Greed and unbridled capitalism are sociopathic and are actively destroying the foundations upon which our societies and the cooperation that enables it, are built. Ironically, the greedy capitalists are unintentionally cannibalizing and destroying the very society that they and their enterprises can't exist without. Sounds pathological and insane, because it is!

Can Civilization Survive "Really Existing Capitalism"? An Interview With Noam Chomsky - Truthout https://truthout.org/articles/can-civilization-survive-really-existing-capitalism-an-interview-with-noam-chomsky/

#GreedKills
#GreedIsAntiSocial
#AllInThisTogether

"Since the late 1970s, most advanced economies have returned to predatory capitalism. As a result, income and wealth inequality have reached spectacular heights, poverty is becoming entrenched, unemployment is skyrocketing and standards of living are declining. In addition, “really existing capitalism” is causing mass environmental damage and destruction which, along with the population explosion, is leading us to an unmitigated global disaster. Can civilization survive really existing capitalism?

First, let me say that what I have in mind by the term “really existing capitalism” is what really exists and what is called “capitalism.” The United States is the most important case, for obvious reasons. The term “capitalism” is vague enough to cover many possibilities. It is commonly used to refer to the US economic system, which receives substantial state intervention, ranging from creative innovation to the “too-big-to-fail” government insurance policy for banks, and which is highly monopolized, further limiting market reliance.

It’s worth bearing in mind the scale of the departures of “really existing capitalism” from official “free-market capitalism.” To mention only a few examples, in the past 20 years, the share of profits of the 200 largest enterprises has risen sharply, carrying forward the oligopolistic character of the US economy. This directly undermines markets, avoiding price wars through efforts at often-meaningless product differentiation through massive advertising, which is itself dedicated to undermining markets in the official sense, based on informed consumers making rational choices. Computers and the internet, along with other basic components of the IT revolution, were largely in the state sector (R&D, subsidy, procurement, and other devices) for decades before they were handed over to private enterprise for adaptation to commercial markets and profit. The government insurance policy, which provides big banks with enormous advantages, has been roughly estimated by economists and the business press to be perhaps on the order of as much as $80 billion a year. However, a recent study by the International Monetary Fund indicates – to quote the business press – that perhaps “the largest US banks aren’t really profitable at all,” adding that “the billions of dollars they allegedly earn for their shareholders were almost entirely a gift from US taxpayers.” This is more evidence to support the judgment of Martin Wolf of the London Financial Times, that “an out-of-control financial sector is eating out the modern market economy from inside, just as the larva of the spider wasp eats out the host in which it has been laid.”

In a way, all of this explains the economic devastation produced by contemporary capitalism that you underscore in your question above. Really existing capitalism – RECD for short (pronounced “wrecked”) – is radically incompatible with democracy. It seems to me unlikely that civilization can survive really existing capitalism and the sharply attenuated democracy that goes along with it. Could functioning democracy make a difference? Consideration of nonexistent systems can only be speculative, but I think there’s some reason to think so. Really existing capitalism is a human creation, and can be changed or replaced."

This quote says it all; "the corporation can reasonably be described as a sociopath if not a psychopath. The Guardian summarizes this: "If you did a psychological profile of the corporation, what would it look like? Self-interested, manipulative, avowedly asocial, self-aggrandising, unable to accept responsibility for its own actions or feel remorse - as a person, the corporation would probably qualify as a full-blown psychopath.""

The corporate attack on democracy | Salon.com https://www.salon.com/2023/04/24/the-corporate-on-democracy/

#GreedKillsDemocracy
#GreedIsAntiSocial

"A key part of America's national mythology is that democracy and capitalism are one and the same thing and that corporations and big business and "free markets" are essential indicators of "freedom" and "democracy." In reality, the corporation supports those arrangements of political economy that allow them to maximize their profits. Democracy is not a prerequisite for such an outcome. There are many examples, almost too many to list, where corporations have in the past and continue to support anti-democratic and authoritarian policies -- and antisocial and anti-human policies more generally including genocide, slavery, war profiteering, and global climate disaster -- if they deem it in their financial interests to do so.

Based on its behavior as compellingly demonstrated by law professor Joel Balkan in the bestselling book "The Corporation" (and in the award-winning documentary of the same name), the corporation can reasonably be described as a sociopath if not a psychopath. The Guardian summarizes this: "If you did a psychological profile of the corporation, what would it look like? Self-interested, manipulative, avowedly asocial, self-aggrandising, unable to accept responsibility for its own actions or feel remorse - as a person, the corporation would probably qualify as a full-blown psychopath."

