December 12, 2010 07:06 PM UTC

Space Invaders, Inc.

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• by: JO

Via Krugman, from British sci-fi writer Charles Stross: corporations are alien creatures living among us and enslaving and/or governing human beings:

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. Individual atomized humans are thus either co-opted by these entities (you can live very nicely as a CEO or a politician, as long as you don’t bite the feeding hand) or steamrollered if they try to resist.

Full piece at http://www.antipope.org/charli…

[Pressed for time? Suggest reading Stross instead of the JO that follows.]

As we know, these creatures were recognized as, well, as creatures with constitutional rights by the Supreme Court in January 2010 (Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, No. 08-205). Pending: Do corporations have rights to “personal” privacy? (FCC v. AT&T)

And for the benefit of the Near Horizoners: to what extent do corporations domiciled in New York or Silicon Valley determine the policies of the government of the State of Colorado, or municipalities in the state, all eager for new opportunities to work for that corporation in exchange for some bit corporate manna hereabouts?

Krugman ( http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.c… ) would have it that corporations are not alien creatures because they are controlled by individual human beings at the helm.

But are the CEOs at the helm? Could they shift course–say, at the expense of the corporation for the benefit of the broader population of humans–of their own free will? Or is the manna of these alien creatures so addictive that their top servants–and not just top servants, either; consider the large number of gray flannel suits coming to the polls every 24 months or so–are compelled to continue to do their bidding, at the expense of everyone else, including at the expense of their own servants who may be cast off randomly to keep the INCreatures growing.