The Golden Rule: Theirs and Ours - by Paul Street

[polly7]

Friday, April 05, 2013

Gary Olson, Empathy Imperiled: Capitalism, Culture, and the Brain (New York: Springer, 2012)

Think of the values and ideas we left progressives tend to identify with and defend and advance against those rapacious “1%”’ masters of capital, for whom the Golden Rule is that “those who have the gold deserve to rule.” Words that first come to mind probably include solidarity, democracy, the common good, equality, justice, peace, and dignity. Other terms might arise: human rights, socialism, freedom, liberty, the commons, people over profits, and people’s power.

It goes back a long way. The modern corporation’s cloak of personhood provides a great shield of invisibility for capitalists who reap enormous benefits from the economies of scale and the barriers to competition afforded by their freedom to combine assets while avoiding liability beyond their individual investment for the harm their agglomerated entities cause. “The basis of a corporation,” Chomsky casually noted last year, “is limited liability, meaning as a participant in a corporation you’re not personally liable if it, say, murders tens of thousands in Bhopal.”[16]

Full Article: http://www.zcommunications.org/the-golden-rule-theirs-and-ours-by-paul-street