Why do the Left Wing Liberals Hate Corporations?

[georgephillip]

The addition of the word 'hate' to the rhetorical lexicon is one of those marvelous accomplishments of right wing think tanks, it elucidates nothing but it serves as a wonderful stick to hit any idea that is outside the box of accepted thought.

This video on citizens united demonstrates why some people are critical of corporations.
Democracy after Citizens United | MIT World

Name one thing invented by Government that helped boost our GDP or created an industry and thus jobs.

Nuclear power, Interstate highway system, and the Internet are a few- but it isn't government as person, or as demonized object as most on the right use the word. Government - all of us - the combined efforts of its citizens actually supported, and thus in a real sense invented much of our technology for better or worse.

"In 1929 Federal, state, and municipal governments accounted for about 8 percent of all economic activity in the United States. By the 1960s that figure was between 20 and 25 percent, far exceeding that in India, a socialist country. The National Science Foundation reckoned that federal funds were paying for 90 percent of research in aviation and space travel, 65 percent in electrical and electronic devices, 42 percent in Scientific Instruments, 31 percent in machinery, 28 percent in metal alloys, 24 percent in automobiles, and 20 percent in chemicals." William Manchester "The Glory and the Dream"

"Dependency Corruption"

If you believe the framers of the Constitution intended that Congress depend exclusively on its citizens, you might want to consider how citizens have been replaced by funders in today's politics.

"'Congress is mostly responsive to the 99th percentile in terms of income...'

"Congress members spend most of their time raising money, and the dominant givers are special interests, which have now been entirely unleashed by Citizens United."

It's also worth mentioning every single member of Congress is among the richest 1% of Americans. Virtually everyone every member of Congress socializes with is likewise among the 99th percentile of US earners.

Imagine if the US Senate, for example, was apportioned by economic class instead of geography, and the richest 1% of Americans shared a single US Senator?

Democracy after...

CORRECTION: 2/22/2011

Every single member of congress is NOT among the richest 1% of Americans based solely on what they earn for serving.

They are among the richest 10% and I believe it's still accurate to say they socialize almost exclusively among the richest 1% of taxpayers as that is the percentile that supplies most campaign donations.

Sorry for the confusion

 

[Agit8r]

"Too many of these stock-jobbers and king-jobbers have come into our legislature, or rather too many of our legislature have become stock-jobbers and king-jobbers."

-- Jefferson; letter to Marquis de Lafayette, (16 Jun 1792)

 

[georgephillip]

Because it's not fair (whining petulantly) to allow some people to get rich.

Is it fair to allow some people to get rich from killing millions of innocent civilians?

"Take our friends the du Ponts, the powder people – didn't one of them testify before a Senate committee recently that their powder won the war? Or saved the world for democracy? Or something? How did they do in the war? They were a patriotic corporation.

"Well, the average earnings of the du Ponts for the period 1910 to 1914 were $6,000,000 a year. It wasn't much, but the du Ponts managed to get along on it. Now let's look at their average yearly profit during the war years, 1914 to 1918.

"Fifty-eight million dollars a year profit we find! Nearly ten times that of normal times, and the profits of normal times were pretty good. An increase in profits of more than 950 per cent."

Or is Smedley Darlington Butler whining?

The Duponts didn't kill anyone, the people who bought their product did.

du Ponts seldom get close to the killing.
Not unlike the Bushes and most Kennedys.

That doesn't mean they don't profit from killing and worse.

Politicians they control are instrumental in starting wars for no other reason than the profits the war produces.

"WAR is a racket. It always has been.

"It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope.

"It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives."

 

[skeptic]

Why?

Corporations are the greatest drivers of wealth creation in the history of mankind.

Bullshit.

Corporations had little if any effect in driving wealth creation that could not have occurred otherwise.

Meanwhile society and technology are by far the greatest drivers of wealth creation to ever exist.

Case closed.

In addition to society and technology, mathematics and printed language are serious contenders.

Corporations....not. Not even in the hunt or close to the hunt. Corps'e are non factors.

 

[Synthaholic]

The military represents over 50% of the budget, so how can your statement be logical?

The military is not over 50% of the budget. It is about 20%.

2010 United States federal budget - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here is a good chart.

 

[Synthaholic]

Check out this whiny "I hate lib'ruls" thread. Sounds like a buncha teenagers pissed at mom and dad - emotional wrecks.

Good gawd you fringers are an embarrassment to your country.

yeah, fringers like you should be embarrassed

Grow up.

 

[GHook93]

Because live without corporations would be so great! Think Somolia, maybe Afghanistan or possible Antarctica!

I work at a large global corporation! I get upset at many things like inflated goals and furloughs, layoffs etc. But then I look at my annual salary of $80K, and in some years $100K+. I look a a the $483 a month I pay for a family of five for my PPO Plus medical insurance, LTD, STD, PPO Dental etc. Then I look at my stock options and 401(k) match and think, yep it has its flaws, but its far from evil. In fact corporation and large "small-business" (the ones with 100+ employees) employ the vast majority of Americans. Without corporations NONE of us would live even a 1/10th as good as we live now!