Hitler was some wealthy German's solution to controlling the government, only to have the psychopathic nature of their puppet turn on them and destroy much of the society in the process. Leaders that want to govern and make sure the country works for all its members, don't create dysfunction or increase antipathy in citizens, just as real journalists do not poison the discourse with lies designed to manipulate people against their own interests and for the benefit of only a few.
I would argue that the allure of populism goes up as a country's economy and power structures yield greater inequality and a sense of powerlessness. These arise from the needs of a sick few to own, control and consume as much as possible, with an antipathy toward sharing the wealth and the power.

We can't fight authoritarianism without understanding populism's allure
https://theconversation.com/we-cant-fight-authoritarianism-without-understanding-populisms-allure-201544

#GreedIsAntiSocial
#TheSickCravePower
#GreedIsASickness
#PopulistLeadersRSick
#WeRInThisTogether
#TogetherWeAllThrive

""...Populist politicians of the most recent wave were lucky. Their rule was based on oversized personalities with lots of charisma.

The leaders of the current phase, however, are smarter and their Machiavellian ambitions grander.
...
Populism 2.0
The focused populism of 2023 is light years away from the unexpected successes of 2016. The newest class of right-wing populists aims not only to dismantle the guardrails of democracy, but also the most fundamental principles of the rule of law.
...
Recent surveys have shown that citizens in democracies around the world increasingly believe that both government and the media are “divisive forces in society.”
...
Research into Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy, the so-called Dark Triad of anti-social personality traits, draws upon Adorno’s important insights. Social scientists are now identifying the link between a vindictive world view and political extremism, online abuse and hate speech.

The masks of command
Each authoritarian leader is different, bound only by their anti-liberalism, Dark Triad traits and their celebration as the ringleader of a populist circus.

In our recent book, Has Populism Won?, we show how charismatic leaders encourage a form of totalitarianism in which blind allegiance creates a feeling of partisan belonging. To carry it off, leaders wear what we call “masks of command” to rally their followers.

In our assessment, leaders who spin webs of lies wear the mask of “conspirator-in-chief.” The conspirator uses favours, relationships and money to destabilize institutions and erode the norms that stand in the way of autocracy.

...Netanyahu relies upon the commander’s mask of “first citizen of the empire” when he argues that the solution to societal polarization is more personalized power.
...
Johnson and Trump frequently wore the aggressive mask of “national defender.” As false tribunes of the people, they weaponized immigration to their own advantage.
...
The “holy crusader” is even more ambitious because he believes he can change the entire international order to return his nation to greatness.
...
For example, Putin is a warmonger who uses imperialistic belligerence to disguise his nation’s decline.
...
So how to oppose extremism?

...We believe democracy only works when it is safeguarded by a robust system of checks and balances, masses of engaged citizens and an independent judiciary."

Republicans being hypocrites?! How could that be?! They just want to have their way, regardless of whether it is consistent with what they say or do. They don't want the truth, consistency or what is right for all of us, they just want to get their way, and especially whatever their obscenely wealthy donors want!

The obscenely wealthy aren't interested in what is good for the country or other people, they want handouts, and they don't want anyone else getting them. Sounds like some spoiled and immature children, doesn't it? That's because people like that, who sell their lives and integrity for greed and money, aren't mature and emotionally sound. They are even more insecure or less able to cope with their insecurity than the rest of us.

As a response to this insecurity/fear, they slather themselves with money, possessions, power, esteem and apparently their own personal public servants, all to reassure themselves how good they are and that they're better than everyone else, and to hell with the rest of us. They don't share, they want everything for themselves and see any benefits for anyone else as taking away from what they so desperately "need" for themselves.

And, their "owned" politicians are in the same boat. They aren't taking those donations and job offers after office because they are noble. They, just like their donors, want money, power, etc., because that makes them feel more secure. What great role models for upcoming generations, not! And people like that should never be in positions of power where they can sell out the rest of us.

Republican Who Rails Against Student Loan “Bailout” Got $1.5M of Loans Forgiven https://truthout.org/articles/republican-who-rails-against-student-loan-bailout-got-1-5m-of-loans-forgiven/

#GreedKills
#GOPGreed
#InsecurityResponses
#GreedIsAntiSocial

"On Thursday, Republican Rep. Burgess Owens (Utah), who has declared personal bankruptcy five times and had $1.5 million of his debt discharged, held a hearing aimed at attacking President Joe Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan to forgive up to $20,000 of debt for borrowers.

In the hearing by the House Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development, Owens railed against the concept of student debt forgiveness, saying that it was unfair for those who pursued higher education to seek forgiveness and place the burden of their loans on the public — an argument that debt forgiveness activists have long disputed.

