What is everywhere and nowhere? Who really does know when you’re sleeping and when you’re awake? Who feeds you, clothes you and puts a roof over your head?
That’s right. It’s the big, bad corporation. And they know where you live. Literally. They have your credit card number. They are your credit card number. Scary.
Don’t get me wrong. Corporations have done a lot of good in the world. We have never had so much stuff. We need stuff to help organize our stuff. They have given us jobs and often even pay us to do them. They put their names on buildings so ticket prices are slightly cheaper (not really).
But now corporations are spoiling it for the rest of us. I’m usually the second or third to trumpet the need to respect another’s rights (They have lawyers and activists for that kind of thing. Saying “first” just sounds pretentious.) but this time I’m putting my foot down.
Corporations are not people. (Applause) They exist for the sole purpose of making money. If a person was that focused, that obsessed with a single goal, we would lock them up to protect themselves. (Applause)
In many places, companies are required by law to maximize profit. If they didn’t, the stockholders would fire the executives and replace them with someone who makes them more money. In fact, over the past two centuries, they have pursued the almighty dollar with such fervor and greed that they have laid waste to the land, emptied the oceans, and fouled the air. (Shame!) At the same time product quality, real wages, and entitlements have been eroded to a fraction of their former levels. If corporations are people, they are also psychopaths. (Applause)
The answer to this is not a return to some mythical, glorious past. (Crickets) No — tribalism, nationalism, communism, and a whole lot of other “ism”’s have all been tried and failed.
The sad fact is that most of Economics is made-up, untested theories coloured by ideology and cultural dogma. (You don’t say…hmm)
We need to do what we have always done. Progress and innovation are the hallmarks of a thriving civilization. It is only through the application of reason and the celebration of civil liberties that the human race will come to its full potential. (You make a good point.)
Any market system can only be free if it is bounded by sustainability and empathy. The freedom of laissez-faire business is the freedom to drive off a cliff. We need to move from free trade to fair trade. We need a rational, measured approach to property rights. Most importantly, we need to take back our governments from the psychopaths that bought them. We need it now. (Slow clap leading to thunderous applause!)
All you have to do is wrest power from the wealthy elite without triggering a violent uprising or collapsing the fragile web of trust that all that wealth is based upon because doing so would plunge us back into the dark ages. So, that’s not going to happen anytime soon. (Nervous laughter)
Also, there may be zombies. (Shoot them in the head!)
Crazed recluse and sociophobe who has taken up writing after failing at everything else. Send pizza.
Verbatim Gibberish 