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I have something particularly on my mind today and that is always there to some degree. This is something I hesitate to talk about because talk is cheap. Talking about it is an affront to real change and really only serves to strengthen the enemy. This subject is probably the most-widely-bitched-about and the least done-anything-about. It's a cliche. You're sick of hearing about it. Hearing about it from me isn't going to change your life or probably even your outlook. You could say this post is a moment of weakness; a desire to express my feelings of helplessness and hopelessness about a world I perceive as broken.

We could start anywhere, really, but let's start with corporations. One-hundred and fifty years ago, corporations were exceptionally rare and only chartered for short times to serve in the interests of the public good. They gained more ground after the American Civil War was fought and the 14th Amendment was legislated. This legislation was intended to grant citizenship to former slaves. It was intended to ensure that no person could be stripped of life, liberty, or property without due process.

Soon after, lawyers twisted this amendment to apply to corporations as well as individuals, as indeed, a corporation was legally considered a person under law. By 1896, 150 cases had been heard by the Supreme Court regarding the 14th amendment. 15 involved blacks. 135 involved business entities who had hired lawyers to advance their interests.

Since then, we have seen a steady increase in the power wielded by corporations. Their rights and powers have long since surpassed simple individuals and now rival governments. In the year 2000, humanity reached a vital yet relatively obscure landmark: 51 of the world's top 100 GDPs were claimed by corporations. In the years since, rule is increasingly marked by a cooperation between these corporations and government. The landscapes of our lives are increasingly determined by Nike and Monsanto and Shell reaching an equilibrium with our government rather than anything more meaningful and relatable to the individual.

You might be thinking to yourself that this isn't so bad. After all, corporations provide us with products and services that improve our lives, right? Well, you're right and you're wrong. The problem with corporations is that it is incredibly difficult to hold them accountable for anything, and if they are, it is rarer still that it ends with a revocation of their charter. The trend is toward larger and more impersonable corporations as each has the right to buy another corporation.

Their single greatest flaw is that, in fact, they are obligated by law to seek profits for their shareholders above any other interest, including any consideration for social and environmental impact. This astounds me. The only saving grace here, for me, is to constantly remind myself that corporate laws were drafted in a time when corporations were not the primary institutions of our society. I don't think anyone in the 19th century could have imagined how pervasive they would become.

It chills my bones to think that there is actually very little control over a corporation; even by its own CEO! Robert Keergan, former CEO of Goodyear Tire, went on record in 2006 as saying that his own hands were tied and that he does not have the freedom to run his business the way he desires. In context, the insinuation seemed to be that morally reprehensible things were being done in the name of money. If even the CEO of a company can't control the runaway behemoth, then who can? The shareholders have managed to legally wash their own hands of the situation, instituting a one-way obligation whereby they demand monetary performance at any cost while being absolved of any responsibility for the methodology used.

Simply put, we've created a runaway monster that is controlled by nobody and is ruining our lives. The only incentive here is money. What kind of genius decided that the best way to structure human interaction was by the unending pursuit of money? Why isn't 500 million dollars enough? Why does a corporation need to grow its profits to a billion? Is there really any difference? Why is it that corporations spend billions every year to indoctrinate our children to want products they don't really need?

Why is advertising even an occupation, anyway? If we consider sheer utility, it would be far better to have advertisers doing something of real, rather than imagined, value. With more advertisers working in production, we'd be able to produce more widgets per hour than otherwise.

The sad truth of the matter is that we've long since passed the point of critical production. There's only so many cars and doo-dads we really need, and at some point, corporations need to manufacture our desires so we'll continue to buy. Advertising may not hold any intrinsic value, but you better believe it improves the bottom line or they wouldn't be employed. You can be certain that anything a corporation does improves its bottom line, since that was what they were designed to do, and nothing else. You can also be sure that corporations wouldn't have so-called 'green' movements and community-giving policies if these didn't improve the bottom line.

Requiring corporations to throw up friendly facades is not enough. I think it's time we acknowledge this structure of society for what it really is: a grand failed experiment. It's time to move on.

