Nokia is a Finnish multinational company. Founded in 1865 as a pulp mill, it became famous for its rubber products. In the 1970s it expanded into mobile phones becoming the global market leader. But by 2013 Nokia had pulled out of the mobile phone business. What happened? The Rise and Fall of Nokia, BBC 2018
1972: 1,612 car phones manufactured, approximately 20 employees; 1987: ‘We manufactured 200 Talkmans every day; 1995: Nokia employs 17,821 people in Finland and almost as many again globally. ibid.
Concurrent engineering process: after-market services, point of sales, distribution, manufacturing, suppliers. ibid.
‘The change in management style resulted in a madhouse.’ ibid. former employee
Former Nokia employees have founded several new companies after losing their jobs. ibid.
Rupert Murdoch’s News International has paid virtually no tax in the past ten years. Wolvoman80, Government and New World Order Corruption Exposed aka Planet Earth, Youtube 3.00.26
Tesco values slave labour, tax-dodging, GM foods, government infiltration: Tesco pay children as little as seven pence an hour in third-world countries. Wolvoman80, Fuck the System I, Youtube 1.53.27
Nestle: Its favourite activity is extracting millions of gallons of water every day from communities experiencing severe draught … Nestle refuses to reveal the amount it’s extracting. Abby Martin, Breaking the Set, RT 07.02.15
Nestle’s Water Bottling Activities Amid California Draught Underscore a Lack of Policy Options. Abby Martin, Breaking the Set: One Last Time, RT 28.02.15, Confectionery online article
‘We’re broke. America’s broke.’ We’re Not Broke: The Corporate Tax Cheats of America, politicians & news broadcasters et al, 2012
GE (2005-2010): profit $26 billion; Federal Income Tax Paid: $0 … Bank of America 2010: profit $4.4 trillion; bailout $1 trillion; Federal Income Tax Paid: $0 … Exxon 2009: Profit $19 billion; Federal Income Tax Paid: $0 … ibid.
Occupy Wall Street New York march on Times Square October 2011. ibid.
‘We call out corporate tax dodgers.’ ibid. US Uncut dude
There are now 50 countries designated as offshore tax havens. ibid. caption
‘I propose to eliminate all federal corporate income tax.’ ibid. Sarah Palin
The democratic charade that exists, the political theatre that has replaced our democratic process. And is just one more step towards this corporate totalitarianism which no-one seems willing or able to stop within the ruling elite. Chris Hedges, lecture Seattle University 2018, ‘Corporate Totalitarianism: The End Game’ *****
The diseases of despair that have plagued American society, the pathologies that rise out of a decaying culture. ibid.
At the end of empire as you begin decay they engage – historians call it micro-militarism – they carry out suicidal military fiascos. ibid.
We’re going to tax them at 91% like we used to … [and] destroy the military machine in this country which is the greatest enemy of democracy. ibid.
We lost control of our government, we lost control of our economy, and this isn’t unique to the United States. ibid.
Everything becomes tribal, truth no longer matters, the rights of the citizenry no longer matter. ibid.
The liberal class functions as a kind of safety valve in moment of distress … They never critique the system. ibid.
We have enough cumulative evidence to say that it was stolen from him [Bernie Saunders]. ibid.
We’re going to have to walk out into the wilderness for a long time. ibid.
So we saw that period in the ’70s when corporations organised. ibid.
The system only wants people who will perpetuate it. ibid.
What they are doing is extracting from us. ibid.
It has the capacity to commodify everything. ibid.
They are taking from us our constitutional rights by judicial fiat i.e reinterpreting the right of unlimited corporate power through a distorted interpretation of the constitution. ibid.
Jesus didn’t come to make us rich. ibid.
There used to be a liberal wing of the Democratic Party but it’s long gone. ibid.
You can’t maintain a democracy in an oligarchy. ibid.
They are playing a very dangerous game by refusing to address the fundamental issues that have distorted our society. ibid.
