden ONLY to shareholders. No, two problems: corporations are prone to corruption in order to make profits. Ok, three problems: corporations will do anything to get rid of regulations on their operations. No four: corporations accept changes that help people only when they are forced to by protests that harm their ability to make money. It’s called “corporate liberalism.”
There are three parts to society: labor, capital and government. The first two fight to control the third. Without the third, the first always wins.
Government’s problems are not a reason to give everything to corporations. For one thing, when corporations take over things they require a profit. So the service becomes more expensive. Corporations have a place in society but they need to be watched closely.
Mr Bruni’s strange love of corporations is silly and misguided at best.
1
Our democracy has always been an ungainly beast but through most of our history it has worked. reasonably well. More recently however, it appears to be gravely wounded. There appears to be no single reason for this but the massive influx of corporate money is surely one of the main reasons along with an uninformed or apathetic electorate and a political system seemingly designed to weed out the best candidates. There has been an ongoing effort to sabotage our democracy by the Republican Party under the guise of reform. This effort has been highly successful in creating distrust of government and in tilting the balance of power toward corporations. If one looks at the three most powerful men in government, Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, it's painfully obvious that no properly functioning democracy could have selected them. If there is some way to save our formerly great democracy it has to come from the people and it has to come soon.
3
Well Frank, since the American polity gave up on self-governance back in the 70s and stopped voting en masse, the corporations have pretty much already filled the vacuum. We're at the tail end of the American Experiment, we entered the end game back then. It's kind of fun to listen to Americans blame everybody but the guy in the mirror, also kind of sad.
We are a corporatist state of oligarchs already. Soon we'll join those whose votes are entirely meaningless but whose purple-stained fingers "prove" they live in a "democracy" though they have few, if any, democratic institutions.
"...blazing sign of our times, in which the gaudy dreams and grand experiments belong to the private sector, not the public one,.."
Au contraire, we have one now...its the gaudy, grandiose debacle called Trump and Clan. That's what we got, thats what we did...elected a spectacle.
This column needs to be linked to yesterdays about Education debt. In which I posted, our education system ain't producing the right fits for current employment needs. Which is both the fault of the system and parents and students. Who are stuck in old modes of thinking about education and what students want to do, and/or what their parents want them to do or where to go. Top shelf Universities are not producing the right graduates with the right and needed skills...but they are popping out plenty of grads with far too much debt, for the jobs they hope to get.
There have been plenty of voices, the last few decades, yelling that Universities, and especially local colleges needed to team-up with businesses to teach the skills needed in a reality based workforce. Not the ones students/parents wish for.
Europe has plenty of examples, Germany especially.
But the US as a culture and political force is scared of doing anything that isn't perceived as 100% born and raised here. Be it educational, or health care. As soon as a "But X country has success doing it this way" - the nativists and xenophobes are up in arms...lighting Tiki torches...
2
While the bottom line is profit for corporations and their endeavors, it seems that the same is true for government run institutions. Follow the money in government which is bought and paid for by donors mostly corporations. So what's the difference? Perhaps we end up with less of a charade. Best to put our efforts behind getting money out of political decisions. People in America don't vote because they know their votes don't matter. It's all about money whether "government" run or not.
1
I agree. Corporations are not evil. However they tend to kill diversity while promoting it. Windows 95 PC. Android on phones. There is the tyranny of the majority. If most people buy it then competitors die. If Google has its way we will ALL drive very good Google cars on this planet. ALL. That somehow does not feel good.
1
Corporations have already inherited our earth, and will continue to do so as long as we continue to elect Republicans, bought and paid for by billionaire donors, and allow them to choose our Supreme Court Justices. It may take a revolution to overturn Citizens United, impose term limits, enact campaign finance reform and redraw gerrymandered congressional districts -- and that revolution may not be long in coming if Trump and his GOP enablers continue to destroy our democracy and our economy.
2
And if only Corporations paid their fair share of taxes, instead of sending their profits overseas. I know that Congress just gave incentives for the money to come back but at a ridiculous discount. If I did not pay what I owe to the IRS I would be fined, charged interest and possibly serve jail time.
I have no doubt that Betsy DeVos thinks private for profit schools are the way to go. After all she is invested in them. I do not believe that she cares one way or the other about good education for all, only the few who can afford private schools or by getting the Government to subsidize private education.
The answer obviously is that those elected officials do not have the best interests of the majority of citizens who live here, hence the running of our Government is becoming more and more about what these huge Corporations want, not what is needed by its citizenry.
There is no political will to improve our country and the life of most who live and work here. No wonder the wealthy are in charge Our Government has been losing its way for a very long time. And both parties are to blame.
2
Frank, you may be the most insightful editorial writer I have ever read. You correctly note that “companies’ primary concern isn’t public welfare. It’s the bottom line.“
But as Henry Ford said, “[t]he owner, the employees, and the buying public are all one and the same, and unless an industry can so manage itself as to keep wages high and prices low it destroys itself, for otherwise it limits the number of its customers. One’s own employees ought to be one’s own best customers.”
I suspect that automation-induced unemployment will be solved by the same companies you write about and for the same reason.
1
Yes, corporations are great citizens: They have filled the earth with carcinogens and the oceans with plastic (and BPA). Large banks took the clever practice of predatory lending to new heights until the Consumer Protection Act constrained them. And they temporarily destroyed the US economy and let us, the taxpayers, pick up the bill. Enron manipulated the California energy crisis. And the insurance lobby runs our health care system so if you think it's broken, ask about that.
We need more government to protect us from corporations, not less. Yes, the American government, mostly Republican Congresses, starved our educational system and left our health care to insurance companies. Yes, Trump has starved the government itself, and cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations instead of fixing our infrastructure. All this happens because corporations have more power in American politics than people. So people are left in a society that drives them to opioids.
1
Rule #1: Corporations exist to make money for its executives and shareholders. Nothing else.
Rule #2: To do so, they will seek any advantage possible.
Ethics, morality, fair play, concern for the community? These only occur if they do not conflict with Rules 1 or 2.
The biggest problem for corporations is a government that limits their ability to apply Rule #2. Corporations have come to realize this, and for the past forty years or so, have sought to undermine the US government, the biggest obstacle they face.
There has been a steady and relentless campaign to portray the government as either incompetent, inefficient or in some cases outright malevolent.
And it has worked. A significant portion of the population now mistrusts the government, at all levels. And corporations have every incentive to promote that belief.
Hence the Republican Party, a captive movement controlled by big business and wealthy families, doing its best to undermine our government. Trying to make it incompetent, inefficient and malevolent.
And with Trump at the helm, they are succeeding. It is no surprise that the Republican Congress is doing nothing to stop Trump. They have their orders.
If they succeed in destroying the institutions that we built during the first two centuries of our country's existence, we may find it difficult to reconstruct them.
There is a coup d'etat going on, and we have a very limited time left to stop it.
November. Vote Democratic.
Our future depends on it.
5
"We’re keenly suspicious of big corporations — just look at how many voters thrilled to Bernie Sanders’s jeremiads about a corrupt oligarchy, or at polls that show a growing antipathy to capitalism — and yet we’re ever more reliant on them. They’re in turn bolder, egged on by the ineptness and inertia of Washington."
It should never be forgotten that the "ineptness and inertia of Washington" refers to the POLITICIANS elected to "run" government, most of whom have no knowledge or experience in the many various areas in which the government is involved on its citizens' behalf.
If politicians would stick to legislating - and actually DO that - and leave the "running" of government to the highly trained, educated, and experienced federal employees who are there (or should be, where there are still so many openings left unfilled) and who possess the requisite INSTITUTIONAL KNOWLEDGE to "run" Washington well, corporations would not be so easily able to undermine the public good in their voracious pursuit of the easy buck.
2
Here is Thomas Jefferson on the importance of the type of education that is critical to democracy but not to corporations.
“…Preach…a crusade against ignorance…improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against…evil, and that…kings, priests and nobles…will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance…”
Unfortunately, Jefferson's warning doesn't matter to most of those in higher education, either.
Here is David Riesman writing about higher education in 1980.
“…advantage can…be taken of [students] by unscrupulous instructors and institutions…Like any other interest group, the student estate often does not grasp its own interests, and those who speak in its name are not always its friends...”
Given that corporations are not in a position to "educate the common people", and that education can't be left in the hands of "unscrupulous instructors and institutions", we have the people "alone [to] protect us" and work to guarantee that they themselves are not left in "ignorance"
I write a blog, inside-higher-ed , solely for the purpose of helping people see what is happening in higher education, and how the rampant corruption there has metastasized throughout all of American education. Only a "crusade…to improve the law for educating the people" will get us out of this mess.
Thanks for your important column.
1
After decades of anti-government and anti-tax rhetoric and policies wasn’t its destruction inevitable. Most recently Obama’s ACA lead to Tea Party hysteria and the election of people who block government progress and bash their own mission.
Nice to see corporations step in, but let us not forget the remnants of corporations abandoning their communities in the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s etc. for cheap off shore labor and tax havens. Isn’t this what contributed to the election of Trump?
The thought of the further hollowing out of government which is at least somewhat accountable to the public makes me very nervous. We want good government? Stop bashing it and elect people that believe in it.
1
Corporations won't teach the kind of values people in a democracy should understand. They will only teach what they need for their jobs and will gain more control over the people. DeVos has no interest in education,just in profits. The republicans don't care about the people and most corporations won't either.
2
“In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”
― Eric Hoffer aka Longshoreman Philosopher
Unfortunately, Hoffer's "the learned" control Congress, state legislatures and the courts. To make matters worse the White House is occupied by a low information President who is surround by people driven by self-interest. Given this state of affairs Hoffer's "learners" most likely will not inherit a Nation that leads the world.
So it goes in a Nation controlled by corporations and their wealthy owners.
This is the libertarian dream of limited government, with the private sector picking up the slack, but that means they're also calling all the shots. As citizens in such a society, we can only vote with our tiny pocketbooks and nothing more.
It's becoming clear that large corporations have long-range plans to shed us as workers, as automation consumes an ever increasing number of jobs, but what happens when Americans are no longer needed as consumers? Sacrifice zones, such as Camden, NJ, Flint MI, or Bluefield, WV are proliferating, leaving places to rot, along with the citizens who inhabit them.
The only entity large enough to rein in rapacious corporate greed has been the federal government, and now corporations own that, too. If you’re no use to them, you will be sacrificed.
As the saying goes: “You might not be interested in politics, but your boss sure is.”
3
"We have met the enemy and he is us." --Pogo
This quote comes to mind. Americans did this to ourselves. 2018 midterms are coming soon. Will voters be bought off by the tax magic that will evaporate as the debt blossoms? "One nation, under corporations, with bonuses and discounts for all.
1
They're not simply "filling the gap" created by ineffective government; they're making sure it's ineffective and in debt to ensure that gap is there.
1
"There may be something for all of us in Musk’s rocket launch. But there’s definitely a whole lot more in it for Musk."
The single best illustration of the above statement is to imagine Musk's Tesla now zooming far into space. If that isn't a shameful example of corporate and personal narcissism, there isn't one.
1
Elon Musk is maybe the future. Kind of like the example of low-income housing. Or Millenium Park in Chicago. Rich folks get tax breaks in projects bundled together to perform quasi-governmental functions. OK, forget the "quasi." I'm thinking we're going to see the Warren Buffet Hudson River Tunnel, the Pritzker Interstate Highway. If ya can't tax 'em, bribe 'em with vanity projects.
1
Frank you forgot one big quasi government role that Corporations play: security. I am thinking of the militias owned by corporations that move century old "squatters" communities to make way for plantations, extraction or urban development. When the peasants revolt to losing the livelihoods and ancestral lands, the are criminalized.
1
Coproratocracy has been tried a number of times (Canada, India, Central America, Africa) with rather mixed results. In fictional descriptions it always leads to disaster. Why would having the .01% in charge more than they already are bring about any kind of positive improvements in life? Our governments (federal, state, local) already suck up 40-50% of our income. Why isn't this enough to solve our educational, infrastructure, defense, health needs? Why should all our income go to the few, the moldy, the hateful, the owners of the biggest companies.
1
Corporations are not subject to transparency. When the government screws up, it is broadcast to the tax paying public. When the corporation screws up, it is not, unless illegalities are discovered. Yet the costs of such mistakes are most certainly passed on to the consumer.
1
There was a time when corporations understood they were part of the overall community. They understood their workers were also their customers; pay-check to pay-check employees couldn't buy new washers, cars, a vacation home.
Our factory/mill economy didn't require education beyond basics, the 3 Rs. A good living could be earned by folks with a high school diploma. It was understood not everyone would, or needed to, go to college. Companies trained their employees through apprenticeships in partnership with unions.
Ronald Reagan, with his "government is the problem" coincided with Milton Friedman's edict that corporations ONLY purpose was to 'maximize shareholder value', and the 5 and 10 year plans companies like IBM or GE had had in place were replaced with 'quarter to quarter focus on profits' to keep that share price up. Please Wall St. at all costs. Cut labor costs, And this when globalization and the opening China were really gearing up. A perfect storm for the American work force, and a field day for corporate America.
This has taken 40 years to play out; it won't be solved quickly. But if it isn't solved in a way that the average American can see a viable economic future, there will be hell to pay.
2
This is Bruni's second column on the theme of surprising corporate actions to help address serious social problems. As strange as it seems for a lot of reasons, to a substantial degree he is on to something. But it's going to take open minds to see it. I wrote Bruni last year enclosing many more examples of actions by businesses which are hard to fully explain by just conventional bottom-line thinking, and there have been more since. I was struck by the Airbnb example of directly countering the President's "S-hole" remark. That is not standard Milton Friedman. I speculated the existence of a moral factor--although I know how ridiculous that sounds, and by no means has its opposite, corporate venality, gone away. But if we're desperate enough these days for some good news, why not be open to, and seek to build on, the unthinkable, as shown by the increasing anomalies? Some suggestions: cynicism and a "there's-nothing-new-under-the-sun" attitude aren't helpful; be open to the evidence; the need for improving government hasn't gone away, including the basic research we seem to have forgotten about; be patient with their early mishaps when they stumble in a new area; watch those article titles, like this one; and question another duality that corporations always have their "innovation"-touting acts together. Like the rest of us, they don't always know what they don't know, and can be overly fond of presumed certainties. It's time to re-draw a lot of boxes--here and elsewhere.
The difference between American corporate commune culture and the Chinese counterpart state culture is like the difference between a collection of cats and a pack of dogs.
1
Frank. You left out the most important part of the SpaceX accomplishment this week. The rocket boosters were salvaged and are able to be reused. All that is needed now is refueling. Under NASA, the boosters were “one and done”. The lack of a profit motive creates a dynamic that causes the scientists to focus on other things, many, I’m sure, are worthy. But, now, a private company can price the delivery, repair, experimentation, etc. of materials in space at a cost that is vastly lower than previously. Furthermore, with the knowledge by private companies that they do not need to worry about federal appropriations for NASA, they can more confidently plan for future spending/investment. I will make one other comment, with one word: Amtrak.
1
What a depressing thought.
Everything operated for a profit, nothing operated for the public good. And if Trump had his way, there would be nothing but private schools and universities, and private armies like the ones GW employed in Iraq.
This may be the Trump and GOP version of the best of all perfect worlds, but it is not mine.
3
The idea of having major corporations educating our children as future employees of those corporations is horrifying.
How about Koch Bros educating your child (educating would be a misnomer it would be brain washing) such as pollution is good for lungs, coal is clean, removing mountain tops and dumping mining waste in streams makes the streams healthier, rotten food is good for you, evolution never happened, global warming and climate change do not exist, people of color are bad... the list can go on.
2
Eric Hoffer — "In times of change learners shall inherit the earth, while the learned are beautify equipped for a world that no longer exists."
So this is what all that bitter constant attacking of Trump is about. Rather than an attempt to achieve deep structural change (which you call jeremiads) it functions as a kind of smokescreen for a fawning celebration of corporate power..
2
Keep in mind that corporations include the likes of Equifax with their careless security leading to half of the population being compromised! And then their chutzpah in charging for subsequent credit freezes and the like!
2
I think Mr. Bruin should read the excellent piece about Hungary in his paper.
1
As long as profit is a synonym for success perhaps our public entities should take a page from the corporate playbook. As our public institutions continue to be bogged down by nine to fivers just biding their time till a guaranteed pension, the wunderkind of SpaceX, amazon and the like are energized (and incentivized) to keep the pace up. The results are obvious.
And the fascists, unable to defeat the Allies, laid low for two generations, while most of the noble war generation grew silent.
Corporations are nor inheriting the Earth. It is for sale by greedy politicians.
In my lifetime, we had strong union representation, mighty manufacturing and a 91% top marginal tax rate for the super rich. Then we had the money to build highways, a space program, great universities, functional airports, a large, reliable power grid and the strongest military on the planet.