Becuase of their disproportinate influence on our govt thru lobbyists?

I do not hate corporations, Heck I owned a couple. I just think they have to much gotv influence and do not pay their fair share all the time.

And for the past few decades feel that they must continually increase their profit.
Quite often at the expense of US workers thru layoff, pay cuts or offshoring.

 

[Agit8r]

The military represents over 50% of the budget, so how can your statement be logical?

The military is not over 50% of the budget. It is about 20%.

2010 United States federal budget - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here is a good chart.

So... how much of "Other" is the Dept of Energy Nuke Budget (which somehow doesn't get counted as defense)?

 

[hipeter924]

Right Wing Libertarians don't like corporations either, it creates chaos for free market principles.

As for corporations, religious organizations, labor unions, co-operatives and government, it depends on the people running them and the people who work for them, some are total bastards and deserve to be financially ruined some day (unfortunately some got a tax payer funded bailout).

PS: Most liberals are hypocrites (not in the third world however) and condemn or say they dislike corporations publicly while privately taking bribes or money from them, especially the case for social democrats in Europe, and many Democrats.

 

[DiveCon]

Check out this whiny "I hate lib'ruls" thread. Sounds like a buncha teenagers pissed at mom and dad - emotional wrecks.

Good gawd you fringers are an embarrassment to your country.

yeah, fringers like you should be embarrassed

Grow up.

did you notice that moron i responded to has been banned?

 

[skeptic]

Because live without corporations would be so great! Think Somolia, maybe Afghanistan or possible Antarctica!

as if the definitive difference between Afghanistan, Antarctica, Somalia and the USA is the presence of corporations instead of the presence of virgin resources, financial clout earned in WWII, democracy, technology, education, military might and a free society....

I pitty you, trapped within such a shallow perspective. And so wrong.

 

[skeptic]

Right Wing Libertarians don't like corporations either, it creates chaos for free market principles.

As for corporations, religious organizations, labor unions, co-operatives and government, it depends on the people running them and the people who work for them, some are total bastards and deserve to be financially ruined some day (unfortunately some got a tax payer funded bailout).

Corporations are antithetical to both real capitalism and real free markets.

What we accept as a modern corporation is a relative monopoly operating in full violation of free markets, democracy and capitalism.

IOW fascism = the modern corporation.

 

[hipeter924]

Because live without corporations would be so great! Think Somolia, maybe Afghanistan or possible Antarctica!

I work at a large global corporation! I get upset at many things like inflated goals and furloughs, layoffs etc. But then I look at my annual salary of $80K, and in some years $100K+. I look a a the $483 a month I pay for a family of five for my PPO Plus medical insurance, LTD, STD, PPO Dental etc. Then I look at my stock options and 401(k) match and think, yep it has its flaws, but its far from evil. In fact corporation and large "small-business" (the ones with 100+ employees) employ the vast majority of Americans. Without corporations NONE of us would live even a 1/10th as good as we live now!

Becuase of their disproportinate influence on our govt thru lobbyists?

I do not hate corporations, Heck I owned a couple. I just think they have to much gotv influence and do not pay their fair share all the time.

And for the past few decades feel that they must continually increase their profit.
Quite often at the expense of US workers thru layoff, pay cuts or offshoring.

Corporations are a response to government regulation and taxation, as well as other corporations, end government and corporations and you 'could' have a better system but could in quotation marks as in a world with widespread poverty and monopolies in resources in several areas it would be difficult to make it work.

I prefer the more simple goal of a) no business taxes b) voluntary personal tax/donations which lead to c) better wages and living conditions, as I don't believe the world is ready enough technologically (we need more robots and/or better production tools) and socially (a lot more education needed) to go all the way and end corporations and government altogether.

 

[Political Junky]

Right Wing Libertarians don't like corporations either, it creates chaos for free market principles.

As for corporations, religious organizations, labor unions, co-operatives and government, it depends on the people running them and the people who work for them, some are total bastards and deserve to be financially ruined some day (unfortunately some got a tax payer funded bailout).

Corporations are antithetical to both real capitalism and real free markets.

What we accept as a modern corporation is a relative monopoly operating in full violation of free markets, democracy and capitalism.

IOW fascism = the modern corporation.

Yes, as Mussolini described Fascism.

 

[hipeter924]

Right Wing Libertarians don't like corporations either, it creates chaos for free market principles.

As for corporations, religious organizations, labor unions, co-operatives and government, it depends on the people running them and the people who work for them, some are total bastards and deserve to be financially ruined some day (unfortunately some got a tax payer funded bailout).

Corporations are antithetical to both real capitalism and real free markets.

What we accept as a modern corporation is a relative monopoly operating in full violation of free markets, democracy and capitalism.

IOW fascism = the modern corporation.