You’re not going to rationally argue these people out of their world-view. ibid.
He [Trump] is the classic con artist that rises up out of a decayed state. ibid.
You’ve created fertile ground for the rise of American fascism. And our only response now is sustained mass acts of civil disobedience. ibid.
The state will be viscous … They will throw everything at us … We have no time left just from climate change, we have no time left, and in that sense resistance becomes a moral imperative. We have to stop being constrained by the tyranny of the practical. ibid.
Revolution is what I’m calling for … I’m calling for the overthrow of the corporate state. ibid.
But if we don’t stand up, it can’t be seen and we can’t use the word hope. I don’t know if we will win. I don’t even know if we will survive as a species. But these corporate forces have us by the throat and they have my children by the throat. And in the end, I don’t fight fascists because I will win, I fight fascists because they are fascists. ibid.
The irony is that Barack Obama would not even be president if it were not for the courage of persecuted dissidents such as Martin Luther King or Malcolm X spied upon by their own government. But Obama understands where power lies. It does not lie with the citizen. It lies with Wall Street and our corporate boardrooms, which have carried out a slow motion coup d’etat. And a system of mass surveillance is designed to keep these elites in these boardrooms powerful and the rest of us powerless. Chris Hedges, Our Only Hope Will Come Through Rebellion, 2014
The planet has become a sacrifice zone. Chris Hedges, Constructing Rebellion: The Overthrow of Corporate Tyranny, Youtube 1.33.48 2019
The solution I believe is revolution: it is the overthrow of corporate tyranny. ibid.
The message that is sent to us by the corporate state is that we don’t matter … It’s a game where we don’t count any more. ibid.
We have now created a system internally that replicates the structure of any totalitarian society. ibid.
The reconfiguration of the global economy into a form of terrifying neo-feudalism; the rise of a corporate oligarchy elite that cares nothing for human life. ibid.
They will exploit everything. ibid.
Resistance, as my students taught me, is not about what we can achieve, it is about who we are able to become. Resistance is an act of faith, belief that the good draws to it the good. ibid.
The most dangerous institution in American is the military industrial complex, which is bleeding us dry – one trillion dollars a year, which is terrorising the wretched of the Earth … the disease that is eating at the very core of our society. ibid.
We are seeing corporations feed off the body politic. ibid.
We have to stop sitting here and taking this stuff. We have to recognise that all of these systems are designed to crush us and that it’s time to rise up. It’s time to resist. ibid.
These myriad corporate dictatorships, or private governments, ensure American workers are docile and compliant as the superstructure of the corporate state cements into place a species of corporate totalitarianism. The ruling ideology of neoliberalism and libertarianism, used to justify the corporate domination and social inequality that afflict us, sells itself as the protector of freedom and liberty. It does this by subterfuge. It claims workers have the freedom to enter into employment contracts and terminate them, while ignoring the near-total suspension of rights during the period of employment. It pretends that workers and corporations function as independent and autonomous sellers and buyers, with workers selling their labor freely and corporate owners buying this labor. Chris Hedges, Truthdig online 2019, ‘The Private Governments that Subjugate US Workers’
The brutality of our corporate executioners grows by the day. They will stop at nothing, including wholesale murder, to consolidate power and amass greater profits. Blinded by hubris, driven by greed, disdainful of democracy, foolishly believing their wealth will protect them, they will herd us over the cliff unless they are overthrown. ibid.
The corporate coup d’etat that’s taken place in the United States. Chris Hedges, Corporate Dictatorship, Youtube 1.01.01
It’s evident today that corporations raise and spend huge amounts of money on the political campaigns of presidents and congressmen. These corporations also spend huge amounts of money hiring former government officials to lobby Congress to pass laws that mainly benefit their interests. Corporate Fascism: The Destruction of America’s Middle Class, 2011
Is a corporation really a citizen? ibid.
A different totalitarian ideology calls for corporations of the world to unite … fascism develops when the state initiates the merger of corporate power with state power. ibid.