Can humans get outside their conceptual schemas?

Is 'the self' part of a 'conceptual schema'? I think I am self, which comprises all of me in various media (meat, ideas, memories, perceptions...). I think I am one self among many other selves, but the only self I know is me, and I can not escape me. I can't step away from my self to think about who I am. I cannot get outside this schema.

Maybe I am not a self; maybe I am part of a larger schema which 'projects' nonexistent selves on a wall. If the projector went dark, then those selves would cease existentng. I can not get out of this schema either.

Has Professor Searle been exhibiting irrational heterosexual exuberance (ref: Alan Greenspan)?

What is the point of rising to the top of one's department (Professor Emeritus) and field (famous philosopher) if one can't even use the income and prestige to leverage a little sex before one's career is intercepted by the grim reaper or an investigation and prosecution, whichever comes first?

Suppose Ms. Ong had calculated that bedding Prof. Searle might have professional advantages for herself, and suppose it did. Lots of people have advanced their careers between bed sheets as well as between proof sheets of their scholarly articles. Is that so terrible? Leveraging power, sex, money, and other assets to get ahead is SOP. Such approaches fly in the face of Equal Employment Opportunity law, of course. My guess it is still a workable approach, EEO not withstanding.

Suppose Ms. Ong had decided to inquire of Professor Searles, "Precisely what are you going to do for my career, Johnny, in exchange for us becoming lovers? I want it in writing, and I want some substantial cash in advance as surety that you will deliver on the stated benefits."

Not all academic screwing is the same, of course. Coach Jerry Sandusky's screwing adolescents in the showers of Penn State was more exploitative and involved more 'straight forward' coercion and exploitation, probably. It's difficult for a 15 year old to calculate or negotiate long term advantages from getting screwed in the showers.

Hamilton dropped out of college. — ernestm

So? Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Oprah Winfrey dropped out of college too.

I did write something on that but it is 20,000 words and I am not allowed to share a link. — ernestm

The gods are merciful.

But is it always like that? — Pierre-Normand

No.

The Nazis launched Kristallnacht on November 09, 1938. This was allegedly in response to the murder of a low-level German diplomat in Paris by a 17-year-old Polish Jew, Herschel Grynszpan, who allegedly wanted revenge for his parents’ sudden deportation from Germany to Poland.

I don't know for sure what Herschel Grynszpan's motives were for shooting Ernst vom Rath. Perhaps it was because his parents were being deported, perhaps it was because of the severe antisemitism being promoted in Germany. Whatever the motive, it was officially murder in 1938, and not an act of war. "The war" was underway but it hadn't been clearly declared. In any event, Herschel Grynszpan can not be listed as a cause of Kristallnacht. Killing Rath wouldn't help his parents deportation; he was, most likely, just the first German to walk into the crosshairs of Grynszpan's gun (unless Grynszpan was singling out Rath for some other, unknown, reason). Further, vom Rath's death wasn't worth anything even remotely close to a reprisal like Kristallnacht.

Kristallnacht was, most likely, planned in advance and vom Rath's death was simply a convenient excuse.

Many people in France (and elsewhere) were dreading the outbreak of war. Some were fairly sure that war between Germany and France was unlikely. Some thought that war would break out and that the French armed forces would successfully defend France. Some were oblivious to the possibilities. Some people favored German antisemitic policies. So, we can not be sure what strain of thinking might have been influenced Herschel Grynszpan's actions the most.

So, what I know about string theory could be written on the back of a postage stamp in none-too-small lettering. Any thoughts I have about string theory are fourth hand and not worth your time.

Take Hilary Clinton's e-mail server and as Sanders put it, "her damned e-mails". Gallons of ink have been spilled on this case, from 100% pro to 100% against, and every minute interval in between. Why was Hilary using a private e-mail server for official business? I don't know. Is the truth somewhere in the middle? My guess is that the truth is closer to one end than the other, maybe quite close--but I don't know which end that would be. I'm not entirely sure that Hilary Clinton herself knows the answer to the question.

