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If Corporations Are Government…
This is so important I’m posting it a second time:
That scene is a dramatic masterpiece, but is it just that? Is the essence of the message in it also true, or even partially? If the national governments are but a fiction to mask the identities of the real feudal rulers, then it doesn’t matter if the government is spying on you because they don’t hold the power. It’s like having a nosy neighbor spying on you: annoying, but not the end of the world.
I don’t think it’s some conspiracy though, or even a bait-and-switch tactic that’s being applied here. I think it’s just a matter of public perception about the way things work which may have useful fictions within it for conducting everyday life in its current shape.
Not that corporations “spying” on you is necessarily the end of the world either. Arguably, you could say that corporations have your interests at heart: they make money off your spending habits ultimately. If you don’t look good, they don’t look good.
October 30th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
[…] I’ve been reading Tim Boucher’s blog for a while now, and his subject matter has become pretty interesting lately. I’ve started to see things a little differently, especially when it comes to advertising. One thing that popped out for me was this recent Bank of America commercial, encouraging us, among other things, to buy a minivan and wear a tie. Be like everybody around you and spend your money like a good citizen. […]
October 30th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Well, the government or corporations “spying” on you isn’t the end of the world. Unless of course the data is used to make a decision that has unfair consequences for you. It’s hard to come up with anything because it’s all so impossible, since the aforementioned entities have my best interests at heart…
I mean I could wrack my brains and come up with ludicrous scenarios, like a health insurance company dropping me or denying me coverage after analyzing my spending habits, or maybe if they had my family tree all databased and could see that I had a few more relatives than usual who had died of some disease.
If you check with the tinfoil hat set, there are plenty of paranoid scenarios around, like the government keeping dossiers on anyone who publicly expressed their disapproval oa war, or sending spies into community organization meetings and then actively sabotaging the lives of people who were trying to bring about civic change. Crazy talk! In America?
It would also be foolish to fear that anyone would ever use any of this collected information against me for any gain. For example, if I were to run for public office, I am sure that we all agree that even if a corporation that had access to a list of every web site I had ever visited and they very much wanted me to lose, I would not have to fear for a second that this information would be leaked to a partisan journalist so it could be picked over for evidence of character flaws.
So yes, to hell with privacy laws and regulations! I have nothing to fear, and my life is so much richer with all of the targeted advertisements I receive. How did they know I’d like to have a bigger penis and last all night? It’s like magic!
But in all seriousness, the point of the post is sort of silly. The government is largely helmed in both parties by the same non-ethnic minority that helms the corporations… the wealthy. Of course there are plenty of middle class folks that work for the government, but look at the Senate as an example — 40% of Senators are millionaires (http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/06/13/senators.finances/).
Do you consider that a representative government? And who finances our elections? Corporations and people at the top 1% of the economic ladder. I could go on and on, but my point is that rhetorically separating government from corporations leads to faulty reasoning — they both server the interests of the status quo, which is minority rule.
October 30th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
Um, before I respond, you should probably read at least like - I don’t know - any of my other posts so that you know where I’m coming from and then you’ll see that all the huffing and puffing and trying to prove me wrong is completely unnecessary as my comments above were made completely tongue-in-cheek.