Corporate Control of American
Democracy
" Corporations have taken
over the government and turned it against its own people."
Ralph Nader
" I hope we shall crush
in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which
dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength
and bid defiance to the laws of our country. "
Thomas Jefferson, 3rd US president
1801-1809
Websites
Challenging Corporations
"I see in the near future
a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble
for the safety of my country...corporations have been enthroned
and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money
of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon
the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in
a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment
more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even
in the midst of war."
President Abraham Lincoln
*****
"The hidden hand of the
market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot
flourish without McDonnell Douglas."
Thomas Friedman, New York Times
columnist
Articles
" [T]here seems to be
nothing to prevent the transnational corporations taking possession
of the planet and subjecting humanity to the dictatorship of capital....
In order to crush any thought of organized resistance to the supporters
of the new world order, tremendous police and military forces
are being used to establish a doctrine of repression...."
Christian la Brie, Le Monde Diplomatique
(Paris)
" American private enterprise
is confronted with this choice; it may strike out and save its
position all over the world, or sit by and witness its own funeral....
We must set the pace and assume the responsibility of the majority
stockholder in this corporation known as the world.... This is
a permanent obligation.... Our foreign policy will be more concerned
with the safety and stability of our foreign investments than
ever before. "
Standard Oil of New Jersey executive,
1946
"In the absence of a coherent
alternative, the transnational corporations carry on inexorably.
Increasingly flagless and stateless, they weave global webs of
production, commerce, culture and finance virtually unopposed.
They expand, invest and grow, concentrating ever more wealth in
a limited number of hands. They work in coalition to influence
local, national and international institutions and laws. And together
with the governments of their home countries in Europe, North
America and Japan, as well as international institutions such
as the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, the International
Monetary Fund and increasingly, the United Nations, they are molding
an international system in which they can trade and invest even
more freely--a world where they are less and less accountable
to the cultures, communities and nation-states in which they operate.
Underpinning this effort is not the historical inevitability of
an evolving, enlightened civilization, but rather the unavoidable
reality of the overriding corporate purpose: the maximization
of profits."
The Corporate Planet (Sierra Club
Books)
" Few trends could so
thoroughly undermine the very foundations of our free society
as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility
other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible.
"
Neo-liberal economist Milton Friedman
in his 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom
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