I, for one, am glad to know that that interests of everyone important are well protected in this treaty.
I just wish I knew how to join this class of people who are important. Apparently being a citizen is not enough anymore.
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There's been several carefully crafted changes to the language of American politics over the past twenty-five years and "citizen" has been replaced by "taxpayer" [1] as the relevant political constituency. Since corporations ostensibly pay taxes, their personhood has been lifted. Likewise, since wealthy individuals tend to pay more taxes on an absolute basis (despite an increasingly regressive system) their interests within the constituency of taxpayers are also lifted.
[1]: The case for "taxpayers" has been assisted by the language of "victim's rights" wherein people first accepted the idea that some citizens should have higher status before the law than others. Using the idea that paying taxes is a form of theft, taxpayers establish their victimhood and by an extension a privileged interest over ordinary citizens in matters concerning taxation. The obverse of the coin is "consumer rights" wherein buying "Little Plastic Shit" is seen as a high form of social engagement and the primary civic duty of ordinary Americans.
More noticeably, "people" has been replaced with "citizen."
The bill of rights specifically delineates protections that apply to "people" and protections that apply to "citizens." The dialogue is often about civil rights violations of American citizens, but the original language is more often "people."
From Yick Wo v. Hopkins
The rights of the petitioners, as affected by the proceedings of which they complain, are not less because they are aliens and subjects of the emperor of China. . . . The fourteenth amendment to the constitution is not confined to the protection of citizens. It says: “Nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” These provisions are universal in their application, to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction, without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality; and the equal protection of the laws is a pledge of the protection of equal laws. . . . The questions we have to consider and decide in these cases, therefore, are to be treated as involving the rights of every citizen of the United States equally with those of the strangers and aliens who now invoke the jurisdiction of the court.
Example from the other side: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/01/07/kt-mcfarland-chris... With the Detroit bomber we now have a clear pattern that reveals how the Obama administration deals with terrorists – try them in civilian courts with the full rights of American citizens... The president is treating terrorists like citizens and citizens like terrorists.
Note: I've taken both these examples from an excellent Glenn Greenwald article on the subject
As a non-citizen residing in the US, I find this phenomenon particularly noticeable. Like when Dzhokar Tsarnaev was arrested for the Boston bombing and the question of whether he should have his Miranda rights read to him was discussed in the media, the argument seemed to generally hinge on 'but he's a US citizen', as if, if he weren't, obviously this conversation wouldn't be worth having; or when the nature of US drone strikes comes up, and people express specific outrage that drone strikes have been used to assassinate "US Citizens abroad", as if that somehow changes things.
I think you are letting the citizenry off the hook for their part in this. The only reason corporations gained this power is because they have more collective money (or at least are more willing to use that money) to lobby. The only reason lobbying works is because politicians need money to get elected. The only reason politicians need money to get elected is because people are so susceptible to political marketing. Coporate personhood is therefore just a symptom of a larger problem, a disinterested and easily manipulated electorate.
I, for one, am glad to learn that we can fix all this by voting more often, or better, or whatever. Now that I think back, my junior high civics class taught me the same thing!
I am sensing sarcasm, so I just want to point to the 2014 primary turnout numbers. Less than 18% [1] of total eligible voters cast a ballot in the 2014 primary elections. When you have that much apathy, it suddenly becomes a lot easier to sway elections with a few million dollars.
[1] - http://humanevents.com/2014/10/08/republican-2014-primary-tu...
Only if you'd scale that up to the entire country.
But maybe not even then. You vote for the candidate that can best convince you to vote for them. So this is the metric the system will optimize for. Politicians that make good decisions or stick to their principles get outcompeted by those who focus on marketing themselves and pandering to the public. Even if you make the electorate more educated and engaged, this will only do so much to fix the misalignment of values. Unless you know a way to immunize someone to marketing completely, I see no hope for fixing voting. I infer that every democracy, as it matures, degenerates into a popularity contest.
It also does nothing to correct the apathetic public we have had for the past... sixty? Years. The incredible amount of gerrymandering done to rig the house of representatives is incredible, and the Senate is already inherently biased because its giving every voter in Wyoming 67 times the influence of a voter of California. Unsurprisingly, Wyoming has not elected a non-Republican senator in over fifty years.
It should be no surprise that the will of the people no longer has any real correlation with the policy voted into law by congress.
Apathy may be something that grows with time as well. It seems to me (though I don't have much evidence to back it up so I welcome being shown I'm wrong) that a lifespan of a functioning democracy is ~100 years. The people who shed blood for it care. Their children are taught to care as well. But the grand-grand-children, born into a working system, don't have any context of how it was before that would give them motivation to care and perform required maintenance. And then, the system starts to degrade.
And for the US, one could plausibly start that 100 year clock in 1865, rather than in 1789. That would put the start of the apathy in 1965. Feels about right.
(Unless you're going to count it from 1945, in which case the real apathy hasn't started yet.)
corporations gained this power...because they have more collective money
Consistent with the golden rule of economics.
You make it sound as though being easily manipulated by people with a lot of resources is a character flaw, rather than a characteristic of all humans throughout history.
It is unlikely (and maybe even undesirable) that we are going to be able to easily overcome our inherent susceptibility to influence. Therefore if we are to improve things we must recognize that this is part of who we are, and design our institutions accordingly.