A lot of questions are like the server problem: They seem to begin in dark, murky water and go down hill from there. It may be that very bad motives are driving an act, or it may be that the really good motives and acts just don't look great in bright daylight. It may be that critical pieces of information about [the issue] are missing. Or, it may be that many people (for and against) are lying. It may be that the whole shebang is just a token for something else that has stuck in somebody's craw.

The indeterminate nature of so many questions is real enough, but it doesn't mean the answer is "somewhere in the middle" (though, of course, that's where it might be).

I do not have a position on Newtonian Mechanics vs. Quantum Mechanics. Sorry.

A murder spree is a murder spree and war is war. If the French Resistance shot 10 Nazi officials one day in occupied Paris, neither the Nazis nor the Resistance should call it murder (though the Germans might want to tell the story that way). Similarly, serial murders are not confused with war, and their perpetrators are not confused with soldiers. The Butcher of Brooklyn who extended his trade to his fellow man could be said to have "waged war on Brooklyn" but that was only a figure of speech. The couple of dozen victims who ended up on his cutting board were murdered in cold blood.

Was the German invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa) an act of war or a psychopathic killing spree? Some psychopaths may have participated, but from both sides' point of view, the extreme savagery of the fighting (and the behind-the-lines liquidation of millions of people) was war. War is very bad, and very bad things happen in war. Operation Barbarossa was planned, prepared for, and executed as state policy by the Third Reich. So was the retribution that the Soviet Union visited on the Germans, starting a couple of years later.

There is no middle here.

How did Hamilton create legal nightmares?
How many lawyers in Hamilton's day (or Lincoln's, for that matter) were NOT self taught, and had not gone to college?
Only 300 people in the US understand Jefferson's natural rights?
What have you got against Common Sense?

Was Hamilton a better thinker than Jefferson? In what areas? Jefferson was a very poor financial manager; Hamilton was a very good logistics and financial manager. Jefferson was a profligate spender in his private life, and was bankrupt when he died.

Why do you suppose that "People frequently challenge my thought on that in no uncertain terms"? It's OK to have unpopular opinions -- why do you need a poll to prove that 8% agree with you, and 6% do not, the rest not giving a rat's ass one way or the other?

The more common version of this is "The truth is somewhere in the middle", which is also problematic.

"The true is somewhere in the middle" is an example of waffling. The speaker doesn't know what the truth is and doesn't want to admit it.

Sometimes the truth is somewhere in the middle of two extreme opinions, such as "Capitalism is the perfect economic system" vs "Socialism is the perfect economic system". The adjective "perfect" rarely applies to human affairs, so we have a clue that the truth is not in either extreme position, but somewhere in between. On the other hand, the truth of string theory in physics is not somewhere in the middle. The theory either works or it doesn't. In the Soviet Union's debate between Lysenko's theories about evolution and Darwin's theories, the truth was way over on Darwin's side, not 'somewhere in the middle".

Responsible news editors often want to present "both sides of the issue". Sometimes this makes sense (ObamaCare should be repealed) and sometimes it is absurd -- giving both sides of the the serial murderer's crimes (in a news show, not a trial court). There are no "two sides" to a murder spree.

Right - you actually love someone only if you freely choose to do so. And obviously we are not talking about romantic love here (eros), but self-sacrificing love (agape) - putting the interests of others ahead of our own. — aletheist

I'm all in favor of free will, but I don't think we just freely choose to love anyone, whether that love be eros, agape, or philia. What we can will ourselves to do is remove inhibitions to agape, for instance, and we can will ourselves to act out agape until we feel agape. We can decide to seek out the teaching of agape, and so on. One use of the word 'grace' covers that inability to will unconditional love. Sometimes (through the good offices of our limbic system or grace) we do feel unconditional love for others, but we definitely didn't just decide to feel that way.

What prevents us from willing love? Love originates in the systems of the brain where will has little sway. The exercise of will can prevent us from acting on our feelings, but it is practically unable to prevent feelings (emotions) from arising.

it's not like you can tell me they weren't actively involved with human events throughout the entire Bible — Marchesk

God has interfered, intervened, got involved with, the affairs of this world much like the US got involved in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria: The intentions may have been good, but the results were not. For all the interventions of the triune god, the world is in pretty bad shape.

