A Rant Against Imbalance, Not Business

If the text so far (and the appendix later) sounds like a rant, then let me assure you that it is—for good reason. We have had enough of all this.

But please do not take this as a rant against business. I cherish businesses that compete responsibly to bring me worthwhile products and services. I eat at wonderful restaurants, work with dedicated publishers, buy some strikingly creative products. I have deep respect for the companies that respect me. Thankfully there remain many of these, big and small.

But I have equally deep disdain for the companies that try to exploit me with shoddy products, indifferent services, bamboozled pricing, and phony advertising. These companies are on the increase, thanks to the relentless drive for growth expected of them by frenetic stock markets.

Likewise, I have deep disdain for those companies that seek to exploit us: by using political advertising to sway opinions on public issues, taking government handouts in the name of free enterprise, spending vast sums on lobbying to enhance their privileged positions. In 1952 in the United States, 32 percent of all taxes were paid by corporations; by 2010, that figure was down to 9 percent. There’s a tea party going on, all right, for big business, under the slogan “No taxation with representation.”

In his Devil’s Dictionary, first published in 1906, Ambrose Bierce defined the corporation as “an ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.” Ingenious it may be, but can we continue to tolerate this? We turn next to a comparison of the world we have with a world that could be.