Genius on Hold Page #10

It was the big bang of

telecom policy.

It was something that just

completely reset the terms,

uh, for telecommunications

uh, for the 21st century.

In January of 1982,

AT&T was forced by Judge

Harold H. Green

to divest itself

of the wholly owned

Bell telephone operating

companies,

which halted Walter Shaw

from making a living

and pursuing his dreams.

On January 1st, 1984,

the Bell monopoly was dead.

What exactly was this

marriage of big government

with big corporation?

Was this a unique

relationship?

It was not.

The marriage of Bell

with the government

is what economists call

corporatism.

Fascism is corporatist.

I mean, there's no,

it's not an extreme,

fascism was corporatist.

And Mussolini, uh, was the

one who kind of

first promoted the idea,

well the Italian fascists

were the ones who developed

the idea of corporatism.

AT&T was the epitome of, uh,

kind of a corporate

structure.

You had a very powerful

labor union,

The Communication

Workers of America.

You had the biggest

corporation in the world,

uh, with a monopoly,

a government sanctioned

monopoly

and you had them working

very closely

with the government on

things like uh,

uh, national security

technologies,

uh, um...

wire-tapping, uh you know,

providing information

to the government about

who was doing what,

uh, you have a consolidated

stakeholder group.

This is what big business

wants.

This is what government

wants.

This is what the

representatives

of labor want.

And that's what happens.

America is a democracy.

It is a free society.

Yet it employed a fascist

economic structure.

But that was 90 years ago.

The question is...

can it happen again?

Today, elements of

corporatism are still active

in America where

corporations

representing different

groups exist

to influence government

legislation through lobbying.

While these corporations

have no membership,

in any legislative body, they

wield considerable power.

American corporatism is

alive and operating today

as reflected by

the relationships

between members of the

former Bush administration

and corporations

such as Halliburton.

Circumstances like these

further support the notion

put forth by critics

of capitalism.

They argue that any form

of capitalism

will eventually devolve

into corporatism.

Where concentration

of wealth

is in fewer and fewer hands.

The administrations of

presidents Carter, Reagan,

Bush Sr., Clinton,

and Bush Jr.

favored deregulation policy

throughout their

respective terms.

The idea was to let big

business, big corporations,

big banks, operate with less

government interference,

unlike the Bell structure.

In 1999, the financial

services modernization act

is enacted in the 106th

United States Congress

under President Clinton.

Banks, securities houses,

finance companies,

and insurance companies

will be allowed to merge

and consolidate at will.

Soon, investment brokers

will create and sell

high risk, virtually

worthless investment products

to commercial banks

which will result

in one of the greatest

economic catastrophes

in American history.

Uh, the United States

had organized crime

on a, on a scale that

uh, uh was way, way

beyond that of what

ethnic groups

like Italian-Americans and

Jewish-Americans brought.

Uh, we know the whole story

about the,

about the robber barons.

Uh, we know about

the Rockefellers.

We know about

the Vanderbilts,

uh, we know about

the people who indeed

are organized crime

on a, on a, on a level

uh, that uh, perhaps

is being repeated again,

uh perhaps being

repeated again

by corporate America.

Big business in cooperation

with big government

worked together to take

the country

to the brink of disaster.

How does their

behavior differ

from the criminal behavior

we know

as organized crime?

Well, first of all, the

difference is that they,

the individuals

who are doing it

at the corporate level

of America

are certainly making money

way beyond anything

ever dreamed of,

but the kind of organized

crime that titillates all of us,

uh, American Mafia groups.

So, thats a, an important

difference.

Uh, I provide in

my research, in my books

a definition of organized

crime.

I would suggest seven

of those attributes

could certainly fit all of

the, the corporate

criminal activities that have

become,

uh, well known to all of us

as a result of media exposure.

Perhaps the only one, and I

would have to be cautious

about saying that we're not

gonna include that one,

the only one was that the

willingness to use violence.

Big corporation,

big government,

big stakeholders,

capitalist, socialist,

regulate, deregulate.

In the end, what do these

words mean

to a democracy?

What do these words mean

to Walter Shaw?

These words are ideologies.

Methods of government,

manipulations of power.

Economic rationales.

And they profoundly affect

every level of our society

for decades,

even centuries at a time.

While there are no easy

answers to explain

why we are,

where we are today,

there are also no easy

answers

as to what to do about it.

At very least, as members

of a free society,

we have the opportunity to

educate,

to demand truth,

to object, to reject,

to demand clarity from those

who serve us,

supply us, and govern us,

and to speak up when

wrongs are not righted.

It's all we've got.

Winston Churchill said this:

"We accept in the fullest

sense of the word,

the settled and persistent

will of the people

all this idea of a group

of super men

and super planners making

the masses of the people

do what they think

is good for them

without any check

or correction

is a violation of democracy.

Many forms of government

have been tried

and will be tried in this

world of sin and woe.

No one pretends that

democracy is prefect

or all wise.

Indeed,

it has been said that

democracy

is the worst form of

government,

except all those other forms

that have been tried

from time to time

but there is the broad

feeling in our country

that the people should rule

continuously rule

and that public opinion

expressed by all

constitutional means

should shape, guide, and

control the actions

of ministers who are their

servants

and not their masters.

I says, why do you think

we never benefited?

I said, what, what do you

think it was all about, dad?

He said,

I never questioned it.

I just know I had the gift,

the ability and the blessing

from God to do what I did

and I never ever

questioned him

but he says,

you know what, Thiel?

It doesn't matter what

anybody says about me

'cause my inventions will

speak long after I'm gone.

Walter Shaw

would live to see

the dismantling

of Bell telephone.

But many years

too late for him

and his family.

- Final question.

- Mmm.

If your father

walked in here right now,

what would you say to him?

Greg, I don't know.

I'd ask for another day.

And that would be a gift?

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