Click the image to watch the 1:51 trailer on YouTube.
Reforming our broken healthcare system, and sadly recovering from the pandemic, depends on fixing our political system and the extreme inequality and corporate greed that makes it so corrupt.
As I’ve learned, this underlies nearly every other issue voters will consider in the November 2020 election. Beyond just healthcare and how to deal with a global pandemic, political corruption also affects economic policy, the environment, the judicial system, immigration, religious liberty, racial relations, fair trade, public education, infrastructure, gun safety, and so much more.
I originally wrote this article to highlight The Corporation, an important documentary about how the modern corporation behaves in today’s society, but I’m republishing today preceded by new information.
WATCH THIS FIRST — In just 13 minutes, Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich describes how corporate monopolies, portrayed as 21st Century Robber Barons, are able to achieve record profits at the expense of workers and consumers. They have become so dominant that workers and consumers have fewer options for employment and health insurance and have to accept the wages and prices offered to them. At the same time, worker bargaining power has declined as fewer are unionized and technologies have made outsourcing easy and cheap.
The Corporation
If healthcare corporations and insurance companies are seen as “persons,” as the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision says, then what sort of persons are they?
That a question presented in this award-winning documentary, which you can watch below. The operational principles and legal requirement of a corporation are to serve shareholder investment interests, giving it a highly anti-social “personality.” Corporations are inherently self-interested (profit-driven), making them often amoral, callous and deceitful, even breaching social and legal standards to get their way. And while they can mimic the human qualities of empathy, caring and altruism, corporations don’t suffer from guilt and can’t be jailed. So in short, modern corporations behave like a psychopath, and they use their political clout to avoid regulation and reform.
Free-market capitalism is no longer played on a level playing field, even in healthcare, because large corporations unfortunately invest in lawyers and paid lobbyists to gain political influence and craft laws in their favor. They can effectively “buy” elections with unlimited funds directed in secret to political action committees.
The Corporation is a complex and sobering yet darkly amusing video documentary that takes its audience on a graphic and engaging quest to reveal the corporation’s inner workings, curious history, controversial impacts and possible futures. Based on Bakan’s best-selling book, ”The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power,” the film has achieved box office success, has won dozens of awards from prestigious festivals around the world, and stands as the top-grossing Canadian feature documentary of all time.
The Corporation includes encounters and interviews with CEOs and top-level executives from a range of industries: energy, pharmaceutical, computer, tire, carpet, sporting goods, public relations, branding, news, advertising, and undercover marketing, as well as a Nobel-prize winning economist, a corporate spy, and a range of academics, critics, historians and thinkers.
The Corporation helps us understand why we can’t just trust “market forces” to control behavior and must instead restore the checks and balances of regulatory oversight, even establishing criminal penalties in some cases.
The Corporation helps explain why so many U.S. corporations behaved badly and contributed to the global financial crisis. Apparently some corporate officers even forgot the ethics lessons they learned in kindergarten. They obviously believe in privatizing profits and socializing losses, because they too adopted the same self-serving and psychopathic behavior of the corporation itself, putting both stockholders and society at risk for personal gain.
You can also order the 2-DVD Special Edition version, which includes over 8 hours of excellent extras at www.thecorporation.com.
INTERLOCKING DIRECTORATES
At the beginning of the film, George Bush cited “a few bad apples” as being responsible for bad corporate behavior, but we all know what happens when one bad apple is put into a basket with otherwise good apples. They all go bad. That’s largely what happens with interlocking directorates, which I believe should be illegal but generally are not.
The problem of interlocking directorates comes when members a corporate board also sit on other boards, and they approve each other’s compensation package without sufficient oversight of shareholders. The practice widens the income gap between workers and executive management, but potentially worse is that bad business practices and behaviors of one corporation can quickly infect the others. Like schools of fish, geese and cattle that stampede in one direction following a lead cow, if one corporation increases profits through automation, offshoring, and mass layoffs, others quickly follow, often blindly. Interlocking directorates allow corporations to influence more political power as a group, often against the interests of the public and society as a whole, and that’s whey they should be illegal.
THE BEHAVIOR OF A PSYCHOPATH
- Self-serving with disregard for the feelings and rights of others
- Lacks conscience or feeling of remorse or guilt
- Unmindful of putting themselves or others at risk
- Extremely organized, secretive and manipulative
- Repetitive misbehavior, deceit and concealment of evidence
- Understands the rules, social mores and laws but disregards them
- Charismatic and charming outer personality, often hiding a nefarious inner personality
- Able to fly under the radar of society by mimicking behaviors that make them appear normal
The behavior of a psychopath and sociopath are similar, but a sociopath’s crimes are typically disorganized, spontaneous and relatively easy to detect. A psychopath’s crimes, on the other hand, are well planned and concealed.
From All I really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten:
- Share everything. No one person has a greater right to use the planet than any other.
