“When the modern corporation acquires power over markets, power in the community, power over the state and power over belief, it is a political instrument, different in degree but not in kind from the state itself. To hold otherwise — to deny the political character of the modern corporation — is not merely to avoid the reality.
It is to disguise the reality. The victims of that disguise are those we instruct in error.”
John Kenneth Galbraith
“For the last 40 years, the United States has pursued a ruthless form of neoliberalism that has stripped economic activity from ethical considerations and social costs. One consequence has been the emergence of a culture of cruelty in which the financial elite produce inhuman policies that treat the most vulnerable with contempt, relegating them to zones of social abandonment and forcing them to inhabit a society increasingly indifferent to human suffering.”
Henry Giroux
Talk about corporations gaining power-
This is an article about farmers fighting John Deere because software has to be reprogrammed on the machines at considerable expense-many of the farmers are turning to hackers to save time & $–
Look at your own vehicles-even the low air alert runs on copyrighted software-do you have the legal right to tamper with it?
http://personalliberty.com/farmers-turn-tractor-hacking-fight-corporate-gouging/
That’s a great Galbraith quote. Should be required reading for the anti-government zealots around here. Tampa, I had a couple of guys I know over for lunch yesterday, and we were talking about small equipment. They were guys really into that sort of thing, and they are looking ahead and thinking they don’t to buy new, for that exact reason, the software complications.