The Corporation Page #7

from $13 to $40 a barrel

for Christ sake!

Now we couldn't wait

for the bombs

to start raining down

on Saddam Hussein.

We were all excited.

We wanted Saddam to

really create problems

Do whatever you

have to do

set fire to some

more oil wells

because the price is

going to go higher.

Every broker was

chanting that

there was not a broker

that I know of

that wasn't

excited about that.

This was a disaster.

This was something

that was you know

catastrophe happening.

Bombing wars

In devastation there

is opportunity.

The pursuit of profit

is an old story

but there was a time when

many things were regarded

either as too sacred or too

essential for the public good

to be considered business

opportunities.

They were protected

by tradition

and public regulation.

We can really begin to take

a look at the emergence

of the modern age with

the enclosure movements

of the great European

commons in the fourteenth

fifteenth and

sixteenth century.

Medieval life uh was

a collectively lived life

It was a brutish

nasty affair.

But there was a collective

responsibility

People belonged to the land;

the land did not belong

to the people.

And in this

European world

people farmed the land

in a collective way

because they saw

it as a commons.

It belonged to God.

And then it was

administered by the church

the aristocracy

and then the local manors

as stewards of gods creation.

Beginning with Tudor England

we began to see

a phenomenon emerge

and that is the enclosure

of the great commons

by Parliamentary

Acts in England

and then in Europe.

And so first we began to

take the great landmasses

of the world

which were

commons and shared

and we reduced those

to private property.

Then we went after the oceans

the great oceanic commons

and we created laws

and regulations

that would allow countries

to claim a certain amount

of water outside

their coastal limits

for exploitation.

In this century we

went after the air

and we divided it

into air corridors

that could be bought

and sold

for commercial traffic

for airplanes.

And then of course

the rest is history.

With deregulation

privatization free trade

what we're seeing is

yet another enclosure

and if you like private

taking of the commons.

One of the things I find

very interesting

in our current debates

is this concept

of who creates wealth.

That wealth is only created

when it's owned privately.

What would you call

clean water fresh air

a safe environment?

Are they not

a form of wealth?

And why does it only become

wealth when some entity

puts a fence around it and

declares it private property?

Well you know that's

not wealth creation.

That's wealth usurpation.

Over the centuries

we have put more and more

things in that public realm

and lately just lately

in the last

lets say in the last

three or four decades

started pulling

them out again.

So fire-fighters

for instance.

Fire-fighters started

as private companies

and if you didn't

have the medallion

of a given

fire-fighter brigade

on your house and

it was on fire

those fire-fighters

would just ride on by

because you didn't

have a deal.

Well it gradually

evolved a public trust

for the provision of safety

on that very specific level.

This is important.

We should not go back

from that and start saying

well you know why don't we

put that back in the market

and see what that does?

Maybe it will make

it more efficient

Privatization does not mean

you take a public institution

and give it

to some nice person.

It means you take a public

institution and give it

to an unaccountable tyranny.

Public institutions

have many side benefits

For one thing they may

purposely run at a loss.

They're not

out for profit.

They may purposely

run at a loss

because of the

side benefits.

So for example if a public

steel industry runs at a loss

it's providing cheap

steel to other industries

maybe that's a good thing.

Public institutions can have

a counter cyclic property

So that means that they can

maintain employment

in periods of recession

which increases demand

which helps you

get out of recession.

Private companies cant

do that in a recession

throw out the work force cause

that's the way you make money.

There are those who intend

that one day everything

will be owned by somebody

and we're not just

talking goods here.

We're talking human

rights human services

essential services for life.

Education public health

social assistance

pensions housing.

We're also talking about

the survival of the planet.

The areas that we believe

must be maintained

in the commons

or under common control

or we will collectively die

Water and air.

Even in the case of air

there's been some progress

and that is the trading

of pollution permits.

And here the idea

is to say

look we cant avoid

the dumping of carbon dioxide.

We cant avoid the dumping

of sulphur oxides

at least we cant at the moment

afford to stopping it

so we're dumping a certain

amount of stuff

into the environment.

So we're going to say

with the current tonnage

of sulphur oxides

for example

we will say

that is the limit.

And well create

permits for that amount

and give them to the people

who've been doing the polluting

and now we will permit

them to be traded.

And so now there's

a price attached

to polluting the environment.

Now wouldn't it be marvellous

if we have one of those prices

for everything?

It sounds like you're

advocating private ownership

of every square

inch of the planet.

Absolutely.

Every cubic foot

of air water.

It sounds outlandish to say

we want to have the

whole universe

the whole of

the earth owned.

That doesn't mean I

want to have Joe Bloggs

owning this square foot.

But it means the interests that

are involved in that stream

are owned by some group

or by some people who have

an interest in maintaining it.

And that you know that

is not such a loony idea.

It's in fact the solution

to a lot of these problems.

Imagine a world in

which one of the things

owned by a corporation was

the song happy birthday.

In fact

an Aol/Time Warner subsidiary

holds the copyright.

In the past

it has demanded

over $10000

to allow you to hear anyone

sing this popular song

in a film.

We didn't pay.

We preferred to use the money

to fly our crew to Boston

and Los Angeles to bring

you the following story

Comparing the marketing

of yesteryear

to the marketing of today

is like comparing

a B.B. Gun to a smart bomb.

It's not the same

as when I was a kid

or even when the people

who are young adults

today were kids.

It's much more sophisticated

and it's much more pervasive.

It's not that products

themselves are bad or good.

It's the notion of

manipulating children

into buying the products.

In 1998 Western

International Media

Century City and Lieberman

Research Worldwide

conducted a study on nagging.

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