Yes, as Mussolini described Fascism.

We don't exist in a real free market, in fact we never have. If you are to define modern capitalism then it's heading towards corporatism, and if so then governments will be rapidly eroded or taken over by corporations to a larger or smaller extent. Corporatism isn't fascist however, unless the people running the corporations involved are fascists (if we go by the Muslim, Chinese, European and American elites then I heavily doubt it).

 

[JBeukema]

The Corporation

 

[JBeukema]

Name one thing invented by Government that helped boost our GDP or created an industry and thus jobs.

According to the Right... corporations

 

[KissMy]

Name one thing invented by Government that helped boost our GDP or created an industry and thus jobs.

Umm the internet? Integrated cirsuits, super glue, Satellites, the list goes on and on.

Without govt funded research we would not have many things we now take for granted.

Wrong there you Communist Brainwashed Idiot. Our government did not invent satellites, integrated Circuits, Super Glue or the Internet.

AT&T Bell Labs did some of the first digital transmission and switching in 1962, seven years before the "US Internet" began. When the Department of Defense commissioned the Advanced Research Project Agency's Network (ARPANET)

Xerox invented most of what you just used to post your nonsense propaganda. Xerox PARC invented the Ethernet, Touch Screen, Mouse, Windows, Icons, File Manager, Adobe, Postscript, Laser Printer, Copier, etc.

Patents for the Integrated Circuit
Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments & Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation. From 1958 to 1959, both electrical engineers were working on an answer to the same dilemma: how to make more of less.

In 1959 both parties applied for patents. Jack Kilby and Texas Instruments received U.S. patent #3,138,743 for miniaturized electronic circuits. Robert Noyce and the Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation received U.S. patent #2,981,877 for a silicon based integrated circuit. The two companies wisely decided to cross license their technologies after several years of legal battles, creating a global market now worth about $1 trillion a year.

Super Glue was invented in 1942 by Dr. Harry Coover and Fred Joyner of Kodak Laboratories during experiments to make a transparent plastic. Although not appropriate for the plastic they were seeking, they did find that cyanoacrylates would quickly glue together many materials with great strength. Seeing possibilities for a new adhesive, Kodak developed "Eastman 910" a few years later as the first true "super glue."

Russia invented the Satellite

 

[Skull Pilot]

Is it fair to allow some people to get rich from killing millions of innocent civilians?

"Take our friends the du Ponts, the powder people – didn't one of them testify before a Senate committee recently that their powder won the war? Or saved the world for democracy? Or something? How did they do in the war? They were a patriotic corporation.

"Well, the average earnings of the du Ponts for the period 1910 to 1914 were $6,000,000 a year. It wasn't much, but the du Ponts managed to get along on it. Now let's look at their average yearly profit during the war years, 1914 to 1918.

"Fifty-eight million dollars a year profit we find! Nearly ten times that of normal times, and the profits of normal times were pretty good. An increase in profits of more than 950 per cent."

Or is Smedley Darlington Butler whining?

The Duponts didn't kill anyone, the people who bought their product did.

du Ponts seldom get close to the killing.
Not unlike the Bushes and most Kennedys.

That doesn't mean they don't profit from killing and worse.

Politicians they control are instrumental in starting wars for no other reason than the profits the war produces.

"WAR is a racket. It always has been.

"It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope.

"It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives."

A little history lesson.

Humans have been warring since the first Neanderthal realized he could bash a skull with a rock.

Those who have learned this immutable truth and profited from it are the smart ones.

 

[georgephillip]

Because live without corporations would be so great! Think Somolia, maybe Afghanistan or possible Antarctica!

I work at a large global corporation! I get upset at many things like inflated goals and furloughs, layoffs etc. But then I look at my annual salary of $80K, and in some years $100K+. I look a a the $483 a month I pay for a family of five for my PPO Plus medical insurance, LTD, STD, PPO Dental etc. Then I look at my stock options and 401(k) match and think, yep it has its flaws, but its far from evil. In fact corporation and large "small-business" (the ones with 100+ employees) employ the vast majority of Americans. Without corporations NONE of us would live even a 1/10th as good as we live now!

Becuase of their disproportinate influence on our govt thru lobbyists?

I do not hate corporations, Heck I owned a couple. I just think they have to much gotv influence and do not pay their fair share all the time.

And for the past few decades feel that they must continually increase their profit.
Quite often at the expense of US workers thru layoff, pay cuts or offshoring.

"A corporation does not want democracy.

"It does not want free markets, it wants profits, and the best way for it to get profits is to use our campaign-finance system -- which is just a system of legalized bribery -- to get their stakes, their hooks into a public official and then use that public official to dismantle the marketplace to give them a competitive advantage and then to privatize the commons, to steal the commonwealth, to liquidate public assets for cash, to plunder, to steal from the rest of us."

Without corporations NONE of us would have even 1/10 the level of mercury in our bodies.

RFK Jr