What went wrong? Republicans stopped being conservative in favor of cutting taxes and strangling government to benefit donors.
3
Thank you for not writing about Trump. This is a thought provoking article.
No thank you. Corporations's only concern is their bottom line, and history has shown us time and again that corporations will do anything for more money, including enslaving workers and working them to death. This is why people died in order to get the right to bargain collectively, and hint, it wasn't the poor folks in the picket lines hiring the private armies to wreak violence.
3
Corporations are the institutional versions of psychopaths. They are legally bound to serve the interests of their shareholders and their shareholders only. They have no incentives to serve the common good. That these entities are stepping into a vacuum left by our ever worsening government is a disaster for all of us, even the corporations who exist in a larger society the health and functionality of which contributes to their bottom lines. I have no answers to this. My own solution is to return to the chores of citizenship by becoming politically active. The problem of our government that allows all the other problems to thrive and multiply is that we the people just aren't paying attention to much of anything outside our tiny little lives.
3
Are you implying that government became incompetent of it's own volition ? That it's demise was a result of natural forces ? That is being willfully blind to the malevolent intent of a political party hellbent on the destruction of the very government that was meant to serve the citizens of it's country.
The Republican Party for many years has sought to eliminate or reduce most of the common functions of government and turn the country over to the private sector. The famous quote of Grover Norquist "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub" is the governing mantra of the GOP !
Starve the Beast, as they like to say, is their guiding light. Defund everything and position the most incompetent people you can find in management positions, demoralize and fire the most senior experienced dedicated public servants remaining, de-regulate or ignore every rule that impedes corporate greed.
Lobbyists from those very corporations have bought our remaining politicians and Citizens United has driven a stake through its heart !
This is no accident of nature as you imply Mr. Bruni. It is a deliberate calculated plan.
4
I'm not sure what the point of this article is but I'm positive that Amazon is in it for itself. One of the most corrupt banks in America, Synchrony finances its Amazon store card. Walmart, Amazon, Target, et. al., have for all practical purposes eliminated mom and pop businesses across America. When does avarice reach a saturation point? When does greed end? Certainly not with Jeff Bezos.
2
Yeah, no. Government is the counterweight to corporations in a democracy. If we had a democracy, and a functioning government, we wouldn’t see a handful of corporations trying to fill some of the holes in their ineffective and exasperated way.
2
Not the whole earth. Only the winner take all societies which refuse to evolve to a more rational human existence. Many smaller European and Scandinavian nations will continue on their current paths. One day, people will look back on the destroyed remnants of America and ask themselves what the "gross national happiness" measure of the U.S. may have been. They will wonder how the lack of such measure was so uncivilized among the ancient peoples of the 21st century.
1
Corporations are not people. Money is not speech. Nation states are not businesses. Nation state leaders are not in any business.
Neither economics nor politics are science. There are too many unknowns and variables to fashion the double-blind controls that are the essence of repeatable predictable results.
Human beings are primate apes driven by their biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit 300,000+ years of African evolution to crave and seek fat, salt, sugar, water, habitat, sex and kin by any means necessary including conflict and cooperation. With 7.3 billion and growing humans on Earth no legal fiction corporation meaningfully matters in the course of past, present nor human events.
Ideas matter. Particularly ideas based in science, technology and human nature and nurture. People will inherit their world idea by idea. Every human action and inaction matters in human inheritance. Science does not care about nor notice human opinions.
3
"Corporate good is not public good" Fell for the CITIZENS UNITED, did ya Frank? They are an evil money making unit formed for one thing only.
4
The title here: Corporations Will Inherit the Earth;
Have you ever looked at one of these corporate training programs? These are not a substitution for a liberal-arts education. They are solely and completely designed to indoctrinate you to corporate philosophy while providing a rudimentary technical skill. They are the modern day equivalent of factory training programs. These programs are not designed to enrich the employee. You are a tool in the most literal sense of the word.
3
Frank, thank God the Trump Regime is a bunch of incompetents. Can you possibly imagine the utter disaster, IF they were competent and efficient??? Shudder. Corporations are people. Special, privileged, RICH people. Deserving of every tax break, loophole and exemption their Lawyers can devise, or invent. And their lobbyists can "persuade " Congress to pass, thru completely legal campaign "donations ". They will only worsen, until the majority of actual, breathing, Human people rise up and shout "ENOUGH". There's a big opportunity to start changing this rigged system. It happens on November 6, 2018. VOTE. Please.
1
Mr. Bruni seems to have forgotten about CITIZENS UNITED. "The United States Supreme Court held (5–4) on January 21, 2010 that the free speech clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits the government from restricting independent expenditures for communications by nonprofit corporations, for-profit corporations, labor unions, and other associations."
Opensecrets.org - The Center for Responsive Politics reports that "A 2013 study estimated that the approximately 10,000 registered lobbyists are joined by at least that many who work behind the scenes and are often referred to as shadow lobbyists."
They have destroyed our demoracy. How much has Musk paid for the work that NASA has created.
Do away with CITIZENS UNITED and bring back our democracy. Kick out the lobbyists - a minimum of 18 pèr congress-person.
Bruni has been co-opted by the corporate 1% elites.
3
Sure, Frank, let us have VW get in charge of air pollution. It takes care of the bottom line. VW being the placeholder for:..........and on.
1
Will inherit the earth? I've got news. They already have.
Will Inherit???
The corporate plunder and pillage of the Earth for more and more money approach to life has already taken over. We are in the final stages.....too few want to face what is really happened and continuing in front of our very eyes.
It is the self serving arrogance and hubris, the diminishment through utter disrespect for the rest of mankind and the Earth that is so galling.
Zuckerberg's Facebook was created as a marketing tool,no as a social one.In the US we have many religious organizations but their God is the Almighty Dollar.So with the companies,they want to squeeze their workers dry and throw them away in the care of government.
We have a plutocracy that is more and more greedy as if people like Trump needed more money.Sad!! (like he uses to tweet).
Considering capitalisms short-sightedness and therefore the short-sightedness of corporations that practice capitalism, I don't understand the author's enthusiasm. Greed is the foundation of corporations. It has infected our culture to the extent that our system of checks and balances ended up with Trump, a silver spoon playboy, running the executive and Republicans, a soul-less collection of John Birchers, running the legislative branch, and the both of them filling up the judiciary with incompetent Scalia wannabes.
Think about it. People are enthralled with Musk shooting another phallus into near space with what purpose? Running away from the mess the corporations are making of the earth? Think about it.
When you put people in charge who do not believe in good governance, or republicans, you get a dysfunction. Government is only as good as those who run it.
And thankfully I'm in the last third of life, for the future as described by Mr. Bruni sounds awful.
1
There is no dearth of evidence about the wide and deep problems of the "criminal justice" system in this country. Does Mr. Bruni think that corporations can and should run it? Ever hear of problems with private-run prisons? More broadly, what larger institutions will remain with the charge of keeping an eye on corporations? Or is Mr. Bruni assuming the the good old market will take care of everything, fair and square? What about the Constitution? The three main branches of government? State and local governments? Should they simply dissolve, and leave governance to the captains of industry? Don't know what ya been smokin,' Frank, but you're further off the rails than I've ever seen you. Like the Trump Administration [pardon the oxymoron], you seem to have no interest in preserving and fortifying institutions such as the EPA and CDC: guess we should just let the likes of Exxon/Mobil and Big Pharma take over legislation, regulation, and enforcement. And put Markie Z as head of the FCC.
It just took a bit longer than 1984
Frank fails to grasp what has happened. The GOP Congress is not inept, but venal. It is not unable to govern, but has no intention to govern. Its simple purpose is to do what a few wacko wealthies tell it to do, in exchange for funding their re-election.
The worst part of this is that the GOP Congress is not responding just to the rich, but to a small, rabid minority of the rich. They have chosen the members of the GOP Congress for their malleable natures and willingness to do anything for money, and have chosen to get these vassals elected by an expensive media blitz of disinformation and distracting incitement of reptilian impulses.
These bonkers billionaires have failed to absorb the basic observation that foul means to an end corrupt the ends themselves.
Ok we are supposed to think corporations are a person,
a US Citizen with all the rights.
But does a corporation equal only on person or many
persons? See a corporation already has the vote.
In fact they have a much more powerful vote than
you or I do. Their votes actually run this country.
our votes are a silly formality to get the candidates
who will answer only to the corporation person and'
the top one percent persons into office.
Also, if the bottom line for the corporation
person is making money, I guess it does make
sense to keep wages low and hope to starve
other corporation persons out of the game.
But then when none of us worker drones
can afford the products that the corporation
person so lovingly makes, what happens
to the last corporation person standing?
Boy corporation persons must hate those
hardy brave souls who have been smart
enough to live off the grid and make
their own food and fuel and lives free
from enslavement as best they can.
Oh cowardly new world!
Inherit? They've already stolen it from the bureau drawer while mom and dad were sleeping.
The problem is that corporations are amoral. People are subservient to the corporate good, that is, profit. In theory, a democratic government is subservient to the people. Depending upon the good graces of a corporation is fraught with moral peril, particularly in an atmosphere where one well corporate funded political party pushes for complete deregulation. I will take my chances with democratic government whose current problems stem mostly from the corporate funded party in charge rather from an actual failure of government. I might feel differently after the midterms.
Time to rewatch "Roller Ball." The James Caan one, of course.
7
We no longer live in a simple government versus business environment. Nonprofits (universities, hospitals, museums, etc.) have grown to the point where their net wealth is ten times more than the poorer half of the population. Most charities serve the wealthy far more than the poor. A handful of corporations deliver real value to the poor – and they should inherit the earth.
1
I'm not sure what democracy means. I thought it was one person, one vote and majority rules, with minority rights/protections. But, that's not true.
We put the second Bush and Trump in office even though they got far fewer votes than Gore or Hillary. And, worse, we don't care; we're okay with that. A little grumbling and it's over. We don't really 'do' democracy very well.
We're too complacent and self-interested to be a good community. We don't give effort to learning more about macro and micro economics and fiscal policy and underfunded pensions and alike. We'd rather watch sports or well-acted soap operas or do some social media; anything but try to keep up with the myriad of issues surrounding us.
Democracy needs goodhearted, committed, compassionate, continuously educated citizens. It's a monumental undertaking, depending on US to make it work. But, we're not ready for that.
When the people of the world allow oligarchs, plutocrats, billionaires, and their like to prosper (actually, even promote it), then this idea of democracy is in shambles, worthless, void. That's our real problem.
Equality begets equality, love begets love, democracy begets democracy. If we want a better world, a more perfect union, then we must become better citizens. This will break the choke-hold of the rich, the corporate, the shareholders, the lucre lovers. Only this.
5
The title here: “Corporations Will Inherit the Earth; If Washington steps down, corporations will step up” is all in the wrong tense. It’s not the future we’re looking at, but something that happened years ago, a fair accompli.
Senators Sanders and Warren have pointed it out, and Robert Reich and Thomas Piketty have marshalled the facts.
How about that?
3
Amazon teaching people to code is trade school for the 21st Century. It's no different than Henry Ford teaching people to build a car. And the reason Universities don't teach it as Amazon wants it is because it is a trade and Amazon should be teaching it to train their work force.
Coding is a skill. Nothing more. Mr. Douthat falls into the Hollywood mythos that because he doesn't understand it there must be some mystery to it. There isn't. Coders don't sit in a dark basement "figuring out" the next big thing. They have clearly defined requirements and they build a solution based upon the engineering skills of an architect who has created a design through a requirements process to provide a solution.
Amazon should train coders. It's not as if it's a widely usable skill. Only a handful of companies in the world still employ them and to do what they do isn't "rocket science".
As to Betsy DeVos and her 6 million jobs, one has to wonder how many of them actually pay a living wage.
1
Government is for all the people, corporations are for their own. Thus it has been and will always be.
It is an old question: what piece of the watch can you do without? Answer: none of them. We need a vibrant private sector in order to convert risk into reward. But we also need good government to do those things that the private sector cannot or will not do.
It is true that Musk launched a rocket, but have we forgotten more than a half century of governmrnt funded innovation that got us to that point? The US government has historically been the secret sauce that enables the private sector to do what they do; funding scientific research and driving innovation.
Both the private sector and the public one suffer from their own limitations, and so it is only by working together that the sum becomes greater than its parts. That is why I find it sad to see government marginalized by those seeking to ruin the secret sauce.
Large corporations are just as sensitive to public opinion as any elected official. Perhaps more so. Their existence depends on being seen as providers of commodities that add value to their customers lives. This value is gauged by the sales of their commodity (profit) and attracting investors (stockmarket). Both activities require public awareness by advertising. Thus the corporations' dependency on public perception of not only its commodities value but its own reputation in the marketplace.
So, my point, if you can't wait to vote the rascals out next fall, you can start hurting their corporate cronies right now by boycotting and agitating about it. How about boycotting Fox news advertisers and letting CNN and MSNBC know about it? Use your consumer clout and majority numbers to be heard.
The key is "enlightened self-interest" but, with few exceptions, corporations quickly abjure the "enlightened" part.
Sorry Mr. Bruni this time you're off. Whereas there is a place for corporations to spearhead innovation you overlook the major point: the continuous retribution of wealth towards the private hand away from the public hand has created a tremendous disadvantage for local, state and federal government. The long standing plan by the GOP and conservative forces to starve the government and then declare it incompetent has succeeded. If you look at central and Northern European countries you can see that well funded governments are capable of shaping modern societies. Sweden's social programs are exemplary, for example maternal and paternal leave. Germany's apprentice program supplies a well educated work force.
Your trust in the benevolence of corporations seems naive when you look at the history when greed is not reigned in by laws and regulations for the common good.
13
Next quarter's profits are the reigning god. Our bumbling government who can't manage healthcare is already dominated by representatives in Congress who owe their jobs to corporate sources.
The conservative Freedom Caucus whose dogma is claimed to be small government and fewer regulations, really bow down to the likes of the Koch brothers in creating an array of regulations that allow huge corporations to do whatever they want. They have explicitly stated in their written philosophies (e.g., James Buchanan) that only rich Americans should be allowed to vote since poor folks are likely to favor social programs rather than ones that enrich the corporations.
The environment can be safely ignored since clean water and hillsides with trees only impede the desire for lower taxes and they contribute nothing to next quarter's profits.
Even the bizarre notion of our collapsing military that needs a few more $100's of billion dollars a year is a self perpetuating construct of the industry dominated military industrial complex. Congressmen, funded by defense contractors, created a massive amount of hardware for an ungodly number of battle groups that should be able to allow us to dominate all the world. Now the generals are telling us that all that military hardware doesn't have enough manpower to keep it all running and in a state of readiness. Yet with all that egregious expenditure on hardware, we still are in a quandary as to how to deal with North Korea.
8
In the yin/yang dynamic discussed by Bruni threes no doubt that corporations can move fast and be extraordinarily creative, but clearly their priorities are mostly narrow minded and profit oriented. Better he should challenge the USA government's 30 year decline in trust and efficacy (largely due to Republican's enduring love for the market and profits) because only government action can solve problems of justice, equity, and public goods in such areas of health care, education, housing and infrastructure, not to mention the economy broadly speaking (issues like work place safety, minimum wage). Promoting commercial corporatism moves us closer to fascism (a trend already under way). Rather like European democracies we must figure out how to revitalize the wisdom and capability of our democratic governance.
4
As noted by others, Musk and those like him, succeed, but not only because of their own genius and courage but because they build on what the public sector provided, and the private sector never would, the entrepreneurial state.
Kudos to Mr. Bruni for pointing out that unlike public entities that strive to do develop policies that serve the many, business work only for themselves which is why our worst leaders have all come from the business world.
Then too there is the fact that since the Reagan Administration a goal of one of our two major parties, the GOP has been to wreck the public sector and ensure government doesn't work for the majority of Americans, only the already entitled few.
7
Small government, low regulation cedes power to the Corporations. And the GOP has been in control of Congress 13 of the last 17 years.
There is no industrialized government in the world that governs by those Conservative principles because those principles only work for the powerful.
But, the GOP has convinced enough of the voters that Trickle Down works and tax cuts pay for themselves. Or any tax reform is great tax reform.
Gut government and the country becomes an aristocracy where huge wealth and privilege is passed from parents to kids for many generations.
5
The 19th century was the British century.
The 20th century was the American century.
The 21st century will be the Chinese century.
However, the 22nd century will belong to no one thanks our economic system, which was best described by Edward Abbey when he wrote, "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell."
4
It sounds like we're heading back to Feudalism. It used to be that the local baron or count was the local government, perhaps the equivalent of a mayor or governor. But he also owned all the land, and decided who got to live and work on it. He decided the working conditions and pay (or, more often, how much would be paid to him for the privilege of being allowed to work on his land.) So, if the libertarians/anarchists get their way and dismantle all government functions except the police state and the military, which they will need to keep the proles in check, what will replace it? We won't call them barons, counts, or dukes. Maybe His Excellency the Most High Job Creator. or perhaps Exalted Entrepreneur?