- Play fair. We all know the rules, but are we following them?
- Don’t hit people. Be aware of how your actions affect others.
- Clean up your own mess. Put things back where you found them.
- Take responsibility for your actions. Say you’re sorry if you hurt somebody. Make amends.
- Don’t take things that aren’t yours. (And adults, don’t cheat, rob or plunder.)
- Flush. And wash your hands.
- Indulge. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
- Live a balanced life. Learn & Think, Draw & Paint & Sing, and Dance & Play & Work.
- Slow down and Rest. Take a nap every day.
- When you go out in the world… Watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
- Be aware and wonder. Remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned – the biggest word of all – LOOK.
“It may actually be worse than you think, said Common Dreams. “We are up against an unprecedented level of organization and funding by a right wing that is more extreme than anything seen in the modern period.”
AMERICA BROKEN: critiquing Capitalism, Healthcare & Politics — As I wrote in this article, “There’s no such thing as Free Market Capitalism without rules governing Property, Monopoly, Contracts, and Bankruptcy. But who makes the rules, and who enforces them?” Capitalism today has been distorted by wide disparities of wealth, influence and opportunity. Our laws and political systems have become rigged against all but the wealthiest among us who can buy influence. And that Extreme Inequality underlies every other political issue today, including health care, education, housing, energy, the environment, and more.
Hillary Clinton on quarterly capitalism — Clinton understands and in this short (2:46) interview explains the problem well. She speaks of encouraging long term investments, as opposed to short term speculation. One way to do that is to tax investments. The short-term pain of such a tax would discourage day trading and dangerous speculation but be insignificant over the long term. I think we should also outlaw Interlocking Directorates where execs sit on each other’s Board and vote for each other’s compensation package.
Dirty Money is a 6-part NETFLIX documentary series about global greed and corruption. From crippling payday loans to cars that cheat emissions tests, this investigative series exposes brazen acts of corporate greed and corruption.
Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America is a related book by Nancy MacLean. It examines the role of the Koch brothers in co-opting the Republican Party, Christian Evangelists, and White Nationalists to promote a Radical Libertarian agenda to remove regulations and protect the property rights of billionaires. By promoting political polarization and mistrust of our government and institutions today, democracy itself is threatened as power is taken away from the populace and given to a few rich elites. Traditional conservatives should feel angry to learn how masterfully and legally they’ve been duped. If you don’t want to buy and read the book, watch this 58-minute interview with the author.
MacLean’s perspectives are extremely important and timely, because 2018 Trump tax cuts proved to the Koch brothers and other billionaires that Political Investments Have Huge Returns. The Koch’s invested millions on conservative media, conservative ThinkTanks & AstroTurf organizations (American Heritage Society, Cato Institute, American Legislative Exchange Council), conservative judges (through the Federalist Society), and conservative politicians (through campaign finance); and those investments paid off handsomely. With such high returns (>5,000% ROI) from political influence investments, there’s almost no other investment that can deliver greater returns. That’s one reason I’ve been warning that 2020 will be the most expensive election ever.
SO WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Did I get too political? Do you see a connection in corporate behavior and rising healthcare costs? Did the Affordable Care Act give even more power to big pharma and health insurance companies? What will likely happen to healthcare under the Trump administration? Will we ever have universal access to healthcare, or even universal access to health insurance? Should healthcare be a right or a privilege? I encourage comments below.
RELATED VIDEO(S):
The Monopolization of America (11 min Robert Reich video) This monopolization trend is especially disturbing when combined with the sociopathic behavior of large corporations with a legal mandate to serve the investment interests of shareholders above all else.
The Coming Collapse (Disturbing Essay) “It is impossible for any doomed population to grasp how fragile the decayed financial, social and political system is on the eve of implosion.”
CORPORATE FASCISM: The Destruction of America’s Middle Class (YouTube 1:42 min) A new kind of fascism has taken over America: the merger of corporations and government whereby corporate power dominates. With the emergence of ever-larger multinational corporations, the corporatocracy has been in a position to literally purchase the U.S. Congress. A result of the corporate purchase of Congress is that many of the nation’s “laws” have been re-configured to benefit WE THE CORPORATIONS, rather than WE THE PEOPLE.
EDITOR: Progressives and Conservatives may each agree with parts of this film, and that suggests bipartisan opposition to corporate fascism is possible. But I think this film goes too far. While I value the original intent of our founding fathers and Constitution, I see the world as now a different place. Air travel and the Internet are just two of enabling globalization and multinational corporations that didn’t exist in 1776. More important is to understand the causes of corporate fascism? My biggest fear is that our fractured Congress, because of problems shown at the beginning of the film, can’t evolve the Constitution fast enough to keep up with the exponentially accelerating pace of tech innovation.
