I love to cook, and when I cook, I cook with garlic. Some people can't handle much garlic and for them I have great sympathy. When one such as myself expresses their love for garlic as they begin peeling cloves for cooking, it's not uncommon for the less tolerant to caution "But not too much." I don't want to call it a pet peeve but the smart ass in me just cringes when I hear that combination of words. "Too much" is too much, meaning not "just right", therefore too much is always a bad thing, so.... duhhh, of course not too much! Sometimes I say sarcasmically "Don't worry, I'll just use too much of everything else so it evens out in the end." The word "too" defines itself, it's like the word "to" with too many "o"s in it. Whenever you use the word "too" the "o"s represent the noun in the sentence: too much salt, too many cats, too many cooks in the kitchen. The exception is the phrase "too few" which is usually "not enough", and "too small, short, little" which are more commonly used, a gentle digression.
I'm not listing my pet peeves here, I wouldn't want to leak that sensitive intelligence to Al Queda. But I do have a larger point to make than to express my passion for garlic and my dispassion for those who state the obvious. We earthbound souls have an abstract ideal that can be summed up as "Just right", we don't want "Too much, too little, too few, too big, etc." It's not because we're finicky, there are valid reasons to resist "Too much, too little, too few, too big, etc." We can all agree across the board that anything can be too big, but few people agree on where the line is drawn. And maybe there is no right size, shape, composition, portion, etc. Maybe there is a spectrum in which something can be not too big and not too small but still leave room for variety and diversity. For instance one can eat too little to survive, or too much, but there is a lot of space in between and it's amazing how much of that space some people can take up.
Our modern era is a world of giants, behemoth institutions surround us in every aspect of our lives. Nations stretch on for thousands of miles spanning continents, collecting states, cities, minions. Corporations rival the size and power of governments and collect in "trade organizations" to create even larger monstrous entities capable of manipulating larger chunks of the world with relative ease. Banks monopolize the flow of currency on a larger global scale than during the British empire, and the few executives, board members, share holders, rake in profits from the debts of the masses. Mortgage rates are too high, minimum wage is too low, prescription drugs are too expensive, Jobs are too few and far between, food prices are too high, gas prices are too high, tax rates are too high, and yes, the rent is too damn high! Sometimes "too much" may leave you with a mild case of garlic breath, sometimes it's a matter of survival.
There is a large and growing consensus that corporations are bad, even "evil." And when you take that position you are setting the other side up for a slam dunk, it's faulty logic and vulnerable to a master debater. The truth is that corporations are too big, too powerful, they have too many "rights" and too much sway in our electoral and legislative processes. Those who sit at the helms of these Goliaths, and those whose paychecks bear their logos, may disagree that there is anything wrong with their size and scope. But anyone who looks at a timeline of the past century can see that there is very keen political awareness about the issues that arise when any entity grows too large, too powerful, too ominous. We have what we call "Anti-trust" laws in the US which are intended to prevent unfair trading practices and break up monopolies. About a hundred years ago the worlds first multinational corporations were emerging and they quickly became too big for their britches, Standard Oil and Bell Telephone were two of the largest and most powerful monopolies and had to be broken into smaller corporations to maintain a fair trading environment. But all of those regulations and oversights have been strategically and systematically dismantled over the past century, tweaking capitalism to be a leaner, meaner killing machine.
Oddly, corporations are all about the extremes of too much and too little, it's possible that they can create little else than inequity in our society. The first and foremost principle that separates a corporation from an unincorporated business, is the concept of "limited liability". Obviously the premise behind this is the notion that there is otherwise "too much" liability, or that there are too few assets compared to the potential liabilities. You might say that the first principle separating corporations from companies is that the corporation is owned by share holders who buy stocks in the company. But the way for this system is paved by the concept of limited liability, why not buy stocks in a company when you only stand to lose what you payed and/or gained? It's a lot like Vegas. It's not like you're going to be sued if that corporation gases the entire city of Bhopal, India, killing thousands of people. In fact, it would be more accurate to call this system "limited accountability" as most corporations can evade any real culpability for the negligent crimes they commit.
Consider this, when one entity in the world actively limits their liability, they are increasing the general liability of the system. The people who run corporations can act with effective impunity in the world, while they are not liable, the corporation becomes a greater and greater liability to the planet. Imagine if your next door neighbor robbed your neighborhood bank, but he had a "get out of jail free" card and didn't have to pay back the money or do the time for his crime. But everyone in the neighborhood lost their entire savings and now the bank is raising fees and interest rates to try to recover some of the losses. If you understand how a corporation works you would look at those who profit from that system as you would look on someone who stole your life savings, burned down your house, raped your wife and killed your mother and got off Scott free. You cannot retaliate without risking everything including your freedom. They benefit from their crimes with no effective deterrent to stop them from doing it again and again. Why would anyone with good intentions and strong integrity want to limit their liability? Unless, perhaps they have ill intentions and simply don't want to be held responsible for the pain and suffering they leave in the wake of their profiteering.
Now lets look at the other giants crowding the halls of the congresses and parliament buildings around the world. The last few centuries have seen a sharp decline in "Kingdoms" and "Empires" at least in the old design, people across the planet have soundly rejected these old patriarchal rulers who threaten our sense of individuality, liberty, and justice. Many of us like to believe that we now have a system of governments that makes sense and is more acceptable to our modern ways of life. But our current system of nations will also fall by the wayside as we slowly realize the faults of their designs, and the endless crimes committed in their names, if they don't simply implode of their own massive gravity. But some system of governing is required and I could go in to many examples of what I believe would be marked improvements. But many forms of government could work, and maybe all of them do work, but when they are too big, too vast, too expansive the system inevitably fails. Just as the Roman empire remains our greatest political example of "Too big", so is our current system of government. It's not about "Capitalism=good, communism=bad" it's about "Too big=Too bad."
Imagine if every state in the nation were it's own separate nation, or autonomous governing body. As a resident of the united states I (or any one person) =1/300,000,000, but as a resident of California I =1/30,000,000. I just grew one hundred times in size and relative power, one person one vote in a nation of 300 million is one hundred times less powerful than one person/vote in a nation of only 30 million. Now lets say that countries (or autonomous governing bodies) are only about the size of the original congressional districts which were no more or less than 33,000 people. Now I =1/33,000, that's about 1,ooo times more powerful than a vote in a nation of 30 million (California), and 10,000 times more powerful than a vote in a nation of over 300 million people! And consider the other power we have to protest our government to redress our grievances, To demonstrate in Washington DC I would have to travel about 3,000 miles! To demonstrate in my state capitol of Sacramento I would only have to drive about 200 miles, and if my government were limited in size and scope to my local city and county governments I would just have to drive to the next town. We were never intended to have corporations that were "too big too fail" but a child should be able to reason that "too big" is destined to fail by definition alone. And if corporations can be "too big" isn't it time we reconsider the legitimacy of our giant empire and the global hegemony that maintains it?
The results of the ultrasound are back and the baby is a girl, but she's an elephant. Is this the "Birth pangs of a new world order" Condoleezza Rice was telling us about?
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