Citizens Lose Power as Corporations Buyback Stock

[coberst]

Citizens Lose Power as Corporations Buyback

Corporations are “spending record sums repurchasing their own stock” so says the Wall Street Journal.

What happens when buyback happens? I suspect many things happen when this happens; one important thing that happens is that corporate management gains greater power.

Great power in America resides in America’s large institutions. “Power is not an attribute of individuals, but of social organizations.” Power is the potential to control. You have power over me when you have the potential to thwart my self-determination and to cause me to be determined by you.

In society most power lies within the roles an individual has rather than in the individual as a single entity. Few corporations are owned primarily by single families. The power residing in big corporations is exercised by management. The less the stock holding by the public the more power is in the hands of managers. With buybacks the power of management is enhanced.

A democratic form of government is one wherein the citizens have some voice in some policy decisions; the greater the voice of the citizens the better the democracy. As management power increases democracy is weakened.

In America we have policy makers, decision makers, and citizens. The decision makers are our elected representatives and are, thus, under some control by the voting citizen. The policy makers are the leaders of American institutions; less than ten thousand individuals, according to those who study such matters. Policy makers exercise significant control of decision makers by controlling the financing of elections.

Policy makers customize and maintain the dominant ideology in order to control the political behavior of the citizens. This dominant ideology exercises the political control of the citizens in the same fashion as the consuming citizen is controlled by the same dominant ideology.

“Thomas R. Dye, Professor of Political Science at Florida State University, has published a series of books examining who and what institutions actually control and run America. To understand who is making the decisions that affect our lives, we also have to understand how societies structure themselves in general. Why the few always tend to share more power than the many and what this means in terms of both a society's evolution and our daily lives. They examined the other 11 institutions that exert just as powerful a shaping influence, although somewhat more subtle: The Industrial, Corporations, Utilities and Communications, Banking, Insurance Investment, Mass Media, Law, Education Foundation, Civic and Cultural Organizations, Government, and the Military.”

http://www.21stcenturyradio.com/12-dye.html

[koan]

I'm reading Leviathan at the moment. Hobbes was very focused on power in society have you studied his work?

[coberst]

Koan

I have not studied Hobbes in a very long time. I do not remember if his thoughts would have much bearing on public policy in America today. Do you think that his thoughts are pertenant to today's reality?

[koan]

The 17th Century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes is now widely regarded as one of a handful of truly great political philosophers, whose masterwork Leviathan rivals in significance the political writings of Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, and Rawls. Hobbes is famous for his early and elaborate development of what has come to be known as “social contract theory”, the method of justifying political principles or arrangements by appeal to the agreement that would be made among suitably situated rational, free, and equal persons. He is infamous for having used the social contract method to arrive at the astonishing conclusion that we ought to submit to the authority of an absolute -- undivided and unlimited -- sovereign power.


source

I'm not even half way into the book yet so my responses are limited.

[Accountable]

coberst wrote: What happens when buyback happens? I suspect many things happen when this happens; one important thing that happens is that corporate management gains greater power.
Corporate management gains greater power only if they don't sell their own shares to the buyback. Anyone who holds their shares during a buyback gains greater power, because they will hold a larger percentage of the total shares available. Simple math.



Watch what the CFO (Chief Financial Officer) does with his shares at such a time, because that's the guy in the know. If he sells, the company is in trouble. If he holds or buys, the company is strong.

[gmc]

coberst wrote: Koan

I have not studied Hobbes in a very long time. I do not remember if his thoughts would have much bearing on public policy in America today. Do you think that his thoughts are pertenant to today's reality?


If you are going to study politics you need also to study the social history of the times people like hobbes lived in-what was going on at the time, else you end up with a form of intellectual masterbation arguing about what they meant. He was writing at a time of great social change and was part of a great european intellectual movement not an isolated individual dreaming on his own. More importantly they had just knocked of the king for overstepping the mark, cromwell had just taken over and england was under a kinf of religious military dictatorship.l

Todays reality has been shaped by his thoughts and by those of others. It's an age old debate that has featured in whatever age of man you care to look at.

who rules and why. Who says the powerful are not answerable for what they do and what gives them the power?

It's also a reality that needs to be constantly examined and a debate that every generation needs to have. The reality of power today only remains so if we decide to let it. Govt can demand corporation behave in a certain way-so can those who buy their products by using their economic power by not buying from them.

There is always a constant brainwashing to convince people they are powerless and helpless and cannot force change. Reality in politics is often what it is perceived to be

http://www.british-civil-wars.co.uk/glo ... ebates.htm



...for really I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he; and therefore truly, Sir, I think it's clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under...”

Extract from Colonel Rainsborough's famous appeal for democratic rights for all men.

“...I think that no person hath a right to an interest or share in the disposing of the affairs of the kingdom, and in determining or choosing those that shall determine what laws we shall be ruled by here ” no person hath a right to this, that hath not a permanent fixed interest in this kingdom...”

Extract from Henry Ireton's response to Rainsborough.




Sound familiar? Have a look at some of the debates surrounding the writing of the american constitution.

You hear echoes of that debate right across the world today, every time you hear some politician suggesting that some people do not deserve a say in society because of their lifestyle or for whatever reason it's the same debate with different words.

The corollary of hobbes social contract is that those to whom power is given are answerable to those who consent to it. In effect when we elect a government we have a contract with them, if they don't keep to it or lie, cheat, steal more power for themselves then they must answer.

Both in the US and UK we have those in power who think they have somehow acquired a right to rule and any who call them to question is somehow a traitor or doesn't understand the whole picture. Tell me, have you ever met a politician who was more intelligent and more capable of making decisions than you yourself? More to the point one you would trust to keep their word regardless of the cost to themselves?

you might find what eisenhower had to say interesting

http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/ ... ndust.html

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.


I'm impressed by Koan and Coberst. I always found Hobbes too heavy to wade through.

[coberst]

Koan

I had forgotten that Hobbes was part of the ‘social contract’ idea. I thought this was completely the work of Rousseau. He wrote a book entitled “On the Social Contract”. You can easily find on the Internet Rousseau’s contribution to this absolutely important concept.

Good luck, you are certainly studying the correct people I see.

[coberst]

gmc

I fear that more and more control is being acquired by the leaders of our institutions. If the citizens do not recognize what is going on they cannot stop it. It is like a bullfight. You must learn how to distinguish the Matador from the cape. It takes an active intelligence to see beyond the cape.

[koan]

gmc wrote: There is always a constant brainwashing to convince people they are powerless and helpless and cannot force change. Reality in politics is often what it is perceived to be


I was chatting over coffee this am about how the populace is kept in perpetual fear as manipulation. TruthBringer's WW3 thread is a good example of this.

re Hobbes, I actually enjoy the old english writing style of that century. I find it charming.