[CS-FSLUG] Corporate Rule

[Ed Hurst]

Corporate Rule


As early as the 1970s, academic writers recognized that a new modern
culture had arisen in the world: the culture of international business.
They recognized it had become the single most dominant culture in the
world. Like any culture, there is no specific point of origin in time
to which we can point. Indeed, it is deeply rooted in some other
culture. That birthplace, if you will, was the rise of the middle class
merchant in the Middle Ages.

Medieval Europe was fraught with numerous tiny fiefdoms and borders
based on titular ownership of the land by some lord or other. While the
lord of the local manor was usually beholden to another lord above him,
and perhaps several ranks extended even farther above, each lord at the
lowest level had a tremendous freedom and sovereignty within his own
domain. Most of these lords had a view of wealth that was tied to land
and its various products. The wealth of the world, however great, was
static and limited, a view we now call "mercantilism." The goal of
trade was to extend one's power and influence by amassing gold from
trading always to one's own advantage. For trading partners to prosper
too much was a bad sign, unless they clearly did so at someone else's
expense farther away. It never occurred to them that wealth could be
created.

Late in the Middle Ages, certain town merchants discovered that
principle, even if they didn't clearly enunciate it. Wealth was not a
globally static quantity, but could grow everywhere at once with
increased economic exchange. Wealth was property, but income arose from
activity, not property. For them, the trick was to get the lord to back
off his taxes and regulations as much as possible so that free exchange
could enrich everyone involved. They learned early to make the lords
dependent on their gold, and eventually bought their political freedom
by offering more than the lord could gain any other way. Wealthy towns
gained relative independence by means of charters, and built their own
domains. These domains were not tied so much to any one place, but were
domains of trade and commerce, domains of more or less exclusive rights
to produce and sell a given range of products.

In reality, most of the negotiations were made by cities and towns,
because the lords ruled by territory. A particular trading company or
trade guild might grow to dominance, alone or shared with others, and
become de facto governments of a city. In some few cases, individual
trade organizations might gain concessions covering their entire trade
territory. These domains made their own "treaties" -- business
arrangements, contracts. They normally were willing to seek terms of
co-existence that enriched all. You may have heard the term "Hanseatic
League" -- a group of German merchants that arose from the Middle Ages
to assert de facto political power based on their economic power. Their
power was great enough to give any king pause before infringing their
freedom. While individual merchants possessed a middle class distaste
for violence, in congregation they would be willing to hire mercenaries
to fight for their commercial advantage. The Hanseatic League at one
time went to war with a Scandinavian king over fishing rights.

Over the past few centuries, the business culture has taken a life of
its own, and does not precisely overlap any other culture. It serves
the one god, profit. All other activities and efforts are in service to
that one goal of greater wealth. The brutal lust of greed has long been
largely replaced with a thrill in negotiating deals and negotiating
barriers to those deals. Actual money in hand means almost nothing, as
the existence of virtual money -- numbers in an official account
register -- is very much to their advantage. As such, financial
institutions are very much a part of this culture. Currency itself has
become a commodity for trade, no less human lives indirectly. For those
taken by this culture, it represents the epitome of human existence.

With political geographic borders becoming ever more meaningless,
business and trade have gained an unprecedented power over human
activity. It's not that political theory no longer has meaning. Rather,
political philosophies are strongly countered by the presence of power
with what amounts to no philosophy at all. This service to the god of
profit sees governments as merely a factor in calculating costs. The
act of trading for mutual benefit is so built into human interaction
that no government could hope to completely own and control all
business within its borders. If business is a crime, then major
business concerns will simply be labeled "criminal," but they will not
go away. If any particular trade is criminal, such a designation has
little effect on it. Tax and regulate a given trade and the costs are
simply passed on to the end user, the consumer. It is the consumer's
desire that empowers business, regardless of how harmful it may be to
the consumer. Democracy, monarchy, communism, theocracy -- all flavors
of government are merely a business climate, for which adjustments can
always be made.

Business culture is built on this very thing. More than just selling to
the market that may exist, there is now an adjunct marketing
sub-culture that helps to create the demand, or inflate the existing
demand, artificially. The individual consumer ceases to exist as
anything more than an economic source -- the buyer. Whether the buyer
has a genuine need for the merchandise is seldom a factor in
consideration. Do they want it; can they be made to want it? This
dehumanization is the tragedy of what began as an attempt to make life
for humans better. If any particular individual businessman gains
control over any part of the market, he becomes again like a lord in
the Middle Ages, holding serfs in his fiefdom. This market power turns
into very real political power. That power is asserted in a mixture of
money to buy a politician's fame (we call them "campaign
contributions") and direct voter influence by manipulating the
consumers. "If you want to protect your right to have this great
product, you need to tell your representative..." Unions are simply
monopoly suppliers of labor, and they have played this game from the
start. In each case, it is still a matter that no one cares in the
least what the individual consumer needs, they are simply another
market to be manipulated.

The merchant entities struggle for political power only as a means to
controlling their market. They seek to rule all. Their god is not our
God. Individuals in business occupations may well have surrendered to
Jesus Christ, but their activities contribute inevitably to denying
Him. It is the paradox of living in a fallen world: you cannot prevent
Satan gaining in some way from what you say and do. In a sense, the
merchant god *is* Satan. We see him well described in Ezekiel 28. Tyre
was the archetypical merchant of Ezekiel's day, and in this chapter
many scholars find the true ruler of Tyre was Satan himself.

It is most certainly possible for the individual businessman to deny
Satan's rule and engage in commerce with complete purity and holiness.
Doing business is not inherently evil. Indeed, the call of the
Christian businessman is to redeem trade from the hands of our Enemy,
by seeking the best benefit of his customer. His true customer is God,
and he makes his deals with God, and the customers and partners are
those to be blessed in turn.

We as Believers are commanded to watch the world around us with His
wisdom and insight, not ignorant of Satan's schemes. Know and
understand that any vector of power in the earth will be Satan's
playground, insofar as he can make it so. The greatest threat to human
life, safety, and sanity today is the business culture. This is the
power behind every throne, and it is on that culture's behalf that all
rule and regulation is made. Even when good laws are made, look for
them to be perverted for the sake of corporate entities. Your
government is but a pawn in the greater battle to destroy humanity, not
by simple death of the body, but by dehumanizing and controlling.

-- 
Ed Hurst
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Software Freedom Day - 28 August 2004
Got freedom?
http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/

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