Humankind has been able to subdue his environment and predators by virtue of his large brain and the resulting benefit of being able to learn and modify behavior quickly. Acquiring knowledge, first in memory, then, when it became too much to remember, inventing written language so memory could be stored externally. And, I hardly need to mention the leap to teaching machines to think.
There is a virtual life form that is “manned” by actual humans, but does not share human values. It is an invention of man, and has recently won new status in our society. This is the corporation. Businesses have existed a long time and were first mere extensions of the owner. When businesses started becoming so large they had more than one owner, management got much more complicated. It is no secret that the corporation has one primary goal: to make as much profit for the shareholders as possible. The only other rules the the corporation may have may only exist if they support the primary profit goal. If they do not, the banker/stock market acts as a kind of corporate world policeman.
The corporation, now, has become so powerful it has entered the political arena to make sure it’s primary goals are not thwarted or restricted. It has secured a Supreme Court decision that corporations are to enjoy the same rights and privileges as organic life forms, human citizens. It can now contribute as much money as it wants to the election campaigns of those running for public office. Since the scale of wealth is so vastly different between human citizens and corporate citizens, the playing field is now extremely tilted in favor of the corporation. Tens of millions to a large corporation is similar to $100 to me, for example. No matter how “politically active” I am or if I donate all I can afford to my favorite candidate, I cannot overcome the advantage of the corporation.
Not only that, but these new virtual organisms often work in packs to accomplish their work. Witness the campaigns recently that play on cultural values and fear to influence human citizens to vote against their own best interest and vote in favor of policies that benefit large corporations and their princes. For example, compare the fervor of the campaign to save Wall Street and the big banks to the contention surrounding campaigns that would actually benefit human citizens such as health care, the dissolution of existing safety nets, the downsizing of federal and state governments, the suggestions that public education be eliminated, the roadblocks placed ahead of infrastructure development and new technologies, on and on.
Back to John, author of The Revelation. If your job was to tell John about these virtual organisms and how they work, how they have only venal profit-taking as a motive and are willing to destroy anything in their path to accomplish that goal, how would you describe this creature in a way that John could understand? Is a monster such a bad analogy?
Corporations are monsters that can help us do the things we need to do on this planet, but they are so big and powerful, we must have strong regulations and bind that monster to a well defined field of endeavor. The only other organization large enough to do this for us is our government. Is this news to the corporation? No, of course not. The corporations are joined together, now, to either neutralize the government, or to take it over entirely. Both are happening simultaneously.