Cooperation

The loss which comes with the big-corporate influence on all aspects of American life is vast. Living in a city brings this to light when I need something done at my house. The larger corporate vendors are slick when they provide glossy brochures from the hands of a professional salesman who is distanced from the actual labor to be provided. The brochures are seductive. They too are the product of big-corporate advertising firms. The follow-up to the closing of a deal with these corporate businesses is not as shiny as their brochures. Broken promises hold great profits for insurance companies and other big businesses. 

My recent experience with a local contractor was a pleasant contrast. The company owner still swung a hammer. His workers had the congenial confidence of those who are treated well and respected by an employer. This contractor took a design I made in a simple computer program and translated it into wood with open communication and cooperation with me all along the way. The result was remarkably true to my original vision. He and his workers took pride in the result. 

Large corporations are in the business of carving out consumer tastes and expectation to suit their profit margins. They do this through media, supply and price manipulation. The dictation of supply and demand has long ago given way to corporate indoctrination and manipulation of the public taste. Any sophisticated foodie biting into a Dunkin Donut knows what I am talking about. Any lover of durable clothing who rifles through the racks at Walmart knows what I am talking about.

Cooperation between vendors and buyers is a a local phenomenon. The neighborhood bakery, now a dinosaur of urban life, knew what to bake from what people in the neighborhood bought. The milkman, another anachronism, used to determine the amount of milk, cream, cheese and butter to leave at the doorstep based on the reusable bottles returned and a note stuffed into the top of one of them by the customer. He did not simply leave what he wanted to get rid of on the stoop. 

The basics of life in the U.S. have been kidnapped by large corporate businesses with the cooperation of government. Farm subsidies and Federal regulations have led the way. Local regulations followed suit. This made it unprofitable or illegal for local providers of basic consumer goods to access the demand for them. I happen to believe the enforced dependence on the mass-produced automobile paved the way for the indoctrination which led to this situation. 

I often criticize capitalism. When I do, I am most often criticizing the big-corporate capitalism of Wall Street. I resent the government's collusion in convincing the population that this is It. Love it or leave it, Mr. Snowden. The big-corporate-military complex has won. Go quietly to prison, Private Manning. If you are lucky they will give you 25 years instead of 99. The big-corporate-military complex will not be exposed to criticism by the likes of you, a single citizen-soldier. 

It is indeed likely that there are already too many human beings for food producers and public-safety-suppliers to handle in any other way. But wouldn't it be more humane for governments and corporations to say this? Wouldn't this educate the public rather than mesmerize them for exploitation? I think so. However, the big-corporate-military complex is not humane. It is a culture ruled by greed and power.