7
Thanks to campaign bankrolling by corporations and the rich, Congress has been intent on deregulating government for decades now. Just think about how ineffective the F.D.A. is in looking out for the public health...instead it sees its most important function as speeding along new prescription drug approvals. Many government agencies are now like storefronts in cowboy movies - two dimensional, their mission and workforce having been hollowed out. There's a reason the approval ratings of Congress are as low as they are - for the most part, these elected officials don't work for "us".
5
All of this is predicated on the assumption that there will be a world to inherit.
3
It is an interesting quandary. However, when the corporation's power is left unchecked it seems that greed > the well-being of humanity. This is why we need a political system or checks and balances. Any one entity with too much power and... you know the rest. We need our government as much as we need innovation. I propose that maybe we need to get corporations OUT of our government, not integrate them further, to solve this problem.
2
This all follows naturally from the Citizens United decision, which was the single most destructive legal decision in US history. In effect it said that big money could not be limited in its dominance of government, thus destroying one of the fundamental functions of government of, for, and by the people — ensuring that the public good could prevail, at least most of the time, over the other major power force in the world, money.
Since Citizens United, we have seen a gradual corporate takeover of the government, with no end in sight. The result will be something we might as well start calling The United States, of America, Inc. The greater good of ordinary people will have no sway over government of, for, and by the corporations. It has already largely happened. See the large study by Gilens & Page: "Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence." http://tinyurl.com/gmpx88s
We are witnessing the death of the great American experiment.
5
I don't think it's that government can't do these things but that we've had a generation of politicians telling the people that government shouldn't be doing these things with their money. Not only sending rockets into space but even educating the public. It's no coincidence that the right/GOP started calling it state education rather than public education and the great disinvestment in all things public -- education, infrastructure, basic services -- began. Reagan, Thatcher, they've all got a lot to answer for, including the rush to the bottom that has devastated the communities that blindly voted for Trump to 'save' them. I've got nothing against Shakespeare -- in fact, I was an English major way back when -- but I'd be happier if colleges and universities managed to teach students basic political theory and a little bit more about how democracies work. Instead we have a President who doesn't know (his BA in real estate apparently didn't include a course in US government -- that's on you Penn) surrounded by folks who never even watched Schoolhouse Rock on Sesame Street.
2
I agree with Frank Bruni that our government is too often sclerotic and dysfunctional. But I should not need to point out to Bruni that one of the reasons that our government works so poorly is because corporations have excessive influence over it, and because we are currently governed by a party determined to prove that government cannot work well.
3
Enlisting corporations to do the same type of work that governments are supposed to do is ludicris; and happening. It is becoming more and more obvious that those that have moved to the right think that government is an unnecessary waste of a persons tax dollars. The way that it is right now makes it seem like they could have a point.
But take a look at all of the inventions and services that the government offers and one would see a whole lot of things that corporations don't want to deal with in a way that would be most beneficial and cost effective for the citizens of the country. We have been learning more about this disconnect with toll roads where governments "partner" with business to pay for roads. There have been lots of problems.
When I hear Trump spouting off about these "partnerships" I think to myself who on earth would want to partner with the government in a way that is more cost effective and better for citizens? When has the taxpayer ever saved money in the long term doing this?
As reported in the NYT today, a 2017 McKinsey & Co. study found that by 2030, automation will put as many as one-third of Americans out of their jobs. Our economy and our society are headed for uncharted, treacherous waters. Despite the campaign slogans, we cannot go back in time or wall ourselves in against change.
We desperately need unbiased, visionary leadership, a functioning government and careful navigation to set the objectives and determine which sector, public or private, is best positioned to address these changes on behalf of all Americans.
3
Yes, this is happening, but we should be no less terrified.
Companies, even the good ones, have a prime directive. Better top line, better bottom line. They pursue this regardless of morals. Ethics, negative externalities, etc only matter to the degree that outside forces and regulations require they matter. And if you can buy your way out of such constraints (see: regulatory capture), inexorably they will.
Not because they want to, but because in order to compete, they *have* to.
Yes, we will get innovation. And we are glad it happens! But this is why we need to take back the word regulation, and in particular, get better at doing regulation in a smarter way so that it helps, rather than hurts, the economy as a whole *while* keeping corporate power in check.
I haven't wadded through this whole piece, but I will say this. Evidently the author does not remember the old AT&T. They stymied innovation for decades by mandating nothing but Bell handsets could be attached to their networks. You were forced to rent your phone forever. Look what happened when congress broke up that monopoly. Wireless phones are now available on a competitive market. Country wide phone plans are available. It used to be common to pay a toll call to call the next town up the pike.
Now these same corporations are trying to destroy net neutrality. Like the interstate highway system the Internet should not be controlled by corporations. Otherwise we will find ourselves besot with toll roads.
Our government may be clumsy, it may be inefficient, but it does serve its purpose.
1
"But companies' primary concern isn't public welfare. It's the bottom line...tapping their money is essential" If tapping, taxing companies' bottom line, is essential why is our government, federal and state, doing such a poor job? The IRS is a paper tiger up against multinational corporations. Pre-tax profit shifting from the US to subsidiaries in foreign tax havens will accelerate under territorial taxation adopted in the recently passed GOP tax bill. Watch the 2016 BBC documentary "The Town that Took on the Taxman" on YouTube and learn how multinationals avoid Britain's 20% corporate tax rate via territorial taxation. If that doesn't convince you, watch "Taxodus" on YouTube.
Foreign based multinationals with American subsidiaries are buying US based companies with the tax dollars they avoid in the US...and we let it happen!
There is the interesting story of "Pullman" the manufacturer of Pullman cars in Chicago. Seems Mr. Pullman was a progressive, who imagined a workers Utopia. His company was a juggernaut like Amazon or Google or Trump towers and made baskets of money. He positioned his company away from the city at the time and built a community with housing, schools, churches and stores. Everyone got a house and a nice wage. Perfect social solution! But when the growth of the company slipped the workers got less and less until they went on Strike and eventually the company went bankrupt.
The Utopian ideals of an enlightened business run world really harkens back to the monarchies of the past when the workers were the serfs. Democracy is safe in our world where OUR government is honest and trusted. To undo that and return to serfdom, the first thing to do is sow distrust in the government, especially the FBI. Watch Out!!
Let's be clear. Corporate interests are not congruent with the interests of the average US citizen. As Mr. Bruni implies, corporations are beholden to their shareholders and their imperative is to increase the value of their stock. What the average citizen needs is a functional, intelligent, and caring Federal government. Instead, we are stuck with Donald Trump and the Republican Party fiasco. There will be no possibility of a productive government under current leadership.
2
This country has a confused notion about the role of education in society. It is driven as much by fears of class stratification as economic progress. The lack of a centuries old guild culture still strong in Europe today feeds an attitude in America that labor is for blue collars who aren’t smart enough for college. Vocational education still hasn’t obtained the respect it deserves for teaching much needed skills. In Europe roofers and sanitation workers have to pass an exam, and they wear special uniforms as a mark of distinction. They have pride in their work whatever it is. Our obsession with the notion everyone must go to college denigrates the role of honest work that doesn’t require a degree. Meanwhile universities have simply become job mills at debt crushing expense to their hapless graduates. At Mr. Summers’ university a Harvard student can graduate without ever cracking a book of Shakespeare plays. Ditto for Plato and Aristotle. No core curriculum there. Colleges have long abandoned their of role of producing graduates capable of duty and moral leadership many of them were founded to provide.
2
Someone once wrote that on the dashboard of his car Paul Ryan has a plastic statue of Ayn Rand. Senator Paul is named after her. The GOP has largely become the party of Ayn Rand. Thus the GOP has exchanged the tenets of liberal democracy for those of selfishness and objectivism as exemplified in unrestricted free market corporatism. Winning justifies anything. Elections instead of being an expression of the wishes of the people become a competition and voter suppression a logical tactic. Trump justifies any and all of his actions on the basis of winning the electoral victory. Governmental programs must meet a profitable cost benefit analysis. Everything must show a profit. Nobody does that better than corporations and CEO's.
1
Job training used to be done by companies. Schools should train you to think critically, not to perform specific job-related tasks.
1
As Frank notes, "But companies' primary concern isn't public welfare", and as Summers points out, "corporations might see no point in teaching Shakespeare." Those two points are really the crux of the matter; although market forces are generally quite good at driving needed innovation for specific aims and improve the company's bottom line, a corporation will only seek to obtain very specific skill sets that meet the goals.
I think that many American corporations of old did value a liberal arts education; I talked with a high-level executive who said that directly. He valued how a liberal arts education taught critical thinking and exposed people to different points of view and values. I knew another manager who rose to near the top of his giant corporation. He did not value liberal arts and was hard-core business through and through. He was also a bigot and would rail against government support for human rights in other countries because it interfered with accomplishing his objectives.
As interpreted by Lincoln, "Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth."
Government should provide needed defense and services for all people and protect their civil and constitutional rights. I also think that the role of government, in contrast to a libertarian's beliefs, should not be passive in providing needed services and protections but instead should be proactive.
Our current gov't is dysfunctional because it has been bought off.
11
Frank,
Shakespeare, Mozart, Michelangelo, etc, must always be offered to humanity, because without art and creative beauty, life is not worth living even if all other systems work perfectly.
3
We keep on electing politicians who are indebted to large and wealthy corporations for their campaign funding. What do we expect? We elect politicians who, because of being indebted to large corporations, will not support workers rights, unions, safety regulations, the EPA, OSHA, or any other group that might disagree with or rein in these same entities. The same problem exists with the NRA and the GOP. No one is trying to divest people of their right to own guns or to hunt. It's a matter of safety which is something that the NRA and its rabid supporters do not comprehend.
As long as our government is more interested in supporting big businesses with tax cuts we will continue to have rotting roads, bridges, rail lines, etc. We'll start to have a brain drain, fewer people in the middle and working classes, more discontent, and a lot more mean and vindictive actions in our communities as people discover that no one and nothing will help them in times of need. Generosity is like trust: once it's gone it's hard to reinstate.
13
Maybe Amazon could pick their headquarters based upon promises by local governments to support the training of their workforce (via increased property taxes paid by Amazon), instead of shaking down local governments for essentially zero property tax and other incentives. The author didn't bother to mention that these mega-corporations do their best to avoid paying national, state and local taxes, but yet whine for a better trained workforce (for them). Amazon's quest for a 2nd headquarters might be related to Seattle wanting some sort of income tax to pay for infrastructure upgrades. (See Boeing setting up a heavily subsidized aircraft factory in South Carolina.)
2
Being an efficient cog in the economic machinery is not the same as being human in a social community. We risk losing something far more essential to our humanity by narrowly educating to the former.
11
Corporations control how value is produced and how it is distributed. Corporations control both wages and products and services to be purchased with those wages. What else is left? Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness have been essentially reduced to products and services. Corporations are a (successful) social structure created to harness and organize the division of labor, using money and ]natural resources, along with a bit of marketing. I think it was economist Galbraith that predicted the evolution of the Corporate State. Social issues are increasingly framed in terms of economics, with deficit spending the favored funding route; deficit savings for the wealthy or deficit spending for the poor.
8
Our Democracy and Government Institutions were meant to be the heavy pendulum that was never to go too far left or too far right. Public and Private use to have we the people in mind for a greater outcome for an even playing field. With the Citizens United bill passed in 2010 it is the demise of we the people into we the shareholder. To Govern was to serve and protect the citizens from the profiteers. Clearly our societal woes are from the demise of truth to "opinion" removing facts to confuse the public hence the Corporatism to be in power. Corporations are not focused on the greater good for the man on the street for the focus is always shareholder outcome
6
By law, corporations have only one obligation - to serve the interest of their shareholders. In the rarely days of the Republic, they were conditionally chartered by states for a limited period, typically 20 or 30 years. The charter was renewable, but it could be revoked prior to the end of its term if the corporation violated its terms.
The conditions are all but gone now including, very importantly, a stipulation that the corporation do no harm to society.
Now, privateers who contract to the government can ride roughshod over their obligations in order to maximize their shareholder returns. If you expect a prison operator to not mistreat those in its charge, a toll-road operator to take care of maintenance or, for that matter, an insurance company to enable the delivery of quality health care to those who need it most - forget it.
There's no free lunch. Either you pay taxes to the government directly for the services, or you pay taxes plus a markup to a government contractor for the same services, or you pay the contractor less and get what you pay for.
12
I wouldn't be in all that big a rush to turn over the keys to government to tech billionaires. What interests them is not always in the best interests of the masses. Here in Seattle we have the dubious honor of being home to both Bezos and Gates, and they use their wealth and influence to push social policy in their desired directions. When Bill Gates Sr. pushed an initiative to impose an income tax on the wealthy, Bezos single handedly (and anonymously) funded a misleading ad campaign to demonize and defeat the initiative. Gates Jr. funded an initiative to use public school funds to support charter schools, and brought it back three times until it finally passed by 50.1%. Bezos was a generous donor to Gates' efforts. This in a state where the Supreme Court found the state in contempt for not adequately funding K-12 public schools. I could go on. Let's work to improve government, rather than handing it over to Musk and Bezos.
15
If corporations fill the political vacuum, then the previous claims they have captured the government through campaign financing and subsequent lobbying will seem quaint.
Currently, the corporate bosses work seamlessly with the political bosses, they are like siblings in a family business, to characterize the manner by which they work as doing favors for one another is an archaic notion: they are now simply working in unison to manage and control the political economy, the corporate-government complex.
Mr. Bruni appears to be pointing out that their relationship is evolving, and that the political bosses are agreeing to shift some of their workload onto the corporate bosses, but people, this is not much of a material difference: whether one or the other is doing this or that work matters not because they are essentially one and the same cabal.
So if the corporations start doing government work, it will only get noticed by the public as a new and worrisome trend when our public safety, taxing, lawmaking and judicial apparati become privatized.
9
Having worked in several corporations for years I dread the time that they take over our educational, cultural, and civic life. The corporate culture is a dead culture. It employs a myriad of workers who for the most part are taught how to push the button but are trained never to ask why they should push the button. Only as you rise higher in the organization can you ever raise the question as to why but only in solving a technical problem not in contesting a policy, wages, benefits, safety, values, or ethics. The people at the bottom work their heads off with ever demanding increases in productivity and low wages while the executives pay themselves enormous salaries and go golfing on Wednesday. I appreciate that I made a living in a corporation but it was because of the arts, literature, nature, family, and spaces untouched by the corporate logo that I was able to make a life. It is life that we should aspire to not the complete control of corporations and their values in our world. They will eventually devour the globe and everyone in it in their pursuit of the bottom line and investor returns.
24
Thank you for this thoughtful and informed column. The future it envisions is, in a sense, the one depicted in Neal Stephenson's wonderful 1992 novel "Snow Crash." Every square inch of the country is franchised in one way or another, and every franchise is, essence, a sovereign unit. The federal government has shrunken to a inward-facing, self-perpetuating bureacracy. The President gets on a plane at one point and has to explain who he is. None of the Americans on board have ever heard of him. I'm not saying this dystopia is exactly the future we're headed toward for sure, but it seems it's one that hasn't become less likely since 1992. Different variants are on view in Spielberg's "Minority Report" and "AI."
9
As Ben Franklin is noted having said to a inquiry, "Madame, you have a republic, IF you can keep it".
That means it takes VOTERS, educated and dedicated to KEEPING the republic. Not the other way round. With educated voters (which NO government wants) we will a Corporitocracy.
The quality of the nation is based on the quality of people elected to run it. RIGHT NOW, we have a crime family installed in the WH.
The idea that corporations can do things better than government is largely based on efficiency. Efficiency to produce products or services, efficiency to give a return to the investors.
There are a few important things that corporations can never do:
1. Treat everyone equal - corporations view people as consumers only.
2. Care about the environment - an externality that fails at the profit motive.
3. Care about social justice - the corporation cares only about the investors and customers.
35
Ron--Efficiency, like the pharmaceutical companies? Oh, that'll serve us all, won't it? As you point out, it is not a matter of efficiency; it is a matter of quick profit.
Excellent comment, particularly your remark on social justice. A just society is crucial for corporate profits. As Plato (channeling Socrates) demonstrated 2400 years ago, a Republic that fails to deliver justice will degenerate first into plutocracy (rule by the wealthy) and thence into anarchy, at which point some tyrant emerges and promises to restore order provided we give him a bodyguard.
3
Corporations have two essentials that guarantee significant efficiency or certain rapid demise: Well defined purpose and scope and a rigorous regulating core objective — profitability.
Government on the American Washington scale has neither.
The Federal government would do well to heel more to the core notion of a federalism that works far more to preserve the autonomy and success of the states, and less of the steamrolling tendency to become the central, overarching controller of every conceivable governing function.
