#corporation

At times there's something so precise and mathematically chilling about nationalism. Build a dam to take away water AWAY from 40 million people. Build a dam to pretend to BRING water to 40 million people. Who are these gods that govern us? Is there no limit to their powers? ↗

— Arundhati Roy

#capitalism #corporations #dam #economics #environmental-degradation

Like casinos, large corporate entities have studied the numbers and the ways in which people respond to them. These are not con tricks - they're not even necessarily against our direct interests, although sometimes they can be - but they are hacks for the human mind, ways of manipulating us into particular decisions we otherwise might not make. They are also, in a way, deliberate underminings of the core principle of the free market, which derives its legitimacy from the idea that informed self-interest on aggregate sets appropriate prices for items. The key word is 'informed'; the point of behavioural economics - or rather, of its somewhat buccaneering corporate applications - is to skew our perception of the purchase to the advantage of the company. The overall consequence of that is to tilt the construction of our society away from what it should be if we were making the rational decisions classical economics imagines we would, and towards something else. ↗

— Nick Harkaway

#choice #corporations #economics #information #power

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

#fear #secrecy #death

I believe that Gandhi’s views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time. We should strive to do things in his spirit: not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by non-participation in anything you believe is evil. ↗

— Albert Einstein

#corporations #gandhi #truth #violence #men

The European Parliament responded by focusing on corporate governance. If corporations wanted to be legal citizens they could damned well shoulder the responsibilities of good citizenship as well as the benefits. Social as well as financial audits were the order of the day. Directives outlining standards for corporate citizenship were drafted and a lucrative niche for a new generation of management consultants emerged - those who could look at an organization and sound a warning if its structure rewarded pathological behaviour. ↗

— Charles Stross

#niche

Corporations are social organizations, the theater in which men and women realize or fail to realize purposeful and productive lives. ↗

— Lester Bangs

#fail #lives #men #men and women #organizations

An image is not simply a trademark, a design, a slogan or an easily remembered picture. It is a studiously crafted personality profile of an individual, institution, corporation, product or service. ↗

— Daniel J. Boorstin

#crafted #design #easily #image #individual

In every case, the environmental hazards were made known only by independent scientists, who were often bitterly opposed by the corporations responsible for the hazards. ↗

— Barry Commoner

#case #corporations #environmental #every #hazards

Large corporations and unions know the power of being big enough to bargain for better rates. ↗

— Greg Walden

#being #better #big #big enough #corporations

The web of influence which News Corporation spun in Britain, which effectively bent politicians, police and many others in public life to its will, amounted to a shadow state. ↗

— Thomas Watson, Jr.

#bent #britain #corporation #effectively #influence