How can voters and politicians counter excessive corporatism?

By spreading information about what corporations have been doing, and having conversations that change how people think about the role of corporations in the world, including within corporations, so that it stops being the case that corporations are essentially playing to own and destroy the world.

@Zaku I can only assume it’s going to be a very hard fought complicated battle. As in the case already for many years? Corporations can and will lobby hard and can buy politicians’ support.

The idea that the country is run for the benefit of the people that live in is laughably out of date. The country exists so that giant corporations can make huge profits and for no other reason. I think the voters by and large have come to accept this and it is reflected in how they vote.

Zaku is right. People must understand the game being played and their part in it.

@Zaku Here in the US, who would be most likely to have that sincere intention of spreading the word and quite effectively so people could be made to understand? A political party? The press? Who or what could effectively do this?

I think the public mindset is rapidly shifting regarding the machinations of corporate power. But with the arrival of Ralph Nader in the 60s the corporations saw the writing on the wall, and immediately set to buying up state legislatures and the installation of crony stooge
judges in the nation’s courts.

@mazingerz88 It’s complicated in that it involves everyone’s conversations and thoughts, and shifting all of those. I’d rather call it a transformation and/or revolution of ideas than a battle. It’s been going on for hundreds of years and may go on for hundreds more, but it seems to me like we may be at a fairly crucial point.

@mazingerz88 It’s a conversation for everyone, but I think it’s probably most effective when people who understand the situation and who have effective communication skills bring that conversation to people in corporate leadership (and ownership, and above), and also to other good communicators, to subject experts, but really to anyone who will listen. The world is a network of people who know each other and supposedly there are only a fairly short number of acquaintance steps between people in the world, and it’s really about transforming ideas and conversations and patterns of thinking.

The last few decades have seen great strides in public awareness and shifting of conversations. Unfortunately they’ve also seen a lot of backwards developments, but it seems to me the ideas will continue to shift… what’s at stake though is how much suffering and irreversible damage will be done before a new paradigm takes us in better directions.

People who don’t believe such ideas dismiss them as conspiracy theories, and the people who promote them as nut cases.

So it’s not going to work.

@snowberry Transforming conversations is not about making people believe something they’re set against believing. It’s about listening, communicating, and finding new things to say.