Realism on all sides of this debate would be amazingly helpful. For instance, this continual disingenuous cry of "the corporations!" is stupid on its face. Are corporations autonomous intelligent entities outside of the will of powerful people? No! It's powerful people lobbying for rules that will help them. Destroy the concept of corporations tomorrow and you will still have powerful people who bend government to their will - you'll probably just have fewer people with much greater shares of power.
Why do you bring this up? Do you think my comment involved taking a side?
Well said. And correspondingly, very little talk of responsibilities.
> "citizen" has been replaced by "taxpayer"
"When someone describes themselves as a taxpayer, they're about to be an asshole" - Demetri Martin
> I just wish I knew how to join this class of people who are important.
Here's a rough guide: be willing to spend lots of $$$ on politicians, and more than the other Johns. Own media companies so you can influence what people think. Work together with other rich people with similar goals, it will take some time.
Corporations are the true citizens.
Charlie Stross has a somewhat amusing yet reasonably accurate way of putting it: "we are living in the aftermath of an alien invasion".
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/12/invaders...
> Corporations do not share our priorities. They are hive organisms constructed out of teeming workers who join or leave the collective: those who participate within it subordinate their goals to that of the collective, which pursues the three corporate objectives of growth, profitability, and pain avoidance.
...
> Corporations have a mean life expectancy of around 30 years, but are potentially immortal; they live only in the present, having little regard for past or (thanks to short term accounting regulations) the deep future: and they generally exhibit a sociopathic lack of empathy.
...
> Collectively, corporate groups lobby international trade treaty negotiations for operating conditions more conducive to pursuing their three goals.
...
> We are now living in a global state that has been structured for the benefit of non-human entities with non-human goals. They have enormous media reach, which they use to distract attention from threats to their own survival. They also have an enormous ability to support litigation against public participation, except in the very limited circumstances where such action is forbidden.
~Oh, no, no, no. You can't just be an important person any more. That's like being only a millionaire. You want to be a very important person nowadays, otherwise you're just the froth, floating on the scum, floating on the unwashed rabble.~
It appears that certain people have forgotten that the grandest plans of the grandest men may be thrown into chaos by a mere handful of angry serfs. I think I would very much prefer to be anonymous and free to act than to be important, and mortally afraid of every moving shadow, or wound up too tight because people are not respecting mah propertah or mah authoritah.
I think that perhaps now might be a good time to learn some glassware-only techniques for solid-phase peptide synthesis and HPLC purification. Alternately, become an unlicensed expert on CRISPR-based gene modifications. I'm very concerned about the provisions for "biologics", and I would much prefer that biohacking be freely available to the people, rather than locked up for the exclusive benefit of the VIPs. There are some genies out there that need to be unbottled quickly, before some jerkasses decide that they're the only ones who deserve to get wishes.
It reminds me of the conclusion I reached after hanging out with NWO conspiracy folks for a while. If what they say is true, it seems to me that those Rockefellers and Bilderberg group folks are the only people out there with a reasonable, good idea for the future. I only wish I knew how to join them.
What is their reasonable, good idea for the future, TeMPOral?
According to those conspiracy theorists I mention? Some things that they attribute to NWO and therefore want to fight against are: GMOs, vaccines, (moving away from fossil fuels to) nuclear energy, carbon tax, unified global government. Implementation may be tricky, but if you skip the accusations that They want to depopulate the world using above means, it seems like a bunch of pretty decent ideas for the future.
I agree, there are a lot of things that the hypothetical NWO does that I fully agree with.
I stand in full favour of GMOS, Nuclear Energy, Carbon Taxation/Trading, and also a global government (on the condition of it being a good one).
However, the extra political power being given to corporations and the reduction of citizen's capacity for political influence is something to stand firmly against. Of course I don't believe in a NWO in the traditional sense but the world is certainly largely run by a group of individuals in power.
The TPP makes me think of the Shadowrun timeline and the progression to extraterritoriality for corporations around the 2020s and 2030s.
Yeah, I didn't mean to suggest that I like the TPP. You're right about the power given to corporate entities being something to fight against.
> the world is certainly largely run by a group of individuals in power
This reminds me of an observation I once read - that there's no surprise those on top can look like they form a club even if they represent opposite spectrum on political scene; after all they studied at the same universities and probably know each other from the campus.
However, I'm not sure if the world is really shaped that much by conscious will of small group of individuals. As one blog puts it, "Almost No One is Evil. Almost Everything is Broken". It feels to me that a system of misaligned incentives is enough to explain most of the ways in which the world seems to evolve.
> The TPP makes me think of the Shadowrun timeline and the progression to extraterritoriality for corporations around the 2020s and 2030s.
Gotta check out Shadowrun, I haven't had a chance before :).
Speaking of works of fiction, the whole situation reminds me of Continuum series and the future of Corporate Congress.
Oh, that Continuum, not the Time Traveling RPG.
Shadowrun's future describes a collapsing of the middle class, combination of corporation & state (zero distinction), lots of poor folks and "shadowrunners" who do the dirty work for the megacorps (stealing data, assassinate, etc).
All Megacorps use Shadowrunners but none publically acknowledge their existence or the details of what they do. Sort of like spy agencies.
Yeah, that Continuum, with a pretty girl wearing a touchscreen :). Thanks for the description of Shadowrunner. I wonder how far off we're from it today. Don't corporations already outsource some of their dirty work?
> I agree, there are a lot of things that the hypothetical NWO does that I fully agree with.
So the next question is, will these NWO succeed in any of their goals?
It's not certain, but I just am surprised I found myself fighting on their side, at least for the issues mentioned above...