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based on the SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE, who have sole sovereign control over who does business here and how--in theory anyway. But you have bought into the corporate propaganda that THEY rule, not us.
WE grant charters to corporations, through the states. Without those charters, they cannot do business. They cannot even exist, and they have no RIGHT to exist. WE give our PERMISSION for them to exist, and to conduct business, in the public interest. We regulate them. We tax them. But we could just as well nationalize our resources, and create national businesses, directly run by OUR government--as, for instance, the Norwegians do with their oil business (run by a national company, Statoil). We could have a largely socialist economy, with severe limitations on wealth, as in Sweden. There is nothing about "rule of, by and for the people" that requires capitalism or capitalist domination of the economy. There is nothing sacred about capitalism. But corporations--all of them (resource exploiters, banks, investment groups, outsourcers of jobs and manufacturing, etc.)--would like you to believe that "ours in a capitalistic system," not a democracy; that ours is a system of rule by the rich elite who have "capital"; that their "capital" is sacred, and that they have a "right" to do whatever they like with it.
The "sovereignty of the people" derives from an ancient concept of the king as the owner of all the land, but, more than this, of having a sacred relationship with the land that makes the land fertile and produces prosperity for the people who live there. The king thereby exercised the right to regulate the production of goods and services and all economic transactions--for the benefit of the people (in theory). Democracy SPECIFICALLY adapted that concept but replaced the king with the PEOPLE. The People are the king. We collectively own the land and and all of its resources, and hold the right to regulate all economic transactions--for the benefit of the people. We exercise our SOVEREIGNTY through voting, and the political activity related to voting. And how we organize our economic activity is entirely up to us--to we, the People--in our collective wisdom.
It is very important to get this concept straight, in discussions of capitalism. Capitalism is a CHOICE that we have made--or a series of choices over time--regarding how to organize our economic activity. And if capitalism becomes detrimental, becomes bad and harmful for most people, and a threat to our sovereignty, we can chuck it out. Not easily, to be sure. In some countries--in the past--it has taken bloody revolutions to overturn capitalism-gone-whacko. No one wants a repetition of those upheavals (nor of our own bloody revolution, which was as much a revolt against British East India Company CAPITALISM, as is it was a revolt against King George owning all the land). Today we are seeing many models of PEACEFUL, DEMOCRATIC rejection if not of capitalism in its entirety, certainly of some of the basic tenets of capitalism, throughout South America. For instance, Venezuela--which long ago nationalized its oil--recently asserted its SOVEREIGN right to set the terms of oil contracts with multinationals for the greater benefit of the people of Venezuela. Prior governments required that only 10% of the profits go to the people of Venezuela. The current government has required a 60/40 split in favor of the people. And, in a correctly ordered democracy--which Venezuela certainly is--the multinationals MUST agree. They have NO RIGHT to operate in Venezuela, period, and no right to do so on THEIR terms. They must have the consent of the people, as expressed by their democratically elected government.
Venezuela has not rejected capitalism altogether (in fact, private enterprise is thriving there). It has just PUT THINGS RIGHT as to the sovereignty and consent of the people, and benefit to the people.
And, of course, one of the capitalist monsters that we have spawned--Exxon Mobil--reacted viciously, by trying to freeze $12 billion in Venezuela's assets. Exxon Mobil lost that legal fight to punish the people of Venezuela for their audacious assertion of their sovereignty--in a London court, recently. But the outline of the forces in dispute is clear: Exxon Mobil, a multinational corporation, which last year raked in absolutely unprecedented profits--$40 BILLION--a corporation chartered here in the U.S., vs. the sovereign people of Venezuela (whose DEMOCRATIC government Exxon Mobil and their puppets in our White House have been trying to violently overturn for eight years now--with coup attempts, assassination plots, an oil professionals' strike, and other destabilization efforts, and including the $5.5 billion (U.S. taxpayer) arming of the fascists in Colombia to stir up a war with Venezuela). Democracy vs. Capitalism.
Read that again: Democracy VS. Capitalism. They are NOT one and the same. Democracy comes first. It is the very ground of our freedom. It is SELF-RULE of, by and for the people. We may pick and choose among various economic ideas (or, in some cases, fight the capitalists to the death over them--as with Social Security), and put together a country that is weighted toward capitalism, with lots of socialist mitigations, or a country that is socialist, with severe restrictions on capitalism and wealth, but it is OUR CHOICE. Our "system" is DEMOCRATIC. It not necessarily capitalist--and when capitalists become monstrous, as with Exxon Mobil, we have the INHERENT RIGHT to DO something about it--to pull their corporate charter, to dismantle them and seize their assets for the common good.
Indeed, we have let the capitalists get so out of control, that they have become INTERNATIONAL monsters, trying to topple and control other peoples' governments, in addition to destroying OUR democracy with a corporate resource war in the Middle East, and stolen elections here. It may be too late. I hope and pray that it is not. There are signs of life in our democracy--among our citizenry. And the South Americans have created an astonishing renaissance of democracy in the southern hemisphere. (You wouldn't know this from our lying-ass corporate 'news' monopolies, but it's true.) There is reason to hope--but we need to fully realize that capitalism, which may have been a positive force at one time, has become more like a huge cancerous growth on our backs, in recent times. And capitalism is NOT the only form of business and trade, and is NOT the only path to prosperity. These monster corporations would like you to think that. It is one of their more successful propaganda items.
In any case, we have not had REAL capitalism for some time. Competition. Lots of small to medium sized businesses selling their wares in a true "free market." What we have are a few monster MONOPOLIES--dictating government and corporate policy for the enrichment of the few--fixing prices, writing the laws, owning our politicians, and rigging the whole system AGAINST the people, and AGAINST small business, and the creativity, industriousness and progressive politics that characterize small business people. Did you know that small business is the BIGGEST employer in the U.S.? We can do without Exxon Mobil. We cannot do without the corner grocery store, or the local hardware store, or the non-corporate book store, or the family-run restaurant, or the millions of other small businesses that employ MOST of our people, and tend to treat their employees well, and contribute to their communities.
I'm a believer in trade. I think it is one of the most progressive forces in human history. And it is in our very genes--we love variety and adventure. Monster corporations like Exxon Mobil KILL true "free trade." They don't want "free trade." They want our sons and daughters to DIE for their MONOPOLY.
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