CORPORATE CONSOLIDATION – John Oliver uses sarcasm to discuss the dangers of corporate consolidation in many industries (retail, banking, healthcare, airlines, media, etc.) that are no longer constrained by the FTC and strong antitrust laws. Especially scary for our democracy is Media Consolidation, which is being allowed to control the political narrative as companies like Sinclair Broadcasting gain dominant ownership of local TV news networks.
Democracy at Work: Curing Capitalism – Richard Wolff’s 1.5 hour lecture closely matches “The Corporation” in many ways. American capitalism did well for the working class between the Great Depression until the late 1970’s when President Ronald Reagan promoted the trickle-down theory. Ever since, real income has stagnated. The only way families have kept up is with women entering the workforce (dual-income families) and by accepting more debt.
RELATED ARTICLES
Big Pharma CEO: ‘We’re in Business of Shareholder Profit, Not Helping The Sick’ Shkreli is right: as CEO, his primary and legal responsibility is to serve the investment interest of shareholders. With compensation tied to stock price, we should not be surprised by his sociopathic behavior.
The Monopolization of America (NY Times) — In one industry after another, including healthcare, big companies have become more dominant over the past 15 years. FAIRNESS is a good base for framing the issues of Inequality, Monopolies, Tax Policy, and Justice.
Obamacare’s Secret History is an account of the sort of back room political dealings that occur in this country and the corrupting role of powerful special interest lobbying. It appears in the Wall Street Journal and is obviously right-leaning, but it describes a political process that’s messy under any administration as long as those special interests have so much access and political influence. While the article implies that President Obama was responsible for concessions made to the pharmaceutical industry, it also shows that his original intent had to be compromised in order to get healthcare reform passed at all.
What Americans Think About Income Inequality (FASTCOMPANY)
AI will spell the End of Capitalism (Washington Post) I share this concern, especially since public policy is not keeping up with tech innovation.
The Battles Ahead: Meet the Biggest Opponents of Single-Payer – WOW! This excellent piece is part of Fighting for Our Lives: The Movement for Medicare for All.
Great article. Does this mean that the corporate world is responsible for the most of the corruption and crimes we face in our today world? [EDITOR comments in italics]
Who knows maybe this is also a reason why in the American boarders children are being separated from their parents, because I really see no reason why families should be divided. What’s so annoying is that this doesn’t even affect them, so they just don’t care. There they go about bending rules and laws in their own dirty, hidden and selfish reasons.
I can’t also believe that they would dream or even consider wiping out free public health care facilities in America, do you know the number of lifes that would be affecting… actually, it’s all just so sad, but wonderful seeing people stand up against this dirty corruption.
Why Organizations and Leaders Need to Solve Real Problems Again (interesting essay about six principles for creating the future)
EDITOR: There is one ROOT PROBLEM underlying most of the “REAL problems” (inequality, stagnation, inopportunity, indignity, distrust, and misinformation), and the SECONDARY problems (climate change, conflicts, upheaval, rage, indignity, xenophobia, scapegoating, extremism, misinformation, authoritarianism, and so on). The problem I speak of is OVERPOPULATION, which stresses our planet’s natural resources and societies’ ability to feed, clothe, house, and educate them all.
Population growth has been a top topic each year as wealthy elites attend the World Economic Forum. (World population has almost tripled since I was born.) That problem is compounded by worry that automation, AI and robotics could eliminate the need for most forms of work, and therefore the need for workers.
And then there’s the fact that the aging population requires more medical care and support, just as there are fewer young people working and paying taxes to fund needed social programs. The average lifespan in 1940 was 63.5 years, with some 9M Americans on Social Security and a ratio of workers-to-beneficiaries of 159:1. By 2010, average lifespan was 78.3 years, with nearly 39M people on Social Security and ratio of workers to retirees of 2.9:1.
So, what to do? Yes, there is inequality and a concentration of wealth, but more troubling is how that wealth affects political influence and leads toward authoritarianism. The author suggests simple solutions to big primary problems, but the ROOT problems of overpopulation and aging still aren’t addressed.
Put yourself in the shoes of the uber-wealthy and ask how you can both increase wealth and power and decrease the problems from aging and population growth. They worry that angry hordes will be soon coming for them with torches and pitchforks, and two options come to mind: WAR and Political Genocide. Big problems, simple solutions, but from a different perspective, and that’s where the danger lies for the rest of us.
The problem with this essay is that incentives are leading my to the dystopian version of solving the ROOT problem that I described. War and genocide seem like obvious solutions to the population and aging problems while also increasing wealth and concentrating power. CEOs, for example, are now legally required to serve the investment interests of shareholders above all else, leading them to worry about stock price and exhibit sociopathic behavior. Authoritarian government leaders have similarly self-serving incentives and don’t seem interested in solving “primary” problems. The only hope I see for the masses is a revolution, but that’s not going well in Syria.