Chapter Eighty Six: Managerial Age

I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of

"Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in

those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens

loved to paint. It is not done even in

concentration camps and labor camps. In those

we see its final result. But it is conceived and

ordered (moved, seconded, carried and minuted)

in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted

offices, by quiet men with white collars and

cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who

do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally

enough, my symbol for Hell is something like

the bureacracy of a police state or the office of

a thoroughly nasty business concern.

[From the Preface]

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

-o0o-

The corporations that profit from permanent

war need us to be afraid. Fear stops us from

objecting to government spending on a bloated

military. Fear means we will not ask unpleasant

questions of those in power. Fear permits the

government to operate in secret. Fear means we

are willing to give up our rights and liberties

for promises of security. The imposition of fear

ensures that the corporations that wrecked

the country cannot be challenged.

Fear keeps us penned in like livestock.

Chris Hedges, The Death of the Liberal Class

-o0o-

Corporations are like protean bacteria;

you hit them with accountability and they

mutate and change their names.

Doug Anderson

-o0o-

Culture jamming is enjoying a resurgence,

in part because of technological advancements

but also more pertinently, because of the good

old rules of supply and demand. Something not

far from the surfaces of the public psyche is

delighted to see the icons of corporate power

subverted and mocked. There is, in short,

a market for it. With commercialism able to

overpower the traditional authority of religion,

politics and schools, corporations have emerged

as the natural targets for all sorts of free-floating

rage and rebellion. The new ethos that 

culture jamming taps into is 

go-for-the-corporate-jagular.

Naomi Klein, No Logo

-o0o-

And the so-called "political process" is a fraud:

Our elected officials, like our bureaucratic

functionaries, like even our judges, are largely

the indentured servants of commercial interests.

Edward Abbey, Postcards from Ed:

Dispatches and Salvos from

an American Iconoclast

-o0o-

There is a high probability that the corporations

in your area are in control of your

police department.

Steven Magee

-o0o-

I hope we shall take warning from the example

and crush in its birth the aristrocacy of our

monied corporations which dare already to

challenge our government to a trial of strength,

and to bid defiance to the laws of their country.

Thomas Jefferson

-o0o-

But (privatization) has another important

function in the neoliberal world view,

and that's to assist wage suppression.

If you are a private company, you've got one

overriding obligation, and it's not to your

workers, to your country or to your 

community -- it's to make a profit, in order to

retain it in dividends to your shareholders.

That's it. And the means to increase the rate of

return to its greatest possible margin is cutting

the cost of your operation. You do this by

increasing your productivity, expanding your

market, raising prices on your offered

commodities, and by reducing the wages and

conditions of the people who work for you.

Sally McManus, On Fairness

-o0o-

Because of legal expansions in corporate rights

and changes in corporate social practice, the

most powerful people in the world in many

contexts are corporations and the people who

run them. Corporations are like superheroes

(or supervillains) in many ways. They possess

a (liability) shield, never die, leverage the powers

of others as their own, and move the world

through their actions.

Tom C.W. Lin, The Capitalist and the Activist:

Corporate Social Activism and the

New Business of Change

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This Chapter is sponsored by Fendi.