Washington being the ever intruding, grasping and all encompassing behemoth of central governance is unequivocally not working for America.
2
government is NOT the problem---it is the PEOPLE WE elected to run it. We have let them have near dictatorial power over us and it should not have evolved to that level. TERM limits, stronger public involvement.
1
Get real. International plutocracy cut its teeth playing the delusions of sovereignty of the US states against each other.
Washington is not a "intruding, grasping, all encompassing behemoth". Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Verizon etc. Are.
The traditional division between private enterprise and universities was that one was focused on skills and the other was concerned with wisdom.
Our culture is not that interested in wisdom anymore (and where it is, it tends to be conflated with ideology). So in order to continue functioning and to attract resources, universities have gradually converted themselves into training institutes. Not so long ago, one would not have encountered a "Professor of social media marketing." Conversely, private industry did not look to the education system to train its employees; it hired "apprentices" and it paid them.
If the corporate sector wants to get back to training its own employees in the skills they need, they should be encouraged to go for it. We should not bemoan the fact that "schools weren’t graduating students with the know-how to fill" specific jobs. Taxpayers should not be paying for that.
But it still leaves the issue of wisdom. If there is no demand for it, then so be it and universities will not survive in their traditional form. But we won't feel the lack of wisdom if we don't know what it is. We will, however, know that something is wrong in our culture.
27
Wisdom confers objectivity that is antithetical to ideology.
1
Corporations had their own educational systems for many, many, years. It was called in house training. We allowed them to outsource it to colleges and that forced us to pay for it.
If you want to go to college that is a wonderful thing. Education is always good. An educated population would never have submitted to a choice of Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton as our choice for President. College used to develop complete and well rounded citizens. Now it largely develops corporate clones.
Job training for a specific career at a specific company should be paid for by the companies that want those workers.
So far as the issue of corporations have far too much power and control. Separate issue. One that has been festering for far too long. That is not a story that will end well. But it will end.
12
I am not sure "inherit" is the right word for such a bold power grab as we are now seeing from Corporate America in the Trump administration, especially in the energy field. Yes, corporations will fill a need, in their own interest. And yes, government badly needs to be modernized, quickly, to preserve the public interest and restore some of the balance.
We definitely need a more responsive and democratic government, which means both voting reforms (mail-in ballots) and campaign reforms (free public TV time to qualified candidates), but also fewer corporate tax breaks to already very powerful and profitable industries (oil and gas) and much better corporate oversight overall.
9
Elon Musk made his initial fortune out of exploiting the internet. Lest we forget, the internet was developed by government funding DARPA. Had not the US government supported this original basic science development project we would not have Elon Musk and all of his wonderful companies. Nor would we have a Jeff Bezos and Amazon. It is critical that we have a government that supports, public infrastructure, public education and basic science research. By so doing it lays the groundwork for the likes of future Musks and Bezos to develop new technologies.
32
I would like to emphasize that basic research -- gov't funded or otherwise -- is critical for technological progress. Michael Faraday's experiments in electricity and magnetism led to the invention of the electric generator. Kind of important, I'd say! Physicists in the early 20th century discovered quantum mechanics, without which we'd still be in the vacuum tube age. And we wouldn't have lasers, either. One of the most unexpected applications of basic research to technology is GPS, which wouldn't work at all without Einstein's general theory of relativity. One can make a very long list of the fruits of basic research.
And finally, basic research is part of the noble quest for knowledge for its own sake.
12
A corporation is a creation of the state, a bit of largesse granted to private individuals in the form of limited liability. The chartering of a corporation (or any of its limited liability brethren, such as Limited Liability Companies) exempts the owners from full responsibility for the harms that their enterprise might cause to others. We trade off the responsibility for harm that is a cornerstone of a civilized society for the economic dynamism that is unleashed as a result. Not too long ago the grant of a corporate charter by the state was a special act, taken when the promoters convinced the state that their proposed enterprise would benefit the society. How times have changed! Now corporations are chartered to serve their shareholders, in whatever way they want. But we rely on them to provide many goods and services that the society could not live without. They by and large feed, clothe and shelter us. If we as a society want to rely on them to provide benefits that were formerly the province of government, there is nothing inherently wrong with that. But the governments should not merely abdicate-- they should set the terms of the new regime, for the interest of the public. That means intelligent regulation, sensibly enforced; it might even involve reminding corporations where they came from.
13
A more forceful and straight forward reminder would be to amend the constitution to declare that corporations do not have natural rights like human beings do. Such an amendment would clear the way for a more rational balance of public vs private responsibilities.
3
Governments are corporations too. They have coercive powers to put floors under the conduct of all other corporations, to protect the public interest in open and diverse markets.
Just one example of high-minded rhetoric not grounded in logic: Mr. Musk envisions tunnels transporting people at "triple-digit speeds", when most of our traffic needs in major cities encompass far less than 20 miles at the most. So we will buckle into "pods" or, even worse, submit our vehicles (as he envisions) and expose ourselves and our vehicles to some sort of explosive take-off and braking forces to go short distances? This tunnel concept sounds nice in theory, but only for long hauls, such as bullet trains in Japan and Europe provide; except even here, Musk cannot get away from the insatiable American demand for our own vehicles. Going underground with our cars is just shuffling the problem around - we need high-speed rail where appropriate, and perhaps underground MAY be one solution. But, more critically, we need extensive overhaul or addition of mass transit for the real world of commuting to existing jobs; and mass re-design of cities with dispersed work locations, or remote work where feasible. And, whether companies want to give up the control of locking employees into cubes or not, remote work is more viable every day. The insanity of continued massed and clogged commutes is not viable.
8
This medium increasingly allows us to go anywhere without going anywhere.
Corporations will succeed governments in the world?
Recently I read a profound philosophical thought: That human knowledge is increasing to such degree that possibly people will be able to select facts to support their own individual realities. Makes you wonder if multiverse theory of physics is accurate or at least the process of knowledge discovery/creation and effect on society is such to allow such a hypothesis to serve increasingly as a partial and human description of existence.
Certainly if knowledge is increasing to point of so many and often conflicting facts that people select from such and enter individual reality, we have to face that all government, political order, as conceived is inadequate, does not do justice to the facts, does not provide a just and overarching structure for human beings. In fact political orders today of all type eliminate an extraordinary amount of thought, create artificial realities not supported by the drive of knowledge.
This means that overarching structures which do justice to the diversity of facts, views, realities will have to be created, and they will possibly find fruition from not only the best minds in society, those in forefront of knowledge, but will be embodied in corporate structures, structures of multiverse mentality, Governments today just do not do justice to the pressure of knowledge. Imagine an island on earth, with corporate government dedicated to the most various views integrated in new light.
4
What difference does it make if it is black holes all the way up and all the way done, just an infinite series of spatial energy-density states?
"Inherit" is not the word I would use. "Plunder," "pillage," "expropriate," "steal" -- words that imply predation and parasitism -- come much closer to the reality of corporate behavior. And when it comes to "innovation," Mr. Bruni is merely repeating the tired old chestnut of Republicans, easily refuted with a cursory glance at the record. In fact, Big Government has been behind EVERY major technological innovation since WWII, from the transistor to the Internet to robotics. Basic R&D has consistently depended on public funding and taken place in state universities or government labs like Lawrence Livermore. Corporate investors reap the rewards, but show little gratitude when it comes to tax-time.
26
It's hard to ignore the fact that it is the influence of corporations that make the government ineffective, but somehow this author does. The Supreme Court in citizens United has given corporations more rights than citizens with none of the responsibilities. Now there seems to be an argument here to complete the conversion of govern,net to a private entity. He is right that corporations, by law, are required to place the bottom line of profit over any other consideration.
Any criticism of government is effectively a criticism of ourselves because we have allowed the money in politics which is at the root of all of the dysfunction.
20
Corporate charters are their equivalent to governmental constitutions.
I should hope that corporations become the primary or only means of education. Education by and for corporations is just that - designed purely to fulfill the business AND profits needs of corporations. Education has long had a function of creating well-informed citizens who contribute to the country and the good of the country AS A WHOLE.
Think about what our country becomes and ends up looking like that only services the needs of the corporation. Well, it's a LOT like what the country looks like now - only multiply it by factors that I don't care to consider.
Education for education's sake - not for the bottom line of some corporate chieftain's pockets - how is that any different from an autocracy?
3
I don't understand your last sentence?
I like the rest of what you wrote, except for your first
sentence.
A primary function of education is to teach us how to think independently, critically. A necessary purpose of academic studies is to focus our faculty of attention, aside from any utilitarian goal. That is because our greatest gifts, like grace, come to us, not we to them. [Simone Weil's brilliant essay: "Reflections on the Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God."]
5
I made a major typo in this message. The first paragraph should read:
I should hope that corporations DON'T become the primary or only means of education. Education by and for corporations is just that - designed purely to fulfill the business AND profits needs of corporations. Education has long had a function of creating well-informed citizens who contribute to the country and the good of the country AS A WHOLE.
Remember the rules of corporations"
1. The only reason we exist is to make money for ourselves and our shareholders. If some of this also falls to our employees and others, that's nice. But it's not a requirement, and if there's any conflict, those people are out of luck. "Doing good" will not be allowed to get in the way of "doing well". (Think Ben and Jerry, and the trouble they had when they actually tried to do good and not maximize profit.)
2. See Rule 1.
14
Bruni writes a good article here as regardless of Bernie Sanders popularity, what Bruni need consider is in my opinion the fact The Social Democratic Welfare State model western Democracies market, a admirable model that offers something for everyone isn't working. It of course is managed by very big bloated bureaucracies, that as Bruni points out are in a muddle. That beltway has earned the handle of The Swamp. Major major corporations with our most talented rise to solve issues governments simply cannot. Of course they do much of the solving to their own benefit but a lot rubs off on their employees.The much detested Goldman Sachs as example supplies much of routine healthcare in their own facility , If a ill employee with symptoms can see a GP in a very reasonable period of time, be diagnosed , either go back to their work station or be told to go home , when you think about what a person goes through to leave work travel to a doctors office, wait in a waiting room , then go to a pharmacy , or a lab for blood work the day is shot and three insurance transactions may come into play. My guess is Young physicians will look forward to being hired by Goldman Sachs if well paid as a environment that doesn't take most of their time filling out forms on a I Pad.Our government couldn't manage the airline industry as example and look what we have today a big mess . LBJ's great society how ever well meant built numerous ghettos still with us today.
5
Not sure where Bruni was headed with this column, but if he thinks the private sector can resolve our public education issues, while generating substantial ROI, he’s out of his mind. Trump University will remain the poster child for corporate malfeasance in trying to peddle “education.”
If he thinks corporations can restore some semblance of employer-employee balance, Bruni needs a vacation. For all their defects, labor unions had at least had the power to protect their members from unfair labor practices. But today, their power is emasculated following decades of Republican-led campaigns to destroy even the opportunity to organize.
And regards innovation, where are companies with infrastructure solutions? With commitment to close the income equality gap? With support for badly needed regulations against banking and financial mismanagement, for the rights of consumers, for equal pay for equal work?
The solution can only be found in a vibrant economy in which capitalism has opportunity, but not a free hand to ignore government regulation. Unrestrained capitalism is as bad, if not worse, than laws and regulations to keep companies and their investor/owners in check.
7
In the early days of the electronics industry, companies did invest in training workers. My father in law had no college degree, but eventually became an engineer, learning from experience at his company. My brother-in-law worked summers while in college for a corporation which then paid for his graduate school in return for his commitment to work there for 5 years. Then corporations stopped spending money on that and left it to higher education, providing an opportunity for other corporations, i.e. the banks, to saddle potential workers with massive debt.
Meanwhile, other countries still have apprenticeship programs and affordable higher education, encouraged and funded by governments. But that smacks of "socialism", so we can't do that in the U.S. The "ineptness and inertia of Washington" is supported and guaranteed by the ineptness and inertia of too many American voters.
6
Where we are today (Trump administration, the nature of the Republican Party, and the behavior of Congress) was largely germinated in the 1970s, birthed in the 1980s, and sustained and reinforced since then by both Republican and Democratic administrations. I am unsure whether our current condition can be described in a word or two, but words like plutocracy and corporatism would be part of the descriptor. The question is whether we are reaching an inflection point, like we did in the ‘70s, or whether things will get worse before they get better. The 2018 elections may be a telling point. Regardless, we are facing perhaps a decade-long effort to restore virtue and reciprocity to our democracy.
5
"There may be something for all of us in Musk’s rocket launch. But there’s definitely a whole lot more in it for Musk."
However, living in a land with no apparent government--neither at the executive nor legislative level--this article gives me hope. Indeed! We may be able someday to throw off the shackles in which pretenders to Constitutional authority have ensnared us. Then we can try to figure out how to deal with the new crew in charge. Life's a challenge.
2
Have Republicans, in their century of trying to eliminate government regulation of business, overshot their goal? Instead of simply escaping regulation, are corporations now replacing the American government?
Maybe it’s not as bad as it seems. As long as there are multiple corporations doing portions of the former work of the government, we will have competing interests. If one large company does not do a good job, there will always be another company waiting in the wings to do that part of the work.
It’s not as good as having a democratic government providing reasonable regulation of thousands of corporations.
It sure beats, however, having our government run by and on behalf of a single, monolithic and ginormous business, which is what Donald Trump wants and what the Republicans seem ready to accept.
USA is better than USA, Inc. But, USA, Inc. is better than Trump, Inc.
3
That invisible hand is just as likely to slap you as it is to lift you up. The successful rocket launch should be balanced against the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Or the toxic assets sold by corporations during the run up to the Great Recession. Or the tax avoidance of companies in Silicon Valley that robs the government of revenue that funds things like universal primary education and defense. Or the opioid epidemic that has its seeds in corporate medicine.
Sure, public interests can align with private industry, but it is often the case that they do not.
11
As long as government employees are guaranteed raises for the length of their employment, with extreme job security, and generous benefits there is no incentive to "get the job done".
I definitely see the need to train people for available jobs. But that also has to be in addition to a broad educational base, not instead of it. For if all we know about is how to do our jobs, won't we become less human? If all we are doing is creating human robots, what will become of us? What would make more sense would be to have a training program for the job at hand, but also an online and in person educational system, partially funded by the corporations that rewards employees above their base salaries for using that system to become more educated, no matter what subjects they take in addition to job training. And remember....if Americans want to take advantage of job training, they also have to be willing to relocate. Amazon is not moving to West Virginia. And if enough people do, in fact, move, what becomes of the places they have spent their lives calling "home"? America then becomes Amazonia. Is that what you want?
1
Friedman's economic ideas of free trade and deregulation were already debunked. His views brought us to the precipice of another great depression. Trickle down has been debunked for years. Yet, the GOP pushes both brands. Whether citizens and corporations, like it or not, government does play an important role in ensuring a healthy economy and protecting the vulnerable. Unfortunately, we continue to push debunked theories and abdicate responsibility for the vulnerable. Instead if we give the vulnerable any crumbs we essentially are making them beg for their supper (look at Kentucky's medicaid program).
Corporations are a poor substitute and both parties are more interested in the desires of this donor class than they are in securing a bright future for the country. What real value does Elon Musk's car orbiting Mars have for any of us?
6
Isn't our government just one big Corporation with one significant difference - the Stakeholders/Shareholders pay dividends (Taxes) it as opposed to receiving dividends. I guess you could sy you lose some performance incentives.
Another difference is that the corporations must produce something its shareholders want whereas the government produces what is good for the politicians.
Lets not freak out about the term "Corporations". They can be looked at as small efficient departments producing something of value for society.
What exactly can corporations do to truly help 320 million Americans? The answer is simple: not enough. With this many people and huge needs such as health care and infrastructure repair, the answer is a functioning federal government and we do not have one now . . . not even close.
3
Good for Elon Musk if he can reduce the cost of accessing low earth orbit but he missed his planned martian orbit and no humans are riding on for-profit spacecraft yet. The Falcon Heavy is still well short of the lift capacity of the Saturn V. Profit-takers in space are an economic eventuality but that does not mean public investment in space and technology should stop. They will never do the kind of basic science that will enable the development of future yet unimagined technology. Capitalism has limitations. The American people funded the Apollo missions that laid the groundwork for Musk's success. Who funded LIGO, the breakthrough gravity wave detectors? The National Science Foundation (aka the American people).
Unfortunately, corporations are the reason our government is dysfunctional. They fund the divisiveness of the GOP and the identity politics of the DNC so they can reduce their taxes and environmental responsibility in order to increase shareholder value. When corporate taxes are cut, so are public investments in the future of the American people. These are the same
corporations that demand state & local tax incentives and then complain that the workforce doesn't have the skills they need. They are only 6 states away from rewriting the constitution by corporations for corporations. Meanwhile Wall St redistributes ever more wealth upwards, from the many to the few, while corporate consolidation escalates. So yeah, I think Bernie Sanders was on to something.