“Many people in this room probably have student loans. However, the blanket bailout that turns loans into target grants and saddles future generations with someone else’s debt is not a solution,” Owens said in his opening statement.

He railed against individuals for taking on loans that created “short-sighted, self-centered and intergenerational debt,” and complained that the education that borrowers received is “low quality,” perpetuating a thread of right-wingers attacking higher education for spurious reasons while disregarding the fact that the vast majority of jobs now require a college degree.

However, debt activists are pointing out that Owens is a raging hypocrite. During his first campaign for office in 2020, it was revealed that Owens filed for personal bankruptcy five times between the 1990s and 2000s.
...
However, as The Salt Lake Tribune uncovered, records show that Owens filed for Chapter 7 in 2005 for $1.7 million in debt...meaning, essentially, that Owens had $1.5 million in debts discharged by courts, per the Salt Lake Tribune.
...
The bankruptcies weren’t Owens’s only financial trouble during his campaign. During his campaign, it was found that Owens had accepted at least $135,500 in contributions that were over legal limits, which amounted to about 40 percent of the funding that his campaign had on hand during the last stretch of the contested run. Later, he was handed a fee by the Federal Election Commission for failing to report $34,000 in contributions to his campaign.

Debt activists also pointed out the hypocrisy of other Republicans on the subcommittee. ...tuition at the University of Miami...is now three times as expensive as it was when Owens graduated. The federal minimum wage then was higher than it is now, adjusted for inflation.

For Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-North Carolina), the chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee, tuition at (UNC) Chapel Hill, was $310 when she graduated in 1968, or about $2,700 in today’s dollars. Now, tuition there is about $7,000, or an effective increase of 258 percent. Minimum wage then was $14 in today’s dollars — a large contrast to the current minimum wage of $7.25 federally..."

Good video by Robert Reich detailing how the Norfolk-Southern Train derailment/disaster was caused by or at the very least exacerbated by corporate greed. To save money, they decided not to upgrade their ancient braking systems. Then they were willing to spend millions lobbying regulators and congress to further weaken safety regulations. They made their trains longer and reduced the number of engineers on each train. How can two engineers run a train over a mile long?! They also got rid of the people who were tasked with maintaining the video systems used to catch train/axle fires. They stripped it to the bone to make is as profitable as possible and then they spend billions over the last decade on stock buybacks to further enrich their executives and shareholders rather than investing in upgrades that could have prevented this tragedy. There is no other name for it: GREED!! As a country and a planet, we can no longer tolerate greed and the damage and carnage it causes as if it is just the way things are. Being profitable, successful, sharing profits with employees and taking care of their customers and the citizens they impact, is what they should have been doing. That is sustainable, yet what they have been doing is pillaging and stripping it to the bone to squeeze every penny they can out of it to enrich themselves. We can and must do better, especially in terms of holding parties like these accountable!

How Corporate Greed Destroyed a Small Ohio Town - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3quHjtfFVy0

#GreedKills
#GreedIsAntiSocial

Greed is a dead end! It doesn't benefit society, the planet or even the greedy in the end. We can't afford to tolerate or venerate it, or have it legal any longer!

"Society must make the necessary shift from a society that prioritizes wealth accumulation and economic growth to one that puts personal and societal well-being above profits."

"The real bottom line, though, is that the world can no longer afford to support or sustain companies that exist almost entirely to make money. Humanity is reeling under numerous crises brought on by consumer-driven economics based on the fallacy of endless growth in a finite world — from biodiversity loss to gross inequality to climate disruption"

Opinion | Humanity Can No Longer Tolerate Corporations That Exist Almost Entirely to Make Money | Common Dreams https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/corporate-responsibility-reform

#GreedKills
#GreedIsAntiSocial
#WeCan'tAffordGreed

"In many countries — most notably the U.S. — corporations are considered “persons” under law, enjoying many of the same legal rights and responsibilities as “natural” persons. Judging by the way some corporations operate, you might conclude they’re not very good people.

Defining corporations as “persons” simply means they have a legal identity separate from shareholders and owners. But what is the purpose of a business or corporation? If you look at sectors such as the fossil fuel industry, you might be led to believe the primary aim is to enrich shareholders and CEOs, and maybe create some employment, regardless of the costs to society.

Generating profits and jobs is important in an economic system that relies on those principles, but they shouldn’t be the ultimate goals. The British Academy — the U.K.’s national institution for the humanities and social sciences — concluded from its research on the future of the corporation “that the purpose of business is to solve the problems of people and planet profitably, and not profit from causing problems.”

