Liberty Quotient of the Subjugated
Self Power/CORPOCRACY POWER
- autocracy
- bureaucracy
- corpocracy
- democracy
- kleptocracy
- mobocracy (yes, it’s a word)
- monocracy
- plutocracy
- technocracy
- theocracy
- timocracy
The word “corpocracy” hasn’t made it yet into the dictionary, unlike the other “cracies,” or into public conversations as far as I know.1 “Cracy” is derived from the Greek “kartia” for power. The corpocracy exemplifies regime power, the getting of more and more of it and the continuous abuse of it in serving its own interests at a terrible cost to public interests and the common good. Power, but a very different kind of power, is also a defining characteristic of “democracy.”
There is such an inherent conflict between these two “cracies” that they can’t co-exist in the same nation and they don’t coexist in America. In America the corpocracy rules with tyrannical-like power. The self-ruling democracy power of the people has been taken from the people.
The Devil’s Marriage
Where did the power of the people go?
To a marriage made in Hell did it flow.
Leaving democracy in the lurch,
Jilting Americans and much worse.
Not a Shotgun Wedding
The marriage was anything but a shotgun wedding. It was a wedding for the sake of mutual “badvantages” (advantages for all sorts of bad behavior, legal and illegal). Both partners compromised (some critics might say “corrupted”) each other. Both got huge, unending dowries. Corporations (most but not all are U.S. corporations) get almost on a daily basis “power and profit gifts” in the form of favorable legislation, favorable regulations and deregulations, favorable judicial verdicts, welfare handouts, impunity from lawlessness, military help in global exploitation, and laissez-faire capitalism. And what do the politicians get? The Capital Hill bunch (aka “Corporate Hill”) gets career employment in plush offices. The oval office puppets get brief prestige and mostly posturing power. And the robed bench sitters for life get to rule in favor of the corporate interests that helped to get them appointed. The first dowry far overshadows the second but neither partner can afford a divorce. They will stick together through thick and thin.
Self-Rule: Not in a Corpocracy
Self-rule is synonymous with democracy. It represents both a moral and a practical balance between the anarchy of no governance, or extreme individualism, on the one hand, and totalitarianism, or oppressive governance, on the other. Self-rule by 99% can’t exist in a corpocracy.
Self-Rule and Our Life’s Equations
In a true democracy people in all walks and stations of life have self-rule or as much control as possible over their life equations. You, me, everyone has the same general equation. It may just be the most important non-mathematical equation anyone will ever see in their lifetime:
Our Selves + Our Situations = Whether/How Much
Health, Happiness,
and Prosperity
We Have or Don’t Have
In a true democracy the outputs on the right side amount to an optimum level of general welfare for all Americans, not just the wealthiest ones.
In a corpocracy, the equation is much different. The corpocracy has considerable power and control over most Americans’ life’s equations and thus their general welfare. Here is what the equation looks like today for all but the wealthiest Americans:
Our Selves + The Corporacy = Much, Much Less
Health, Happiness,
and Prosperity
For Most of Us
“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” and the “promotion of the general welfare” the American Constitution promised us are more than “just” declarations of the sanctity and importance of our life’s equations. It’s an affirmation of humanity and support for the general welfare in a civilized society.