{"id":29626,"date":"2023-11-04T18:27:39","date_gmt":"2023-11-05T01:27:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=29626"},"modified":"2023-11-04T18:47:44","modified_gmt":"2023-11-05T01:47:44","slug":"29626","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/11\/04\/29626\/","title":{"rendered":"A taxonomy of corporate bullshit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The six lies they\u2019ve always told.<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"Cory<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cory Doctorow<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oct 27, 2023 (doctorow.medium.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Next Tuesday (Oct 31) at 10hPT, <\/strong>the Internet Archive is livestreaming my presentation on my recent book, The Internet Con<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are six lies that corporations have told since time immemorial, and Nick Hanauer, Joan Walsh and Donald Cohen\u2019s new book Corporate Bullsh<\/em>t: Exposing the Lies and Half-Truths That Protect Profit, Power, and Wealth in America* provides an essential taxonomy of this dirty six:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/thenewpress.com\/books\/corporate-bullsht<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his review for The American Prospect<\/em>, David Dayen summarizes how these six lies \u201coffer a civic-minded, reasonable-sounding justification for positions that in fact are motivated entirely by self-interest\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/prospect.org\/culture\/books\/2023-10-27-lies-my-corporation-told-me-hanauer-walsh-cohen-review\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I. Pure denial<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As far back as the slave trade, corporate apologists and mouthpieces have led by asserting that true things are false, and vice-versa. In 1837, John Calhoun asserted that \u201cNever before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually.\u201d George Fitzhugh called enslaved Africans in America \u201cthe freest people in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This tactic never went away. Children sent to work in factories are \u201cperfectly happy.\u201d Polluted water is \u201cpurer than the water that came from the river before we used it.\u201d Poor families \u201cdon\u2019t really exist.\u201d Pesticides don\u2019t lead to \u201cillness or death.\u201d Climate change is \u201cbeneficial.\u201d Lead \u201chelps guard your health.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

II. Markets can solve problems, governments can\u2019t<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alan Greenspan made a career out of blithely asserting that markets self-correct. It was only after the world economy imploded in 2008 that he admitted that his doctrine had a \u201cflaw\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/show\/greenspan-admits-flaw-to-congress-predicts-more-economic-problems<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

No matter how serious a problem is, the market will fix it. In 1973, the US Chamber of Commerce railed against safety regulations, because \u201csafety is good business,\u201d and could be left to the market. If unsafe products persist in the market, it\u2019s because consumers choose to trade safety off \u201cfor a lower price tag\u201d (Chamber spox Laurence Kraus). Racism can\u2019t be corrected with anti-discrimination laws. It\u2019s only when \u201cthe market\u201d realizes that racism is bad for business that it will finally be abolished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

III. Consumers and workers are to blame<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1946, the National Coal Association blamed rampant deaths and maimings in the country\u2019s coal-mines on \u201ccarelessness on the part of men.\u201d In 2003, the National Restaurant Association sang the same tune, condemning nutritional labels because \u201cthere are not good or bad foods. There are good and bad diets.\u201d Reagan\u2019s interior secretary Donald Hodel counseled personal responsibility to address a thinning ozone layer: \u201cpeople who don\u2019t stand out in the sun \u2014 it doesn\u2019t affect them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IV. Government cures are always worse than the disease<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lee Iacocca called 1970\u2019s Clean Air Act \u201ca threat to the entire American economy and to every person in America.\u201d Every labor and consumer protection before and since has been damned as a plague on American jobs and prosperity. The incentive to work can\u2019t survive Social Security, welfare or unemployment insurance. Minimum wages kill jobs, etc etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

V. Helping people only hurts them<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Medicare will \u201cdestroy private initiative for our aged to protect themselves with insurance\u201d (Republican Senator Milward Simpson, 1965). Covid relief is unfair to people that are currently in the workforce\u201d (Republican Governor Brian Kemp, 2021). Welfare produces \u201clearned helplessness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

VI. Everyone who disagrees with me is a socialist<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grover Cleveland\u2019s 2% on top incomes is \u201ccommunistic warfare against rights of property\u201d (NY Tribune, 1895). \u201cSocialized medicine\u201d will leave \u201cour children and our children\u2019s children [asking] what it once was like in America when men were free\u201d (Reagan, 1961).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything is \u201csocialism\u201d: anti-child labor laws, Social Security, minimum wages, family and medical leave. Even fascism is socialism! In 1938, the National Association of Manufacturers called labor rights \u201ccommunism, bolshevism, fascism, and Nazism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Dayen says, it\u2019s refreshing to see how the right hasn\u2019t had an original idea in 150 years, and simply relies on repeating the same nonsense with minor updates. Right wing ideological innovation consists of finding new ways to say, \u201cactually, your boss is right.\u201d<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The left\u2019s great curse is object permanence: the ability to remember things, like the fact that it used to be possible for a worker to support a family of five on a single income, or that the economy once experienced decades of growth with a 90%+ top rate of income tax (other things the left manages to remember: the \u201cintelligence community\u201d are sociopathic monsters, not Trump-slaying heroes).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the business lobby rails against long-overdue antitrust action against Amazon and Google, object permanence puts it all in perspective. The talking points about this being job-destroying socialism are the same warmed-over nonsense used to defend rail-barons and Rockefeller. \u201cIf you don\u2019t like it, shop elsewhere,\u201d has been the corporate apologist\u2019s line since slavery times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Dayen says, Corporate Bullshit<\/em> is a \u201creference book for conservative debating points, in an attempt to rob them of their rhetorical power.\u201d It will be out on Halloween:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/54985\/9781620977514<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here\u2019s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pluralistic: A taxonomy of corporate bullshit (27 Oct 2023)<\/a><\/blockquote>