In most countries, it’s left up to business owners, CEOs and boards to decide what their purpose is, and all too often the choice is ultimately based on greed. That’s why many countries, including France and the U.K., have started incorporating corporate purpose into legal frameworks.
...
Research shows companies with stated purposes that take into account their impacts on people and the planet often do better than those without. They attract loyal customers willing to advocate for and promote them. And the companies enjoy better reputations and are able to attract good employees who stay longer.

A U.S. study found 60 per cent of Americans would “choose, switch, avoid or boycott a company based on its stand on social issues.” Another found that 66 per cent of people would switch from a product they normally buy to one from a purpose-driven company.

The real bottom line, though, is that the world can no longer afford to support or sustain companies that exist almost entirely to make money. Humanity is reeling under numerous crises brought on by consumer-driven economics based on the fallacy of endless growth in a finite world — from biodiversity loss to gross inequality to climate disruption.
...
“Bringing Corporate Purpose into the Mainstream: Directions for Canadian Law” recommends major changes to the Canada Business Corporations Act to ensure that large companies prioritize people and planet over profit. It’s part of a global movement to shift the focus of economic systems from money-driven consumerism to well-being.

Among its recommendations, the report...calls for the act to be reformed to require corporate boards to have a statement of purpose, to extend the fiduciary duty of directors and officers to pursuing the purpose of the corporation in good faith with a view to its best interests, and to broaden those best interests to include impacts on the community in which it operates.

“Part of transforming to a society that values our needs, relationships and the natural world is ensuring corporations are held accountable for their actions.
...
These reforms won’t transform society by themselves...but they’re an important step in the necessary shift from a society that prioritizes wealth accumulation and economic growth to one that puts personal and societal well-being above the pursuit of profit."

Greedy people, and their corporations, kill people and destroy democracy to make a buck and have power! They don't care about anyone but themselves and they will gladly poison us, our environment/climate if they can get wealthy, make more money or have more power. They undermine our democracy so they can control it and get what they want. The havoc, death and misery they have created and continue to, is obscene as is the fact that they still aren't being held accountable for it. We cannot afford to indulge them and be blind to this any longer! Our future, our children's future and the planet's future all depend on us stepping up and cutting them off!!

Part2
How To Kill and Get Away With It https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/9/2140948/-How-To-Kill-and-Get-Away-With-It?pm_source=story_sidebar&pm_medium=web&pm_campaign=recommended
#GreedKills
#GreedDestroysDemocracy
#CapitalismIsGreed
#GreedIsAntiSocial
#GreedyHateDemocracy
#GOPPartyOfGreed
#GOPPartyOfTheRich

"...And this only scratches the surface. In just the past year, thousands of Americans have been killed and tens of thousands rendered homeless by climate change-driven weather that men in the fossil fuel industry knew fifty years ago would happen as the result of their selling their products. For money.

Odds are none will ever see the inside of a jail cell, and their companies will never be dissolved

There’s a lot of talk about “two standards of justice in America, one for the rich and another for everybody else.” But there’s a third standard of justice for corporations and their senior executives that commit crimes.

In the 1880s, conservatives on the Supreme Court bizarrely identified corporations as “persons” with human rights defined by the Constitution’s Bill of Rights.

In a 1978 decision written by Lewis “Memo” Powell, the Court ruled that when corporations purchase the loyalty of politicians, the money used for those purchases was to no longer be called “bribes” but, instead, is “free speech” protected by the First Amendment. The doctrine was radically expanded in 2010 with Citizens United.

Neither corporate immunities apply, however, to the small businesses that make up more than 99% of all corporations and LLCs in America. It’s notoriously easy to “pierce the corporate veil” of a business with revenues not measured in the millions and directly go after what is typically the company’s sole stockholder.

So the “corporate crime” problem is limited to the handful of large corporations and their senior executives who regularly make decisions that destroy Americans’ lives.

And our federal government doesn’t even keep a database of them and their crimes, even though they cost Americans as much as $800 billion a year and hundreds of thousands of lost lives.

Senators Dick Durbin and Richard Blumenthal along with Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon have introduced legislation that would require the Justice Department to build and maintain the same sort of database for criminal corporations as it already does with criminal humans.

That’s right: nobody in our government is keeping track of all this corporate crime. And when these members of Congress proposed it happen, not a single Republican joined their effort.

Our Assistant Attorney General, Lisa Monaco, estimates that as many as 20 percent of all the major corporate crime in this country is committed by corporate “repeat offenders.” But nobody’s sure: it could be twice that percentage, or it could be a smaller percentage and far more widespread than anybody realizes.

Human criminals kill around 23,000 Americans a year, according to the FBI (which only tracks and publishes statistics on crimes committed by human persons).