Do they honestly think we're supposed to be happy working for them? Chances are, if you work for a corporation, your job is not only unnecessary, but harmful to the overall well-being of humans. Think about it: does a corporation really care about you other than how much money you can make for them? Why is it that so often a corporation subjects us to crises of conscience, and there seems to be no one to whom to turn to do the right thing? No one's really in control, and no one really cares. It's a very anesthetizing institution.

Do they honestly think we're supposed to be happy coming in and doing the same repetitive shit day in and day out that almost anyone could learn to do in a short time? Do they honestly think we won't find it repulsive that our jobs help put human lives at risk, and for what?* Is the commodity we produce really important enough to warrant all the injustices that we as workers suffer on a daily basis, not to mention the risks consumers inherit and the alienation we unleash on all people by corporatized life?

It starts from a very early age—in school. They start hounding you about "the standards to which the next level of school will hold you, so you'd better shape up, gee golly!" And then once you get to the next level, they hound you about how college won't hold your hand, and then later the work force. They besiege us with exhortations to improve our image so we can get hired. They show us how to compose resumes and implore us to seek credentials so that we can find a place in the working world.

As a schoolkid, I always bucked against that kind of crap when it came up. I felt alienated, isolated, alone, and like everyone was suffering from delusions. Like no one could understand why I hated their resumes and their colleges and their lives so frenetic that you didn't have any time for self-direction. I quickly saw the disconnect between the credentials that employers so seem to adore and actual ability, and I wanted to live my life in accordance with my hatred for that particular hypocrisy. I saw that most people who pursue higher education do so only for the perceived economic advantage it will grant them, and this made me sick. A place that supposedly holds nobler ideals than the rest of society has indeed become infected with that same monetary cancer, and it shows. Half of students who attend public universities don't graduate, but they'll still gladly take your money. For-profit private schools have a much worse graduation rate: 20%. We're not stupid. We pick up on the motives and goals of these institutions.

You know, kids are smart. We're dumb. They're not. Would you like to know why? No kid ever tells you he wants to be an advertiser or an accountant when he grows up. Kids inherently know what's up. Instead of beating every last bit of sense out of them so they'll be compliant with the insanity we label the workforce, we ought to encourage their paradigm and see where it leads. I think one thing's for certain; no kid would ever screw up so much as to structure society primarily around profit incentive.

We now live in a world where a large majority of our food is produced from seeds designed to suicide themselves each year so that Monsanto can make a buck. We live in a world where Bechtel colluded with the Bolivian government to outlaw the use of rainwater so that residents could be charged up to one quarter of their income for water.

We live in a world where image is everything, and where corporations and governments slowly ensure that our environments become less and less sustaining so that we have no choice but to work for them doing monotonous tasks and spending our time in undignified ways.

What's the solution for me? I don't know. There doesn't seem to be any room in this world for me. It's clear to me that people don't give a damn about their fellow man. That's for sure. We continue to funnel them into the same broken systems we had to endure ourselves and turn a blind eye to the bullshit that we know it is. No one has the courage to stand up to these bogus experiments that weren't around a couple generations ago. They have indeed provided us with some interesting things. But I think it's worth it to question the worth of it all. I always seem to fall on the "no" side.

What does it mean to care for each other? Well, to me, that means find out what each person really wants, and help them attain it. When parents can't even be trusted to do that—when we can't even muster to courage to tell our parents and loved ones what we actually want, then this bullshit will continue.

To me..

to care for your fellow man means to create sustaining, nurturing, lasting environments. The sort of place that will act as a stable base so that each person can pursue their own desires without the constant desperation that modern life mandates. It's so easy to do logistically. It's so damn easy. Yet humans have decided to fuck themselves over and pattern the very fundamentals such that this kind of setup is all but impossible. I don't have much faith in you. That may change someday, but right now, it's difficult to see most of you as anything but uncaring, power-craving brutes who'd sell me the rope to hang myself with if you could make a dollar.

What will I do? Well, again, I don't know. I don't mean to say that I have it particularly bad. I'm all too aware of my good fortune for being born in this time and place, but I also know that I am particularly harder hit than most of my peers by this setup that I see as egregiously cold and uncaring. Seeing as how I am mostly prevented from living the kind of life I'd like to lead, I suppose all I can do is cloister myself away and hope that I can carve a niche somewhere in the image of it.

*If you do something noble for a living, congratulations. Not all of us have that luxury.