3
"It spoke to another vacuum — a moral one — being filled by companies, many of which are more high-minded, forward-thinking and solutions-oriented than the federal government on immigration, L.G.B.T. rights, climate change and more."
Are they? Or does it just make good business sense? It would be great to believe they are working for a more tolerant, inclusive future. But for all their talk about freedom the bottom line dictated Google's policy on censorship not their ethics or any high-mindedness. Anyway, companies can afford to be more forward thinking, take risks. Their power structure is more dictator than democracy being private entities. Their goals completely different and with far less constraints. Not exactly similar to a government, for the people, and paid for by the people who as Citizens are the de facto shareholders of the country, and in the billions. There really is no valid comparison between the two.
2
Of course they will. Corporations, as opposed to individuals, don't have to pay taxes, and can live on forever.
“They are very frustrated with what they’re getting from our educational institutions...."
Apple, Google, Microsoft have flooded the K-12 education market with devices and software and school districts across the country have spent billions of dollars giving a chromebook or iPad to every student, beginning in Kindergarten; they have been taught to google, not think. Now many of these companies are complaining about the very graduates they have created. Ironic.
2
“He was baffled as to why America’s businesses haven’t simply stepped in to create their own education programs to equip individuals with the necessary skills, instead of relying on others to get it right for them.”
Corporate America stopped investing in traing employees decades ago becaue it saved them money. While Elon Musk may be an outlier most corporations are tied to short term thinking in order to satisfy the shareholder. When you end the tyrrany of Wall Street, it might be able to happen. Unless that short-term thinking changes it is unlikely that corporations will take on the training responsibilites.
I would applaud more corporate training since it would free universities from trying to create (not very well) the organization worker a diverse workplace requires. Universities might then be freed from the corporatization currently making them places with too many highly paid adminstrators and too many poorly paid adjuncts teaching too many classes. Finally, looking at the degraded environment in which we live due to corporate greed, if corporations inherit the Earth it is likely to be a phyrric victory
1
What our educational system should be pursuing, which is fact in listed in most university and school district mission statements, is providing students with explanatory frameworks that advance occupational, civic, and personal development goals. Each framework presents vocabularies, habits of thought and practices that furnish the intellectual and dispositional tools necessary for a well paying occupation, participation in democratic community, and to answer that question we all ask at the end of the day: what is the meaning of life. Private corporations are only interested in occupational goals---civic and personal development goals do not have market value. Having said that, our public school systems, since the inception of common schooling, are designed around institutional goals---certification---not educational goals. What matters in schools and universities is obtaining a piece of paper, not, developing mature understandings of an explanatory framework. The curricular, the teaching methodologies, the assessment systems, even the design of school buildings aims at conformity and compliance, not novelty and innovation. Although I am a public school advocate, I did think charter schools would offer alternative instructional models that would push public schools into more advance thinking about how children learn. Unfortunately, the charter schools I have observed have changed the populations they serve, but kept the same old sage on the stage instructional model.
2
Corporations are Humanity's first generation of externalized agency. Unless we put brakes on this, it will only accelerate. Given what havoc twitter unleashed, I'm not hopeful.
The UK should serve as warning example that privatization of public services does not work well for the common good over the long run. Actually it is exactly the reason why humans “invented” government and bureaucracy. This should not be understood as argument against innovation but a reminder that we have to think deeper about why generations before us created certain institutions and ways of doing stuff before we radically throw their ideas into the dust bin of civilization.
2
There's a certain irony in the claim that the "American labor market [meaning educational level of employee]s is broke." The very corporations making this claim are the ones that broke it.
Turn the clock back and you see a public education system designed to meet the needs of business and industry. For nearly half a century that meant basic literacy, civic education and some marketable skills. A small percentage of graduates would go on to college and the same process would repeat itself, albeit at a higher skill level.
Just as America was de-industrilizing and shifting to a now global service economy corporate America decided that they didn't want to pay the taxes to support public education as they once did.
Whether at the public school level or college, corporate America has been paying less and then complaining about the results. We once thought human capital was any company's greatest asset.
Well that human capital is present today in our public schools and colleges, but unlike previous generations, they labor under a crumbling system, woefully underfunded, with poorly trained and paid teachers and at the college level saddled with debt.
The debt level is almost in direct proportion to the decline in state funding for higher education. And that decline can be traced to the last forty years of corporate tax cuts. If corporate America wants a better work force remember, at some point you really do get what you pay for!
4
I've long wondered about the fact that individuals are supposed to educate themselves, and pay for it, so that they can offer themselves up to be exploited by capitalists. The idea that capital should pay for that which they exploit for profit is one that is avoided by capital through a myriad of lobbyists and vest pocketed politicians. Now, capital complains that the quality of that self-refined commodity is not sufficient for its needs and they may have to pay for it out of pocket to get the quality they demand. In the current situation a newly credentialed graduate might say; "Well at least they'll never be able to take this away from me". The question remains though;can the same be said about an education "provided for" by a corporation really belong to the graduate? Will such be transferable or will it be limited to the four walls of the providing corporation?
3
As long as there are people who grow up wanting to devote their
careers to public service instead of profit, government will be safe
from being sidelined. However the social media companies pose a
threat that didn't exist before: they can create the illusion
that they are the same thing as the public sphere. So, journalists,
*please* stop referring to Facebook or Twitter as the "new town
square" or words to that effect.
1
Universal education is what made America great. The G.I. Bill was the smartest thing our government ever did. Carnegie's support of libraries was the single greatest act of investment in the future by any individual. Support education in every way possible or perish. That is our country's choice.
6
I've feared that we might enter an era that might be called "corporate feudalism" for some time. Back in the gilded era, they used the Pinkertons to suppress opposition. It wouldn't be entirely surprising today to see a corporate entity raise its own army.
And what happens when corporations assume all of the control over our lives? What happens when they have disputes that cannot be settled by dealing because of lack of a court system or legal recourse? "Rollerball", anyone?
I think it is more than appropriate for corporations to train their employees rather than whining about our colleges. A college education is not meant to train for jobs but to provide an education-a starting point. A corporation can then take an educated person and train them for the specific skills the corporation needs. Our education system is fine if looked at for what it should be doing instead of saving corporations money for executive bonuses.
3
One small example ... I don't see any corporations stepping up to support our local elementary school teachers! It may well be true that corporations will fill more of the functions that our government has provided up until now, but ... who/what will they leave out of their fiscal considerations, and what could possibly go wrong?
1
The inspiration I found in Musk's recent launch was not in watching the Falcon go up, but in watching its booster rockets successfully land back to earth whole and reusable. I would have given anything that my 2 uncles were both alive to see it. As early pioneers in both NASA rocket development and GPS tracking, they would have been amazed, thrilled and proud.
Musk's accomplishments today, come off the work corporations of yesterday built thru their investment in their own research and in contributing to the larger government equation of such. Thankfully, they are willing to pick up the torch today, but hopefully they will realize that they are only as good as their public counterpart and share their wealth more gracefully into the future. After all, we all played Monopoly as children and know that eventually you may win the game, but then you are alone on the board.
9
Regarding corporations creating their own educational systems: this may not be altogether a bad thing, since businesses should do some of the work of training their own employees. Colleges an universities should continue to teach business as well, but they will be able to devote less attention and resources to business programs if corporations do more of their own employee training. Still, I certainly want America's future businesspeople to be broadly educated, not merely trained in the specific skills they need to perform their job. I think it's vital that businesspeople, nurses, computer programmers, et al., be educated, and that they at least a bit of history, literature, political science, etc., before they embark on their professional careers. Education will make them into more creative, thoughtful professionals, and I dread to think what kind of society we will have if our businesspeople are trained in business, but otherwise largely uneducated. If you think the state of American politics is bad now, just imagine how much worse it will get when we have millions of reasonably well-paid professionals who know little about history, society, and culture.
8
Chris: We already have an example of "what kind of society we will have if our businesspeople are trained in business, but otherwise largely uneducated": people like Donald Trump. (Although I do grant you that he's a unique case, since he's also corrupt and mean-spirited.)
It seems to me that, as long as we continue on this path of starving the government, and rewarding corporations with tax cuts and write offs, corporations will, more and more, become the only vehicle capable of betterment investment. As Bruni so aptly points out, however, that ‘betterment’ isn’t necessarily for a common good, but for the common good of the corporation’s requirements, whilst always focused on the bottom line financials.
Anyone who understands the positives government can achieve understand that betterment refers not to the monetary bottom line, but to the betterment of the human condition.
9
This suggests a reversal of the trend of corporations outsourcing training to universities, a notable example being the California Institute of the Arts, which replaced Disney's in-house school. Perhaps the universities have underperformed? If that is the case the problem was administrative bloat, not climbing walls.
1
I, too, find this trend troubling, particularly because it's yet another demonstration of how much wealth is concentrated at the top. Who could even conceive of some of these ventures without limitless funds at their disposal? I'm happy to see that corporations are beginning to realize the benefits of training their own employees rather than relying on publicly funded education and loans, but not if it's meant to replace public education. The health care consortium dreamed up by Bezos, Buffet, and Dimon is as fraught with problems as a private pharmaceutical sector: who gets treated? Will they profit exhorbitantly from this?
Mr. Bruni said it best: these ventures may benefit SOME of the public, but certainly not those who have traditionally been left behind. And while their ingenuity is laudable, the federal government must be functional enough to serve the least among us at the scale that is required. Tearing apart the social safety net simply because our polorized politics get in the way of making it work isn't the right answer.
12
Public service is work based on doing good. It's about serving the common needs. That's the difference between public and private, private is always about making money.
23
A few wealthy individuals have as much money as governments, and can do a NASA on their own. The man paid for going to Mars, out of spare cash without limiting his other operations.
Equity? That is so far behind it is no longer in the rear view mirror.
15
A free press is missing from our future if we keep abandoning our obligation in education . Republican dislike of government and their addiction to money from special interests will leave many needs to be filled by private interests. But scariest of all is what is happening to a free press that operates to inform.
Republicans have managed to severely curtail PBS while our president watches hours of fake news on Fox.
An unbiased press is hurting from an audience unwilling to pay for written news. A uncontrolled social media that has filled the vacuum with biased and controlled speech.
Meanwhile our education secretary promotes abandoning our public in favor of private and for profit schools.
The result is a voting populace that does not know our history or the price paid for our freedom. A populace that accepts bias and manipulations from bumper sticker mentality.
The corporate world cannot be expected to teach the values needed in a democracy.
27
Since "corporations are people, my friend" we can expect one to run for office. That is as much a Constitutional right as speech.
"Exxon For President." You liked their leader as Sec of State?
Sure this is absurd. But then, "corporations are people" and "money is speech" are absurd too, so that is not really the barrier one might expect.
At least we'd get a team when we elect a corporation, not just one guy with nobody around him except Flynn.
Laugh. Go ahead.
20
Have it your way. They bring good things to life. So maybe we should think different and just do it. We’ll be in good hands as they govern like a good neighbor until finally, life’s good.
It's notable that when Bruni looks for examples of corporate accomplishments, all of his examples come from corporations run by their founders. There have always been capable, even brilliant, people who start and run businesses. But when most of us think about corporations and corporate control of our world, it is not these few businesses we are thinking of. We are thinking of the completely impersonal, money driven bureaucracies that corporations become when they are controlled by investors interested in profit alone.
Remarkable people have always done remarkable things. Today some of them use the corporate structure to operate and organize their businesses. As soon as they personally stop running that corporation it becomes just another corporation putting profit first and people last.
19
Putting quarterly returns ahead of longer term business development and longer term returns. Such short term profit taking is not profitable long term, and corporations that make that transition have proven the difference repeatedly.
As a fortunate side effect, building long term also builds the work force and local infrastructure needed by the business, and desired by its owners/managers. That is the only "people first" we've ever seen from capitalism, but it is still better than what we see in this late stage of profit-taking among capitalists who no longer build business.
6
Observe the collapse of General Electric from the cult of purported financial geniuses in an insular management culture.
1
It seems like such an easy mark for commentators to just blindly blame higher education these days for the ills of our society without critically examining what has happened to higher education. In a race for funds and students, many colleges have enlisted policies that have harmed the educational goals of the institution. The schools have gone to battle for students by building sports stadiums and luxury dormitories while starving the educational faculty of the schools. We have now reached the point that half of all classes are taught by faculty that are part-time workers without benefits. These adjuncts cannot be there to help the students in their learning endeavors. They don't have time, space or money to help the learners. Then you have the highly paid vanity hires at schools. These professors give the schools publicity but rarely teach more than a class or two a year. Then you have the coaches that are likely paid more than the entire staff combined of a Biology or English department. Then you have the practice of hiring faculty that can bring in grants, both governmental and private. These faculty don't teach. they buy themselves out of teaching thereby starving the students of opportunities except for a very few low paid research assistants. What has happened at colleges is exactly what happens when government starves organizations whose mission is to educate and private sector values take over.
30
Very well said. Add to the list administrative expansion and compensation at the level that has risen at rates exceeding faculty hires and salary or academic services. The growth of contingent adjunct faculty diminishes the creation and communication of knowledge and critical thinking. Education is becoming information transfer instead. Faculty expertise with few exceptions is not respected and they become cogs in the business machine. None of which serves future generations.
4
Endowing universities endows the donors to name faculties.
Corporations could have fixed health care by now with their tremendous buying powers. They could have educated their workforces, rather than engage in mass layoffs when needs change. They could have done all the things this article claims they will do. But companies such as Walmart, for example, have been content to let the taxpayers foot the bill for the needs of of their employees, rather than pay a living wage, let alone provide crucial services.. "Fiduciary responsibility" requires they deliver dividends to the few, rather than necessary health, education and other infrastructure to the many. So far, corporations have, like their predecessor, the East India Company, traveled the path of exploitation, not high-minded community ideals.
29
At the rate we're going, we will eventually have to pay corporations for jobs.
The problem is the Republican Party, which has been blocking the government from being effective for decades, trying to extract wealth for donors and well-connected defense contractors like Halliburton while letting the lives of most people be diminished by economic constraints.
Democrats have been pushing to improve our infrastructure for a long time, but their specific, practical plans get little attention from the press and therefore from the voters.
I just found this recent outline of Democratic proposals to invest in repairing and building infrastructure on C-Span.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?440922-1/house-democrats-unveil-infrastruc...
Why doesn't this get at least as much attention as a Trump tweet?
(If you don't have time to watch the whole thing, watch just long enough to see the photo of the highway Kansas built that comes to an abrupt end at a farmer's field at the Oklahoma border because Oklahoma did not invest---an argument for the need for the Federal Government as Eisenhower --concerned about national security implications of infrastructure---realized in the 1950s)
34
I watched the video, Lynn. Very good. Makes me feel there is a way.
As someone who served multinational corporations as clients (while working for one), I can attest that the vast majority of corporations strive for profit, period. With a very few exceptions, they are not interested in the commonweal, except as it serves the bottom line. While some do, out of visionary leadership, respect both employees and customers, those are very much secondary concerns. If we as a society can once again recognize our common interests, which will be very difficult when cynical politicians work diligently to divide us, we will also recognize that government is the single entity that champions and protects those interests. And if we can recognize that we must also recognize that we must remove the influence of money from the political process. There simply is no other solution. Of course, as that runs counter to controlling interests, it is much easier said than done. But, fail that and we are headed for full blown corporatocracy. As this column details, we're already well on our way.
39
The main pursuit of happiness in corporations is to cash in and get out.
It’s funny how people tend to judge government by its worst-case examples (Trump and Congress) and private enterprise by its most brilliant successes (Elon Musk, Amazon.)
But where do we place NASA (without whose technical support, Space X flights would have been impossible)? And the much-beleaguered U.S. Postal Service (which will carry a letter anywhere, door to door, coast to coast, for 50 cents)? Medicare (more efficient than private insurance)?
Yes, government has its failures. Private business has payday loan stores and Trump University. I’m not sure that any broad lessons can or should be drawn by any government-vs.-private comparisons.
54
$20 billion worth of NASA research is one heck of an economic booster.
Perhaps Kim Jong Un will suggest that a unified Korea could become the world's pre-eminent rocket-builder, as it came to dominate shipbuilding.
Corporations have allegiance to shareholders and maximizing profitability. Not to any government. Apple pays workers assembling the phones $1.50 an hour and hides profits overseas un-taxed. Apple and most American multi-national corporations have had no allegiance to the U.S. for a long time. And Congress, which could have passed laws curbing this, has not. How much do these corporations pay contributing to politicians I wonder.
43
The worldview fostered by corporations is intensely individualistic and market-driven. Business gurus, high tech cheerleaders, and Silicon Valley "thought leaders" have spread the idea that a person is a "skill set"––a collection of individual capacities that each person either leverages successfully or unsuccessfully.
Looking at the world this way erases the public good: the obligations and benefits that come with being part of a collective polity.