The coal and tobacco companies alone kill more Americans every year than they employ. (Coal employs 51,795 and kills an estimated 52,105 according to the US Dept. of Health and Human Services; Tobacco employs 124,342 and kills 522,000 according to the same data.)

Republicans spent much of last month’s election screaming from the rafters about crime in America.

Democrats should do the same as we head toward 2024, targeting the real killers and thieves in this nation. Average Americans, who absolutely realize how corrupt this system is, will appreciate it."

Greedy people, and their corporations, kill people and destroy democracy to make a buck and have power! They don't care about anyone but themselves and they will gladly poison us, our environment/climate if they can get wealthy, make more money or have more power. They undermine our democracy so they can control it and get what they want. The havoc, death and misery they have created and continue to, is obscene as is the fact that they still aren't being held accountable for it. We cannot afford to indulge them and be blind to this any longer! Our future, our children's future and the planet's future all depend on us stepping up and cutting them off!!

Part1
How To Kill and Get Away With It https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/9/2140948/-How-To-Kill-and-Get-Away-With-It?pm_source=story_sidebar&pm_medium=web&pm_campaign=recommended
#GreedKills
#GreedDestroysDemocracy
#CapitalismIsGreed
#GreedIsAntiSocial
#GreedyHateDemocracy
#GOPPartyOfGreed
#GOPPartyOfTheRich

"If you live in New York State and lie to that government about your income to reduce your taxes, you go to prison. If you’re criminally convicted of 17 counts of such lies — such tax fraud — you could spend a long time in prison.

But The Trump Organization, a New York corporation that was just convicted of 17 criminal counts of tax fraud, not only won’t “go to jail” but also won’t even be dissolved for its crimes.

Instead, it’ll pay a maximum $1.6 million fine that represents less money than just one of Trump’s several-criminally-implicated employees and relatives made off with by the company committing their fraud for the past 15 years.

When the senior executives of California’s private for-profit power utility PG&E made the very intentional decision to move cash into their own pockets through bonuses and dividends instead of making their power lines resilient enough to withstand severe winds, they also made the decision to let people die.

And, sure enough, PG&E pleaded guilty to those 84 killings for the 2018 Camp Fire caused by the failure of those very high-tension lines. The judge forced the CEO, Bill Johnson, to come to court to enter his company’s guilty plea to those deaths and say, “Guilty, your honor” 84 times. But neither he nor any executives at the company spent a single day in jail. Instead, the multi-billion-dollar company paid $3.5 million in fines.

Just two years earlier, PG&E had been convicted of causing the death of 8 other people through poor maintenance on a gas pipeline; they were still “on probation” for those deaths when they chose not to maintain 100-year-old high-tension towers leading to the Camp Fire.

Bizarrely, America has different standards for human criminals than corporate criminals, even though corporations kill around 40 times more Americans every year than do more mundane “normal” crooks.

Alfred Ruf poisoned his wife as part of a scheme to get rich off her life insurance. So did Dr. Gregory “Brent” Dennis, who was looking at a $2 million payout. Joshua Hunsucker poisoned his wife for a mere $250K in life insurance money, $80,000 of which he used to buy a boat. David L. Pettis poisoned his wife for $150,000.

I don’t know the names of the men who poisoned and killed my father and my brother Stan, but I know where they worked and why they did it: just like Ruf, Dennis, Hunsucker and Pettis, they intentionally and knowingly took actions they believed would result in death when they sold asbestos to my dad’s employer and got my brother addicted to tobacco.

The asbestos industry knew as early as the 1890s, and got definite confirmation in the 1940s, that their product caused mesothelioma, the particularly brutal lung cancer that killed my father.

Even today, their executives are trying to avoid responsibility for it: Johnson & Johnson was playing bankruptcy games to avoid paying for cancers caused by their asbestos-laced talcum powder, and not a single executive is even slightly worried about going to jail for all those dead women.

Same deal with the tobacco industry whose top CEOs lied to the faces of members of Congress in 1994 at the same time their industry has been killing over 500,000 Americans a year every year of my lifetime.

Like those four wife-killers, like the Trump Organization, like PG&E, they all did it for the money. But the CEOs and senior executives of America’s deadliest corporations made and get to keep a hell of a lot more money than Ruf, Dennis, Hunsucker and Pettis could ever imagine.

Ruf, Dennis, Hunsucker and Pettis are all in prison. The decision-makers who today are still promoting tobacco, using bankruptcy laws to avoid paying for asbestos deaths, and, like Trump, running companies that engage in tax fraud are living the high life in their mansions, private jets, and yachts..."