Comments on: Next: Douglas Rushkoff, “Life, Inc.”

By: “Life, Inc.: The Movie” » Copper Robot

“Life, Inc.: The Movie” » Copper Robot — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:15:02 +0000

[...] Join us at 6 pm Pacific time tonight for an interview with Rushkoff. Here’s how.. [...]

By: JulieBrown

JulieBrown — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 04:08:53 +0000

Thanks, mason and DeliaLake. Whenever I see ‘ism’ tacked onto a word my automatic skeptic kicks in. Interesting connections in history. I’ll check it out with an open mind.
JGB

By: DeliaLake

DeliaLake — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:38:34 +0000

In “Life Inc” Rushkoff traces the beginnings of the corporation and corporatism back to the Middle Ages pacts between the emerging bourgeoisie who had money and the rulers who had soldiers but no money. A good read and valuable insights. I’m looking forward to attending Sunday night.

By: mason

mason — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:44:35 +0000

Hi Julie,

Without going to his latest book “Life inc,” let me try his definition. Corporatism is not just the corporate value system that seeks to extract as much value from the earth’s resources, it’s employees and consumers delivering profits to shareholders and/or engaging in speculative investment. It is also the way we have begun to live. Instead of making value for ourselves and eachother we make it for corporations and buy what we need from them. Among the many figures and metaphors for Corporatism used by Doug is an example from colonial times in america. We produced cotton here, but were not permitted to dye, spin or weave the material. The cotton was sent to england who then sold it back to us as a finished product plus tax….

Get the book. It’s great!

-mason

By: JulieBrown

JulieBrown — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:44:34 +0000

I know what consumerism is, generally. But how does he define/describe corporateism?

Also, is the author pic flopped? the t-shirt appears to have a reversed copyright symbol. could just be a symbol I’ve not seen before, tho.