Public education that promotes critical thinking and humanistic development; public programs that succeed when they give ordinary people dignity and a baseline of security; public achievements (like space exploration, scientific research, and accessible arts) that foster pride and solidarity among citizens. All of this fades from view when people stop thinking of themselves as citizens and understand themselves only as independent economic actors who must maximize the return on investment in their own lives.
26
$ is not a reliable metric to score happiness.
Democratic government presumes that "pursuit of happiness" is the common bond that motivates people to consent to be governed equitably.
1
There is no mention here of the thousands of non-profit, 501(c)(3) NGO's in the arts and sciences that are forging new paths in urban planning, climate change studies like sea level rise (just one example), renewable energy, invasive species and diseases, oftentimes with government support through grants and contracts, that benefit all of society.
18
Dear Jan -- You're right. It was also taken for granted that the entire Kennedy Space Center, built as part of our publicly supported space program, was put at Mr. Musk's disposal. He could not have done it without us, just as many future corporate coups will have rely on publicly supported inspirations. As our last real president said, you don't do this sort of thing alone.
1
Virtually all of which spend more time and effort to fundraise than to perform their ostensible purpose.
1
That day is already here. Congress votes the way its wealthy donors dictate. In the executive branch, key positions are filled by representatives of the industries they are supposed to regulate. Tax dollars that could be spent on infrastructure, health and education have been redirected to corporations by tax policy. The government's ability to accomplish anything has been intentionally crippled in large part because the government is supposed to attend to the general welfare and its actions are subject to public scrutiny. Not so with corporations.
37
Private corporations played a major role in the development of the New York City subway system. But in order for the subway to reach areas that were not seen as profitable or otherwise desirable, it would take city intervention. As Frank correctly implies, corporations will work very hard to serve the best interests of their shareholders first, customers second, and employees third. But what about everyone else?
25
Shareholders seem to be the biggest suckers of all in this free money to corporations economy. Managements are withdrawing their stocks from public markets by buying them in.
Private coporations played a major role in the development of the New York City subway system. But in order for the subway to reach areas that were not seen as profitable or otherwise desirable, it would take city intervention. As Frank correctly implies, corporations will work very hard to serve the best interests of their shareholders first, customers second, and employees third. But what about everyone else?
4
So Amazon is paying to train their workers in specific skills the company needs? Big deal. In other countries that is expected and is done through apprenticeships and other training.
I know a young man from a another country who wanted to be an airline pilot. After graduating from high school and passing a qualifying test he went to a well known European airline to be trained in preparation for a job with them. I also know another young man, an American, who had to spend thousands of dollars learning aviation in college.
Universities should not be treated as vocational training schools. Corporations need to pay for the specific kind of training they need.
38
It has always been so, only corporations have replaced the aristocracy. But the interests of the established asset owners have always been the primary source of power, We have just graduated from warlords and dukes to corporate boards.
Government has a primary role in determining how we will balance the allocation of assets, power, rights. When they decline to do it, assets, power and rights will still be allocated, but without oversight and without any thought of less powerful people.
In a way we are circling back to an earlier time, in which a few people got very rich because they owned the railroads, the canals, the roadways, all of the arable land, all of the mineral resources. Everyone else stayed poor as peasants, hoping that enclosure laws wouldn't starve them out of their cottages.
We can fight for people to have basic rights - the right to a solid education, the right to see a doctor, the right to choose a job, the right to see and comprehend real news and real information, the right to fair wages and fair labor practices, the freedom to choose leadership.
Or we can continue to cede those rights to a few powerful people as we worry about contraception or gun ownership and wedding cakes.
Corporations SHOULD educate their workers - it is called job training and has usually been a part of the deal for a business - but the public should be demanding solid public education outside of the job.
We vote; we have information and power; we don't use it.
36
"“Whether they do it in the collective interest or in their own is very much in question,” Summers told me."
So was he talking about corporations or our hyper-partisan politics? We are always hoping for a Congress acting in the general public interest--as opposed to the Hastert rule, or with a window to their next election or career (should they buck the party).
I am not so cynical as to think the corporations would do a better job. They are not subject to public recall every 2-4 years. And I do not see this occurring in the near future. But some of the big ones (Apple, big oil companies and pharmaceutical firms) are already multinational companies with allegiances that go beyond our borders--and that is not necessarily a bad thing.
I do not mind big profits for wealthy innovators who help develop technologies that benefit society long into the future. There is value in reaching beyond the next fiscal quarter or year. But I do not (yet) see a rocket to the moon or Mars being of equivalent social value as electricity or clean running water. And that space exploration will be built on the backs of many other technologies, old and new. My views do not exclude the need to deal with our problems of economic inequality--that would help more people, for quite some time, than the rocket trip.
If space exploration were lead to other jumps in the quality of life for humanity, it will be long in the future, after Musk is dead (unless a big jump in freezer technology occurs).
5
The present day government is dysfunctional because a majority component of all three branches, especially legislative, is dedicated to making it so. No government can function if a large constituency believes that "goverment is the problem" by definition. Corporations are dictatorships, and dictatorships are much more nimble than democracies; no need for a concensus.
Lastly, the financial resources that once accrued to governments that allowed interstate highways, mass transit, state universities, schools and hospitals, scientific research, and the many other functions that are not by themselves profitable, but enable and encourage individual and collective (corporate) profitability, have been redirected away from government and into the coffers of corporations and a tiny handful of individuals.
At what point will we see direct corporate control of law enforcement, the courts, prisons and the military?
83
Big industrial agriculture has already inherited the earth largely by way of their capture of USDA, EPA and FDA and of the Congress who should provide oversight of these agencies. "Reasonable" harm to human health and the environment has been stretched far beyond what should be acceptable to the public if the public had the capacity to know more. Having the public know more is certainly not in the best interests of the corporations who now have the knowledge control. So, increasingly we live in this chemical commons, not knowing any more than to blindly accept that our best interests lie with the corporations who are "feeding the world" with their brands of "eco modern" agriculture.
The meek shall inherit the earth? I guess not.
37
Science fiction from the 1950s foresaw two things -- that corporations would displace governments as the real power (well on its way). And that personal debt would be inherited and universal -- owe my soul, so to speak. And in the world of corporations, wars would be fought by mercenaries in designated areas to settle matters of competitive dispute. One suspects this is a hidden factor in too many current and recent wars. And with the finest governments money can buy in power, I suspect we are well on the way to this world right now.
27
It is not so much that corporations will inherit anything, but rather we continue to give them everything in the here and now.
We could have single payer health care (like all other industrialized nations have) if we just elect enough lawmakers to implement the plan.
We could have a true and progressive tax structure where if you make more, then you should be progressively paying more tax. ( not less ) We just need to elect enough lawmakers to implement the changes.
We could have large corporations not invert their profits from or to other countries and pay the tax for the infrastructure and to the country that allowed them to get rich in the first place. We just need to vote in lawmakers that will close the loopholes.
We could prioritize exploration and innovation in NASA and companies via our budgets. It is a simple fix, if we just voted in to our government visionaries that see things the same way.
We could create laws that would effectively break up monopolies and make sure that truly ''small businesses'' are allowed to compete on an even playing field. We just have to vote lawmakers that will take a stand.
Are you getting the gist ?
221
It is not true that all other industrial nations have single payer health care. Google Germany's "Bismarck Model". It is the oldest national health care system in the world and relies primarily on private insurance bought by individuals or employers. It is high quality, universal, and affordable.The Netherlands, Switzerland and Japan use versions of this model. All of these countries systems are highly rated by their citizens. They work because the governments regulates the insurance companies.
Almost no one I know is aware of these facts because our mainstream media has never bothered to inform us, letting people believe the only way to a high quality, affordable health care is single payer. There are pros and cons to these health care delivery models and we should have been discussing them all these many years instead of being left to wallow in ignorance. That is how a strong democracy works.
2
We do vote to change things, but not all votes in our so called democracy are equal. As has been shown time and again a dedicated group of destroyers can overcome all the creators. It's the same as a wooden ship with ship worms. sooner or later we sink.
2
Unfortunately, Mr. Funky, no matter how hard we try to elect these "progressive", pro-commonweal politicians to office, once they're in they quickly become elitist corporate lackeys, beholden to the lobbyists' legal bribery. And the Democrats are no better than the Republicans these days, having been weaned on the snake oil of neoliberalism and the religion of "the market." Why is this so? Well, for starters, see the well-known 2014 study by the political scientists Martin Gilens, of Princeton, and Benjamin Page, of Northwestern, which proves statistically that the U.S. is basically an oligarchy, in which the vast majority of key public policy decisions for the past 30 years have been made at the behest of a tiny elite. Hence the popular axiom: "If elections really changed anything they'd be illegal."
3
Unless someone is codifying a shareholders’ bill of rights and make it part of the contitution there is virtually no chance corporations will be remotely close to serving the public interest and invest in commons.. profit motive is useful for certain things, in competitive markets where there is a secular supply-demand dynamic. Relying on corporations for what governments are supposed to do ultimately will lead to post modern feudalism.
60
The only thing that explains the recent stock market buying panic is corporations buying in their own stocks. They don't need shareholders.
This column and the responsive comments really miss the more important point. The issue is not what corporations will do in the future to marginalize government, the issue is what they have done in the past and are doing now. The political parties are beholden to corporations and the wealthy donors who own and run corporations. No major legislation can be drafted and passed unless those corporations and wealthy donors have a seat at the table.
Once legislation is passed, the executive branch and administrative agencies develop the rules and policies needed to implement the legislation. The wealthy donors then don't just have seats at the table, they or their representatives have seats in the cabinet and seats on the governing boards and commissions.
Everyone recognizes that the revolving door between government exists. Some even use the term regulatory capture to describe corporate domination of administrative agencies, but that happened in the 20th century. This is the 21st century. Having dominated key components of government, wealthy donors and corporations are now working to marginalize the federal government and replace democracy with oligarchy.
This threat did not suddenly appear and it can't be quickly beaten back. The tangle of statutes, administrative regulations, executive orders and judicial decisions that enable corporate dominance will take years if not decades to dismantle.
110
"This threat did not suddenly appear and it can't be quickly beaten back. The tangle of statutes, administrative regulations, executive orders and judicial decisions that enable corporate dominance will take years if not decades to dismantle."
Only if you think the ballot box is the only possible solution. The people of the French or Russian revolutions thought otherwise. Gee, even our founding fathers thought otherwise.
1
Incompetence in gov't didn't happen by accident. It is the expected outcome of what happens when you put people in office who believe that gov't is the problem, not the solution. Imagine, if you will, a restaurant run by a chef who believes that people should be cooking at home.
The arguments about gov't inefficiency have evolved from the idea that anything that can be profitable can be done more effectively by the private sector to a broader belief embodied by people like Trump that anything that the private sector isn't interested in is not worth doing. The significance of this change has yet been absorbed by certain Trump voters, who still labor under the illusion for example, that Trump has plans to help make healthcare more affordable, when in fact he has simply latched onto the Republican ideas of making health insurance more affordable for healthy people. Likewise, they believe his promise that we can harness corporate greed to create lots of jobs in this country, without understanding that for people like Trump, the availability of lots of cheap labor is a plus, not a minus. The shrinking of the safety net and good paying public sector jobs will increase the number of people willing to work for ever lower wages, an important step if the number of immigrants is diminished.
As someone who worked supporting hospital information systems, I know there are lots of improvements that don't get made because they can't be monetized.
146
Monetized or Lottorized. Casino mentality stalks the land too, dumping hundreds of $millions on people whose lives it can only ruin.
The sentence that stood out for me was:
“When there’s a vacuum, there are going to be entities that step into it,”
Our constitutional form of governance was devised about two hundred and fifty years ago and has only been amended twenty seven times (the last one in 1992). This is a very slow rate of change.
The inability of our form of government to adapt in big ways (like a digital national ID system, universal health care, and regulation of AI) will be filled by corporations which have as their primary directive to produce profit. This will probably not end well for the majority of us.
We need to start thinking of some new constitutional amendments or our future will be completely dictated by corporations as is much of our present. I can think of several that we should make immediately.
53
While I mostly agree with your comment there is also a reason to keep law as it is. The legal system is supposed to keep long term stability to a society in order to prevent special interests to take over. 250 years human experience is 250 years of human misdeeds coded in law. Could be useful taking care of this president.
8
Overturning Citizen's United and federal funding of elections are the two I would most like to see.
The present mess is rooted in all the constitutional contrivances needed to make slavery a state by state optional liberty.
1
Our government was able to do almost all the things we've come to expect and look for from a government that works (much of the time) under President Obama's skillful leadership. Despite the obstructionist Republicans, he was able to achieve great things for this country and uplift the lives of all Americans in both great and small ways. I think this list of accomplishments is worth reviewing:
pleasecutthecrap.com/obama-accomplishments
70
Ann,
Besides agreeing with every word you said, I clicked on the site you referenced--and want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. It is wonderful to have President Obama's many achievements listed in one place. I intend to print the article up or email it to liberal friends.
Anyone else won't care. And I could never change their minds, anyway.
And I suppose next that these mega corporations will start paying their employees in corporate scrip. The scrip can be used to pay for corporate owned housing, groceries and other goods, corporate private schools, and such. Oh, and they'll be convertible to US dollars at a 2:1 ratio.
Mr. Bruni seems to be trumpeting the libertarians' idea of utopia.
They don't pay taxes and provide, at the cost of labor and loyalty (reinforced with NDAs no matter how pedestrian the job) from their employees/serfs, all that people could want or need (or that their employer believes they should need.)
No thank you. On all counts.
63
Corporations get tax cut on top of tax cut and then they complain schools don't properly train students the way they do in Europe. Bruni looks to Spellings and de Vos, the Bush and Trump Education Secretaries for wisdom even though they advocate replacing professional teachers with the far less trained men and women charter schools can attract with their low salaries, insecure jobs, and brutal hours. There is no secret to how to educate children or create efficient transportation systems. It is done by raising enough in taxes to allow governments to create permanent organizations that can hire professionals and give them the resources needed to carry to those tasks.
161
No doubt the innovations of American businesses are extremely impressive, but Mr. Bruni I am afraid is really shortchanging the incredible things our federal government has done and continues to do. Perhaps he is falling victim to the Republican dogma that trumpets falsely that our federal government can do no good.
The mission of our Armed Forces is exponentially more complex than any private enterprise on the face of the planet and our troops execute that mission with amazing expertise. Most new lifesaving drugs are developed at the NIH and other federal government agencies. The drug which cures hepatitis C was essentially developed at the VA with private participation, then the corporation involved turned around and tried to charge veterans full price for access to this drug! Medicare is the highest rated health insurance plan in this country, according to surveys from its participants. Otherwise, our federal government has not been allowed to develop or implement a national healthcare system. I have no doubt if it did, it would far surpass anything in the private marketplace today. Our Forest Service handles massive forest fires each year with mastery. Our Secret Service is nearly perfect at protecting our President. NASA is still an incredibly capable agency and it seems Elon Musk blows up more satellites than he successfully launches. My hat is off to the millions of hardworking, incredibly talented people who work for our federal government.
116
Corporations desperately need to be regulated and in some cases, I would argue have their charters revoked.
Corporations originally were given charters because they were supposed to do good for society as a whole. Instead we are now at the point where corporations have used society to extract economic rent.
Frank Bruni is right - companies only care about the bottom line. What happens when the bad outweighs any contributions corporations make? Should society not bring them back in line? They are making huge amounts of cash and avoiding the costs - such as taxes. The rest of us have to deal with the consequences (externalities as they are called).
Repealing corporate personhood would be a good step forward. Ultimately though the big problem is that our rich have become ruthless and they are not about to let democracy get in their way. That's what this is about.
Our governments are dysfunctional in no small part because corporations and by extension the rich control it. They hire lobbyists, give money in the form of campaign contributions to the politicians, and basically have control over society. They aren't in it for us - they are in it for the bottom line.
The problem is, the corporate and by extension rich pursuit of the bottom line is doing great damage to the rest of us.
93
Society so doesn't need a shuttle to Mars, nor do we need subterranean interstate suction-tubes to shoot pods full of people through.
Corporate ventures are predicated on business models & some of Mr. Musk's seem to rely on selling tickets to potential passengers on high-speed commuter lines of some absurd sort or other.
He's the one with the brains & ambitions, but seems to me he corporate model means manufacturing a market through manipulative marketing, & it seems doubtful extreme travel (with its comorbid extreme motion-sickness) can ever be a popular product.
But solar roofing & local electricity storage, that's something Mr. Musk could & should sell, especially when the 'public option' for alternative energy seems stuck in petro-fueled full-reverse.
25
I expect to see more and more articles along this line in coming years.
Given our situation in the "United" States, where seemingly every day our elected representatives provide fresh evidence of their incapability to govern, or even to administer the most basic runnings of government, people eventually will look to other places for leadership.
10
I am glad you ended your op-ed with the lines: 'There may be something for all of us in Musk's rocket launch. But there's definitely a whole lot more in it for Musk." Musk is very, very smart and a genius at self-promotion. And we should not forget that were it not for essentially a $600 million bailout by the US Government years ago, Tesla probably would not exist. But, to his credit, he is thinking 'big things'.
The failures of the education system in this country have been building for years, and are particularly acute with respect to graduating students with the necessary skills to succeed in a modern economy. But to cede that responsibility to corporations would be a grave mistake, for those corporations would only be doing it for the own good, and would treat their students as disposable inputs. This can lead to a future society ruled by corporate fiefdoms and supported by serfs who must pledge their fealty.
27
Easier solution. Make "teachers" responsible for educating their students.
An idea anathema to overpaid "teachers".
Ronald Reagan's claim that "government is the problem" inspired Republican politicians so much they began running on that premise. Once in office, they've all managed to help prove it.
When you say you wish to reduce government to a size small enough to drown in a bathtub but make exceptions for the military and other pet projects, the outcome is a crippling of institutions dedicated to helping the nation in general. And when you make war on science and education, the outcome is a people who can't compete with other nations. Government today is an evil abstraction for everyone except the people who've managed to buy it; they're quite happy that it functions only as an agent for their designs and interests.
42
"It can’t manage health care. It can’t master infrastructure. It can’t fund itself for more than tiny increments of time. It can barely stay open."
Yes, and why is that? If we're to start from this initial premise as true it is only fair to briefly discuss why it is true.
The truth is that the government can do all these things. Other governments around the world are proof of these things.
Many third-world countries, of course, are proof of how corruption and political shenanigans can render a government incapable of effective leadership.
I submit to you that the former is the reason behind your initial premise.
33
This is simply the continuation of villages, turning into city-states, turning into nation-states. It and the oppressive leaders (Bezos, Apple, Facebook, etc,) will eventually fall. And left behind will be waste of boxes, code and electronic rectangles.
15
The meek will still inherit the earth. It may appear not to be worth inheriting by the time that happens but, to the meek, it will be an Eden, and together, the meek and earth will rebuild what Corporations, in league with government, have destroyed.
4
Corporations do big "works" for their own ends. Ultimately, "we the people" will end up paying for their use. Remember, corporations are in this to make money not just to be "do gooders". .
15
Not all titans of industry are as enlightened as Elon Musk. Most of them would rather save money than save the world.
Some of them, when they take on government functions, abuse the role. This is commonly true of for-profit prisons and schools.
That said, I can certainly see Google training programmers in order to improve its own workforce pool.
2
Lets not get too hopeful about corporations being our ultimate answer. While a work of sci fi, the movie Rollerball carries the corporate theme to its Dystopian conclusion and seems more possible now than ever. Yes they can be more efficient than governments, especially in today's age, but in most case no less self serving and the leaders, vulnerable to the lure of power and corruption that tempts those surrounded by enormous wealth and influence, just as likely to bring us further down the rabbit hole.
7
I was getting worried that this piece would devolve into a fawning bow and scrape to the MNC but you pulled back from the brink at the end, and brought in the bottom line literally and figuratively. It is about the bottom line and not visionary thinking. I mean tunnels in earthquake land? Seriously!
As one earlier commentator mentioned the Republicans want the broke, broken government so their corporate backers can take the reigns (pun intended) and their banker buddies have plenty of riskless debt to buy up.
Just remember health care is the mess it is because corporations like hospitals and health insurance companies want it that way, and prisons are overflowing because prison corporations want it that way, and guns are easier to get that driver's licences because gun makers want it that way, and wars go on and on because corporations want it that way and food is too expensive and just plan bad for you, because corporations want it that way.
For every good corporation there are 1,000 corporations who are just fine with the way things are because they helped to make it that way.
33
Just look at Puerto Rico to see how public services are left to wither in order to make privatization the only alternative. I guess traditional manufacturing is too time consuming and difficult when you can feed off our tax money by taking over the public commons. Soon we'll have substandard online schools and a substandard online medical system, and instead of complaining to our elected officials, we'll be left to complain to a recorded corporate help line.
14
The scary problem with corporations is that citizens do not have a vote or a say in their actions; we do have control over our government, at least theoretically.
Why would Coca-Cola have long ago removed opium from its effervescent drink (Google it) unless forced to by the government? Would cigarette companies have stopped TV advertising or placed dire warnings on their product packaging? Would car companies have installed seat belts? Could we trust meat-packers to sell only safe, clean animal flesh? Corporations in a world without supervision would bury a lot of their mistakes. Caveat emptor.
Government is more than a necessary evil; it's our best friend -- if it's competent, honest, strong, hard-working, and good-willed. Lacking those characteristics, granted, it can be a scourge or even a nightmare.
We need to teach good government to our kids, and learn more about it ourselves. Reagan, FOX News, and others made it a bugbear. It isn't, or doesn't have to be. It's how a large body of people solve large problems and take advantage of opportunities by working together. Yes, we can.
Corporations are not people, my friend. They are money-making machines, products of blind capitalism; this country, and all countries, can be successfully run only by ethical governments with their eyes wide-open and all the lights on. The closed doors of corporate America can never promise this. Let's put our hopes on us, all of us, not just a few greedy oligarchs.
66
It would be nice to think we have control of our government. But just about every election cycle, newly elected representatives get sent to Washington to "clean up the mess", or "drain the swamp" - or whatever metaphor for that election cycle - and instead end up doing the bidding of campaign donors and lobbyists, i.e. Corporations. The last vestige of control we had was cut with the 2010 SCOTUS decision in Citizens United. Control was tenuous at best to that point. Citizens United took it all away.
4
Government has become incompetent because we are expecting too much of it. Does it really make sense that government should be responsible for our pensions and health care? For that matter, does it make sense that corporations should be responsible for their employees health care and pensions? Shouldn't this be an individual responsibility - with government only stepping in for those who can't or won't save for themselves?
If we reduced our expectations of government, and gave individuals more freedom to make their own choices, then the vast disagreements in Washington would be irrelevant to most people.
1
The fundamental (and fatal) flaws with your essentially libertarian argument is that it starts with your declarative assumption that our collective expectations are the cause of governmental incompetence and ends with a prescription for anarchy. Taking "individual responsibility" sounds nice until it runs into the reality that a sizable number of us are simply unable to do so by dint of lack of education, requisite intellect, enough money and/or illness. Having "more freedom to make their own choices" sounds nice but fails to recognize that for all too many such choices are all bad: whether to eat vs pay the bills vs keep the car on the road vs buy necessary medications, etc. Our Constitution begins with the words " We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." It doesn't say "every man for himself."
2
Of course private companies can do better. Think about the absurd rules that government operates under. The bidding processes are in theory lowest cost wins, but endless overruns mean once you have a contract, especially a large military one you can't lose it. Which is why the role of government should be a small as possible in our society.
2
If corporations inherit the earth they will inherit a trash heap of their own making.
But the earth has existed for 4 and half billion years surviving total freezing, its near death that produced our moon, ambush by massive asteroids and the gradual heating of our sun. Perhaps our greed and predations are just another nuisance that disturbs its vast history.
Our earth our home is a wonderful jewel and gift we should approach with gratitude. But it seems that corporations insist on trying to exploit it for every last dime of profit and that will be our undoing.
Yes, a few good and progressive things have been accomplished by such dreamers as Musk, but our history shows that technology has always been a two edged sword especially when it is ruled by mindless out of control capitalism and the quarterly bottom line.
7
Income inequality is the first ambition of the International Global corporations which are run for the profit of the investor class, not the citizens of the countries in which they reside. Those corporations have no constitution or bill of rights. They see the cheapest labor as their family, and will throw out the weak and the disabled and disown those who want to form unions. That is the truth.
America was formed in a time without large businesses, and the laws need to be changed to bring them under control, and that means tax control. As it is, the investor class is getting super rich on manufacturing cheap and selling to those still with some money.
Bernie was right. We need an FDR to challenge the big banks, wall street, and yes, the uncontrollable big companies like Apple and Microsoft and Nike.
Won't happen but it makes me happy to write that, so what the heck. America is run by the tools of the rich 1%, our political class, and the poor are tolerated...until the robots really do take over.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
16
"She said that there were six million job openings in America and suggested that schools weren’t graduating students with the know-how to fill them."
Ms. DeVos, it is the nativist immigration policy of you, Trump and your supporters which makes it impossible to fill those jobs. The native birth rate and productivity gains are too low to satisfy today's employment demands. For more than 100 years immigration has been helping to fill those gaps. Immigration has also made this country richer culturally.
6
It never occured to Bruni that corporate involvement in politics is the cause of much of the nation's troubles?
Bruni complains that the government "can’t manage health care". We'd have the health care system that the rest of the developed world enjoys, single payer, if not for corporate control over our politicians.
Bruni applauds the success of the success of the Amazon/Berkshire Hathaway/JPMorgan Chase entry into the health care system - before it has even been initiated.
Musk's space program, which recently made history by a feat that no government was ever able to achieve: placing an automobile in orbit. Musk is operating in the vacuum created by the down-sizing of NASA, initiated by the Challenger disaster - you rememeber, the disaster created by the gross negligence of a corporation named Morton-Thiokol.
Bruni applauds Airbnb, apparently ignorant of the studies showing that Airbnb increases housing costs, especially in tight makets such as San Francisco - a city in which public school teachers are forced to share apartments - sometimes with up to 6 - 8 other teachers - in order to make ends meet.
Speaking of housing, Wall Street firms are doing their best to end the American Dream by snapping up foreclosures (wreckage of their own making) and turning them into rental properties.
And of course, with their inordinate control of our government, we spend $100 billion a year on corporate welfare.
The public despises corporations, for good reason.
27
Watch Rollerball, the first one with James Caan. It takes place after the corporate wars, and the world is ruled by corporations. Rollerball is a game played to the death, just like in the Roman Coliseum, to provide entertainment for the masses. At one point, when James Caan's best friend is massacred during a game, James Caan yells to one of the corporate executives, "What kind of game is this?" The response is, "A game?
This was never meant to be a game." Rollerball was supposed to be science fiction, but it is happening today.
6
Corporations have already inherited the Earth.
Corporations abandoned apprenticeship programs, leaving the work to educational institutions. Now they want to bring back apprenticeship in the form of corporate colleges?
What will that mean for the survival of our public and private colleges and universities? Will future students be chained by debt to the company stores instead of to banks and other lenders?
Self-interest and ego have made the wealthy and many politicians happy campers at the expense of the rest of humanity and of this troubled planet.
Elon Musk's billions could address many earth-bound problems were they devoted to the world in which he lives instead of sending a car and later a few risk-takers to the Moon or to Mars. After all, those nearby planets are nothing compared to the endless reaches of outer space. Earthy inhabitants of every kind are going to remain, if they survive, on this Earth. True leadership involves wisdom and compassionate creative problem solving. Corporations, politicians and the rest of us can solve many if not most problems besetting this tiny planet. Perhaps that is the real purpose of our Human Race. And given its invention and long history, money may not make the World go 'round, but it can make the World a better place for everyone and everything. Thornton Wilder had the wisdom to note, "Money is like manure: it's not worth a thing unless it's spread around encouraging young things to grow."
Doug Giebel, Big Sandy, Montana
7
Whatever happened to good old-fashioned on the job training. Why set up a formal institution?
7
The corporate state's been growing for quite some time, including the corporate university ... and, the rich have been successfully been privatizing the world, you think?
5
I can't agree with this approach. Chris Lehane? (former oppo researcher for the highest bidder), Philip Zelikow? (who ran interference for the GWB admin as chief of staff of the 9-11 Commission. You gotta be kidding me!
Yes, it looks easier to just hand over the reins to corporations but they are amoral profit seekers at best.
Witness their collective silence on China's human rights abuses and their feckless caving by scrubbing Taiwan from their websites!
The real answer is to get corporate money out of politics. Have a neutral drawing of congressional districts, abolish the electoral college (and maybe the Senate while we're at it). Additionally, we should convince fellow democratic countries to revamp the sanctions system so we don't always have to choose between doing nothing or war.
7
Until you starting quoting Lawrence Summers, I was wondering what pill you'd taken. I personally was aghast at Elon Musk's hubris in putting such an ostentatious piece of space junk into orbit, even more aghast at the image of Starman cruising away from earth (was that his elbow out the window?). What a dismal commentary on our time: a new iconic image—so hip, so ironic, so self-absorbed, so materialistic—thumbing its nose at another paradigm-shifting image from 50 years ago: Earthrise from the Moon, a profoundly moving photograph now rendered quaint and trivial. We need government to reign in corporate hubris.
14
At our current rate of descent into the abyss, might as well let corporate have it. Probably not much left to lose. Oh, let's not forget space exploration with Musk's rocket launch payload. A red Tesla roadster, more junk circling earth. At least it was electric I guess, not a gas guzzler.
Good luck all
2
Corporations don't count on inheritance. They systematically pursue their own fiscal interests first and foremost. Corporations led by right wing extremists have no regard for the intent of the US Constitution- which seeks a balance of powers. These corporate fascists now own and control the Republican Party.
Most certainly the greatest damage to our democracy was enacted by the Roberts Court with their Citizens United decision. This action opened the sluice gates of dark corporate money (corporations are citizens said Roberts) that has enabled well-known extreme right wing billionaires to buy the state legislators and governors needed to suppress Democrats through voter suppression laws and systematic gerrymandering. Democracy based on the balance of power fails when all three branches of our Constitutional government stand behind corporate fascism.
This is not inheritance - it is fraud and theft.
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Of course the ultimate goal is to have machines, computers, robots or AI replace us all. Then and only then will all of the corporatists rejoice!
5
Speaking of symbiosis, the reader responses to Bruni's fine column provide thoughtful, provocative insights equal to his own. Although no real consensus emerges, many readers agree with Bruni that America is best served by a partnership between public and private initiatives that combines creative problem solving with a commitment to the welfare of the entire community, not just to the corporate bottom line.
After WWII, concern over the Soviet threat led the federal government to invest in scientific research and educational reform which frequently had an impact beyond the narrow needs of the military. Both the government and corporations tapped the resources and expertise of university science laboratories, to develop new technologies which powered the space program, produced a cornucopia of new consumer products, and equipped the military with the deadliest arsenal of weapons in history.
Maintaining the proper balance between public and private roles in the shaping of the American future has created a serious dilemma for this country in recent decades, one that we have failed to resolve. Corporations have translated their economic power into political influence, aided by a GOP that never fully accepted the dramatic transformation of Washington's role in American life since the Great Depression.
Trump's ascendancy represents the fruition of a decades-long GOP campaign to destroy that role. The president's incompetence unexpectedly contributed to that goal.
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Corporations should train their own workers. They demand huge tax breaks at all levels and then, at least in Indiana, they expect taxpayer-funded public schools to also train their workers for them. Public schools should provide basic education, not specific training in skills that may become obsolete in out fast moving technological world.
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Universities' primary function is to do research. Teaching is an afterthought. So it would not be hard for corporations to improve on teaching.
Unfortunately, corporations already have too much poser. They should not have more power and control both education and livelihood. But as corporations take more and more away from us, they undermine our ability to fight back.
It is long overdue that we pass laws and enforce them to limit the power of corporations.
20
From Washington Post>>In 2013, Google decided to test its hiring hypothesis by crunching every bit and byte of hiring, firing, and promotion data accumulated since the company’s incorporation in 1998. Project Oxygen shocked everyone by concluding that, among the eight most important qualities of Google’s top employees, STEM expertise comes in dead last. The seven top characteristics of success at Google are all soft skills: being a good coach; communicating and listening well; possessing insights into others (including others different values and points of view); having empathy toward and being supportive of one’s colleagues; being a good critical thinker and problem solver; and being able to make connections across complex ideas.
Those traits sound more like what one gains as an English or theater major than as a programmer. Could it be that top Google employees were succeeding despite their technical training, not because of it? After bringing in anthropologists and ethnographers to dive even deeper into the data, the company enlarged its previous hiring practices to include humanities majors, artists, and even the MBAs that, initially, Brin and Page viewed with disdain.
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The next natural step will be for Google to let go of those employees with STEM skills who are holding the company back.
2
When the party in power at the federal aims to prove to the citizenry that government doesn't work by themselves ensuring that it cannot, why should we be surprised when support for innovation and education is lacking?
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Yes, I call it the Cinderella phenomenon. When you point to her and say she can't go to the ball looking like that, you're not to notice how she got that way. It's all classic con games by Republican and corporate Democrat shills for the rich. If scholarly history will ever survive to be documented, people will be amazed at how far dishonesty for personal gain was able to go before it was finally exposed and corrected.
11
If I've learned anything working at a small company as it transitioned into becoming a large, multinational corporation it is that the government holds no monopoly on being large, bureaucratic, and slow to move. I've also noticed that it is next to impossible to dislodge leadership when it isn't listening to the needs of its constituencies. We need to support and encourage responsive government, and it's going to require more than just voting.
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Some things government does better (Medicare) and some things work better in the regulated private sector (manufacturers make remarkably safe and reliable cars and trucks).
But some of the worst outcomes come from government contracts with the private sector. Disaster relief and foreign military operations might be the best examples.
FEMA buys manufactured homes for a quarter million dollars from private contractors which are lived in for 18 months and then destroyed.
Military food, fuel and security no-bid contracts are spectacularly expensive, compared to what it would cost military personnel to provide.
But when it comes to the economy, for better or worse, corporations have far more impact on jobs and communities than any President or Congress ever will.
5
My great grand father had to do with the Henry Ford Trade School, it would be 1920s or so. Also the Dodge Brothers had good trade schools. In order to design and run the metal working equipment, machinists needed enough schooling to do trigonometry and read Machinery's Handbook. This is corporate designed education the government was not regulating. The Department of Labor established apprenticeship standards for the metal trades soon after, based on what was learned by administrating those trade schools. In an interesting development, the Dodge Bros had 'hobby shops' where the retired old-timers could work on special projects, and incidentally be available as a resource for apprentices. Sometimes the Union and the Corporation would sponsor contests in which several 'chosen' apprentices would be given raw material, checks to the tool crib, and a blueprint. All the journeymen could weigh in with their opinion on the results---even, and especially, if the journeymen were women, which started happening in the 1940s.
23
Ponder why, when left to themselves, our corporate world has produced only one Elon Musk while producing thousands of hedge-fund artists? Or why only 45% of private sector companies offer health insurance? Or why 67% of private sector workers have no pensions?
You would think that if our current shareholder-only flavor of corporate governance were truly a social problem solver we would be constantly in awe of their innovation and vision.
We're not.
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Thank you! The allure of the corporate world through maybe the P.T. Barnum advertising agencies that they hire has practically even captured Bruni. You're spot-on and could probably give even more examples of how a corporate state can lead to totalitarianism. Sheldon Wolin called it "inverted totalitarianism" but nevertheless a shadow of true democracy.
10
And thank YOU TOO, akhenaten2! Bruni's fawning valentine to corporations today has been infuriating me all morning. Wolin's 2008 "Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism" lays out the situation well and I owe thanks to Chris Hedges for so often mentioning Wolin and his corporate coup d'etat in slow motion that I finally read it, a bunch of Hedges' own books and a ton of books Hedges cites in his dozens of talks around the "intertubes."
The Wiki on Wolin's term, "inverted totalitarianism" looks pretty good and may be helpful to readers not already familiar with Wolin and the background on the term he apparently coined back in 2003:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
PS: Croton? I love Croton and lived on High Street for a year. Great town!
Exactly. All those fools trying to deconstruct our institutions instead of making them more nimble for the 21st century are handing over more and more power to corporate America. The bottom line will always be the first concern of corporate America, along with ever lower taxes. Are they going to come up with the plan that will give everyone some income when most jobs are done by artificial intelligence or the plan that will rescue ever larger swaths of populated areas destroyed by ever bigger weather disasters? Yeah, probably not. Will they do the research to come up with a basic drug that cures some major system of diseases but is just too cheap to bother with? Probably not. We need good, innovative government capable of long term planning not ever more powerful corporations. KA
1
If this trend continues, corporate education programs will fully displace public education, killing the founding father's vision of a wel-educated citizenry. Sure, people will know how to code, but corporations have little motivation to teach humanities, American history or civics. Instead, corporations will be motivated to indoctrinate employees with a corporatist perspective, placing profit above public good. Inequality and the underclass will grow as the corporate haves learn new skills while the poor have-nots are abandoned and are left behind.
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Pjd
Please reread the constitution in case you forgot it. It is not the responsibity of the federal government to educate your children. That is therefore left to the states. If you and your Westford neighbors (and other Massachusetts towns) want to teach your kids about humanities, that is up to you.
1
Agreed! I cannot tell if "killing the founding father's vision of a wel-educated citizenry" was intentional but makes your point quite well, twice.
1
This is precisely what the Kochs are up to now. They are trying to replace the public education system with one based on their "values" of selfishness, competition, and cruelty.
1
Given the super tax cuts corporations just got from Trump, McConnell, Ryan and just about every elected Republican in Congress and the deregulation of every industry without regard to worker health and safety, the ravages of climate change on the environment or the decline decent wage jobs on economic security for workers, corporations have already inherited the earth.
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"There may be something for all of us in Musk’s rocket launch. But there’s definitely a whole lot more in it for Musk."
Frank, this is a terrific column, and very thought provoking. As much as Americans might appreciate corporations filling the void of scientific research and job training, you're so right about motive-- that we outsource to private funding what's traditionally been handled by government at our peril.
To do so in its entirety is to operate in multitudes of corporate centers with no sense of the total needs of all citizens.
What's also lost is the sense of country and community: you're never going to get an Amazon or GE to build interstate roads and infrastructure, or build systems to take care of the poor, elderly, and disabled.
The business of business is profits--and if innovation is a way to get more of them fine, but the collateral damage remains in those not so lucky to be "chosen" as employees of a private enterprise.
It also lets politicians off the hook. If companies, which already pay the way for public officials to get elected (and then abdicate their responsibility or simply do nothing for their terms) then what are our taxes for?
For a country to be vibrant, you need the best and the brightest in both public and private spheres. Right not, it looks as if only one side is taking on the challenge, to our overall detriment.
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Yes. Jacob Marley's ghost: Mankind was my business.
6
Further we should notice that these Musk accomplishments- electric vehicles, rockets, electrifying homes, etc- have ALL been built on the shoulders and backbones of government funded enterprises or entities. Kudos to Musk, Jobs, Gates, etc for their vision, courage, and expertise. But the reason Musk sent a rocket to Mars is because the main government controlling forces- Congress, Presidents, and their ilk, LOST their courage and vision and drive, in order to cater to more selfish and mundane forces. And, regrettably, we, the citizenry , bear the full responsibility for that. The question is, who will manufacture the billions of tons of crying towels needed, when we realize the fruition of these collective disasters- government or private industry????
6
C'mon Christine...I know you've been paying attention! Our taxes are for war and chaos.
2
Corporate-owned Republicans destroy the government and then proclaim, see, proof that the government doesn't work!
Will corporations solve the opioid crisis that they created? Will they solve it with competent treatment that doesn't allow people to die in their "care" and that doesn't bankrupt them with costly treatment that may or may not work? Will corporations fix the water main that keeps breaking on my street, and then pave the street properly afterward? Or will they let my street fall into disrepair like they did the power lines that may have started devastating wildfires that created catastrophes for homeowners whose claims are then subsequently by insurance companies. Will corporations teach people the skills they need to be good citizens in a democratic society or just flood "schools" with PR and propaganda? Will they promote a just society or will they find incarceration too lucrative an industry to worry about justice?
404
Yes! It's cold comfort but nice to see other people like yourself recognize how Bruni is tempted to fall for the old switcheroo. You've seen through it. I compare it the the wicked step-sisters exclaiming that Cinderella can't go to the ball looking like THAT. Uh, huh.
1
Corporations are socipaths that we have allowed to grow among us. That which has no social responsibility and great power is a threat to us all. Time to put time limits (as was done originally) on corporate charters. Let them prove their worth to society every ten years to stay in business.
Employer group health plans and corporate insurance carriers led the charge in eviscerating the quality and scope of mental health services provided through our private health options during the 1990s and 2000s. The imposed limits on substance abuse treatment, provided inequitable reimbursements to mental health/substance abuse (MHSA) providers and limited available care by skimping on MHSA networks. This has left Americans, even after Obama signed Mental Health Parity legislation in 2010 and added a round of clarifications to improve equity in non-quantitative treatment aspects (network access, medical management, etc.,) uniquely unprepared to deal with the Sackler family & Perdue Pharma's Oxycontin assault on our health with their marketing of highly addictive opiates as the new nicotine.
Thank you corporate America, it takes a village to really drum up a good healthcare crisis.
And we could go on...
By voting in the next election cycles, we can try to get responsive and responsible representation and reinstate and improve many of the necessary and vital government and public functions that have been under violent assault be the Trumpnards.
Mr. Bruni mistakes the elephant in the room for the rogue that it is.
1
Corporations not only the hope of America (over the political/economic, government) but destined to openly replace (rather than act secretly as already occurs to who knows what extent) much of what passes today for government?
I certainly know if I were as wealthy as the wealthiest of Americans, an entrepreneur with great capital, I would scour the nation for the best talent in virtually every field, in fact I would pay parents of gifted children to allow me to REALLY raise their children, REALLY give them an education. I wouldn't just be building a corporation, I would be building an entire city, and ideally a city with liftoff, A James Blish City in the Sky, an Isaac Asimov project and corporate goal of making sure the human race not only survives every hazard human and natural, but thrives, that when the end we are speaking of is the survival of the human race virtually all means are justified toward this end.
In short I would design an order beyond current political/economic order. An order which is not tame life, liberty, happiness stuff, or socialistic bliss, or age old yet always recurring under various guise authoritarian order, but an order which realizes the most rigorous of humanities, the hardest of sciences, the pinnacle of artistic achievement. An order which deliberately seeks to produce towering geniuses and connect them into ever more complex teams. For the life of me I cannot understand how any American worth his salt can live a single day without vision.
4
When Mitt Romney declared that "corporations are people," it was a warning that the sway of the private sector had gone too far. Corporations are focused on making money. That's not inherently bad, but it shows a narrow scope and certainly a depersonalized focus.
There are some fields, like education, which are supposed to be neutral and an equalizer. Whether it comes up short is a fair question, but privatization is not the answer. Great for industries that are innovative and forward-looking, but they should work in tandem with, not in lieu of, a functional government.
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It sounds like Bruni has been lunching with the corporate lobbyists again.
Musk's Falcon Heavy launch was 5 years behind schedule. It isn't the first heavy lift rocket to ever be built. It's a good step forward, but it isn't a revolution. Bruni is probably unaware that much of Musk's revenue comes from NASA contracts for Space Station resupply runs. Without NASA money there is no SpaceX. It's a symbiotic relationship.
I object to Bruni's statement that "grand experiments belong to the private sector, not the public one." He'e forgotten the NASA probes which have explored Pluto, Saturn and Jupiter in the past five years. He has forgotten the two Mars rovers currently exploring the Red planet which Musk someday hopes to visit. He is also forgetting the James Webb space telescope, a fabulously ambitious machine which will unfold a 6 meter mirror in orbit and cool it to a temperature that will allow it to see the first stars in the universe.
Musk's Mars dreams are cool, but they are what the software industry used to call vaporware. There is no money to fund them. The only realistic funding source is the government.
It is also a shame to see Bruni promoting two corporate titans who are notorious for having stressful, 80 hour a week work environments. Amazon in particular is notorious for wearing out employees quickly. Of course the appeal of that model to the corporate dominated world of Manhattan is easy to understand. That is the future they want for all Americans.
462
We need a list of the IT innovations that have originated in an environment where considerations of profitability were absent or not primary. These would include COBOL, UNIX, C, Mozilla, Wikipedia, linux, much data encryption technology, the internet itself, shareware, and many other things. Many things originated in the public sphere and were later gobbled up by profit-seeking entities that recognized their money-making potential and fought to make them proprietary rather than free so they would become revenue streams.
The products of highly skilled people seeking to provide tools for people like themselves to use and do new, interesting, and exciting things are hamstrung by those who want to make sure these products will not be available except to those paying (as much as possible) for them. Making money off stuff is the business genius, and businesses are horrified when stuff that could be sold is given away; doing that is the greatest offense possible against the natural order, and far worse than theft. Theft is part of the natural order, and its existence makes antitheft entities profitable.
55
He is forgetting about how much basic pharmaceutical research has been done by the federal government. He is forgetting that the US DOE bankrolled research into fracking for 30 years. I could go on and on, but with a few, now extinct examples like Bell Labs and Xerox PARC, the government did research and corporations did development.
14
Bell Labs was created by government mandate in return for granting AT&T a monopoly.In return for being granted a monopoly on the telephone system, AT&T was required to invest a fixed portion of its revenue on R&D to improve communications technology.
2
In some things, such as basic space exploration, it would be best if NASA still blazed the way; but the eternal quest to fund Kumbaya for those now living to the exclusion of all else has largely erased that quest as feasible for government, apparently rejecting the words of John F. Kennedy, who once said “We can do both”. We’re left with the private sector when they will be seeking relatively short-term payback instead of laying a multi-century platform for exploitation of our solar system.
This “stepping into a vacuum” is only one part of what I foresaw as Trump’s true value to our governance and our evolution as a people became evident to me during the historical discontinuity that his administration might provide – from the perspective of the 2016 presidential primaries, that made it so clear that BOTH our major parties were very badly broken, ineffective, and needed massive reform from the ground-up.
Yet, all Frank’s enthusiasm, while I share it, is tolerated at a risk. Uber-rich hobbyists, such as Musk and Bezos, probably present manageable risk and potentially much good, but über-large, multi-national corporations generally could evolve problematically, assuming more and more of the characteristics of sovereignty and becoming disconnected from the interests of the societies that spawned them. We risk ceding self-determination as peoples to boardroom decisions that don’t consider frontiers in the quest for optimal global operations.
Frank’s caution shows wisdom.
13
Perhaps Richard hasn't read the "Kumbaya" article yet.
8
Richard says "... manageable risk and potentially much good, but ... We risk ceding self-determination as peoples to boardroom decisions .... Frank’s caution shows wisdom." An excellent caution, well said. Some people think of no-tax GE when they think of currently existing large corporations; some think of Musk and SpaceX. Both are real. I think the threat is here, and so is the opportunity. We need to be wary without being repressive. Our politics don't encourage me.
17
"Could evolve problematically"? It has happened. It's basically over already; and instead of putting up a fight, we welcomed it and embraced it, although some of us might not have been aware that's what we were doing.
4
The biggest problem with this column is that Frank Bruni sought out the wit and wisdom of Larry. Never mind that Summers once infamously dissed women at Harvard as being incompetent at math,.This is the guy who helped ruin the lives of millions of people as he was lauded by Newsweek for being one of the three white males who "saved the world" in the 90s by deregulating the economy. Now that he's out of government power, he pretends to care.
Just as we now have government by Goldman Sachs under Trump (and Bush before him) we only recently had government by Citigroup under the Democratic regimes. Citigroup actually had "vetting power" over Obama's cabinet, so is it any wonder where the priorities lay? (Hint: deferred prosecution agreements for Wall Street fraudsters, and evictions and job losses for everybody else. Also, "free trade agreements" designed to offshore American jobs so corporations could profit even more, as secret "dispute settlement" courts run by the corporations can actually sue countries who don't comply with me being plundered.)
All that Republicans have to offer is paranoia and resentment through the magic of demonizing "the other". All that Democrats have to offer is "winning the future" and urging us not to be "cynical" as we patiently wait for incremental change we can believe in.
Corporations have been running the place for quite a while now. And that is by will and by plan, no matter which right wing of the Uniparty is in power at any given time.
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As I remember it, Larry did not "[dis] women at Harvard as being incompetent at math". He merely raised the question of whether women are less good at math than men. It does happen that he was a few decades behind the learning curve there, but we should be accurate.
17
There are 11 lobbyists for each member of Congress and, of course, the lobbyists helped write the recent tax "overhaul" favoring the rich and corporations.
16
Ann, you surely don't mean to include my personal lobbyist in your description? He was cheap enough for me to afford. I'm sure he wouldn't betray my interests.
2
The quote from Summers is seminal; readers should be reminded that Summers was also President of Harvard.
We've gotten where we are in U.S. education because conservatives have for so long wanted to starve it of funding, for all the well-known documented reasons.
Going forward, it is dangerous to our democracy if there is not a shared knowledge base of American history, society, and economics that is transmitted to each succeeding generation - a history which may not be in the interests of corporations, which they indeed might have an interest in slanting/spinning.
Colleges and universities where even accountants, programmers, coders, and scientists are instilled with broader educations outside their disciplines should not be abandoned as needlessly time-consuming legacy institutions - else the Brave New World will repeat our past mistakes, with the algorithms driving machines and A.I. being written with biased logic/data merely re-inventing humanity's errors.
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Well said. It isn’t the only thing responsible for the general lack of critical thinking in just about every area of our society, but it seems to me to have much to do with the abandonment of the liberal arts in higher education. Now we are also seeing grave threats to our public school system through short sighted funding cuts. The generations to come will pay a heavy price for our allowing this to happen.
3
Spellings is UNC's starver-in-chief and for some reason the columnist quotes her without challenge. This isn't thew fist time.
1
Summers was president of Harvard and blew a hole in their endowment during his tenure there.