Your alternate ideas for god are good. You might also consider adding "a god who is good but not all powerful". Or, as some have proposed, a good god who is actually not very powerful at all -- a deity who just isn't in charge of everything. (This weak god won't make many people happy either.)

You know people who are really very fine people, but they can't solve their own difficult problems, or other people's difficult problems. That kind of god would have to put up with evil, just like we do. That kind of god would make better company for us.

If there is such a thing as a god that is all knowing, eternal, perfect, perfectly free, and so forth, we would be quite unable to apprehend this god. The kinds of gods we could apprehend -- the fertility gods, the hearth gods, the god of the grapevine, etc. were put out of business by the Judeo-Christian-Islamic triad. What we were left with is a god of superlative features which we put together to be quite out of reach.

Why? Because the god who is all unknowable mystery can not be convicted of anything. He's the all-purpose cause, the all-purpose reason, the all-purpose excuse. Very useful, really, but bogus.

If parents allowing their kids to have free reign over the neighborhood is considered immoral, then God doing the same thing can't be good. — Marchesk

Indeed, it would not be good. Free will is no excuse for bad behavior, whether on the part of a deity or the brats next door who ought to be straightened out with a big stick.

Metaphors are not to be taken literally.

I don't see any omni-perfect beings on or off the hook.

Yet the God of monotheistic religions is said to permit this sort of behavior from us because of free will. Slavery, genocide, war, child soldiers, rape, etc. is allowed to take place, even though God is good and able to prevent them. — Marchesk

To be fair, you ought to mention the good actions of the alleged god of monotheistic religions (whom I doubt you believe in) allows or (allegedly) aids and abets. You should mention liberation movements, emancipations, wonderful life-enhancing inventions like Nintendo and vibrators, peace making, Straight Guys Against Rape, great art of all kinds, cancer cures, Ben and Jerry's great flavors of ice cream, high quality rapid transit systems, fine gin, whiskey, and bourbon, kind humble people (millions of them--count 'em!), smart, polite children and pets, and so on.

Keep in mind that Yahweh flooded the Earth in Noah's time, because it was full of evil, but he didn't' see fit to prevent WW2. — Marchesk

Of course, Yahweh didn't flood the earth in Noah's or anybody else's time. Are you trying to sound provocative?

God didn't make Adam and Eve, put them in a zoo, and tell them not to eat certain plant products, either. You know as well as I do that much of the Bible is a mythopoetic account of the alleged actions of an alleged god toward his alleged favorite group of people, who are apparently quite ungrateful for his alleged efforts on their behalf.

God neither started nor failed to prevent WW2. That was, as usual. human folly at work.

Imagine parents who permit their kids to torture animals, terrorize neighborhood kids, steal and vandalize, etc. They do this because they value the free will of their children, which is considered a higher good and more loving than constraining their will. — Marchesk

Let's give God a break. The problem is parents and their children. The parents exercise their free will by allowing their children to behave like monsters (which is an act of commission). Their monster-children have a vague but strong id which drives all kinds of behavior, some of it pleasant, some of it not. In the case of many younger people, I wouldn't even call it "will" yet. It's more like "urge".

Parents have the capacity, duty, and responsibility to curb the urges of their offspring. This is what parenting is all about: civilizing id-driven savages so that the are socially acceptable, socially useful, and capable of being happy without mayhem.

Having free will is no guarantee that things will work out well.

Some superstitions become obsessions. Don't know why, exactly, people start doubting that they locked the door, but they HAVE to go back and check it. Doing so doesn't prove the door is locked. So, back down on the street, they feel compelled to climb back up to the third floor and check it again -- maybe 3 or 4 times (this is autobiographical). One is rewarded for this ridiculous behavior by becoming quite fit from all the stair climbing.

The cause of obsessions is probably some sort of anxiety about losing control of one's life. Pigeons, of course, lost control of their lives once they were put in the cage, so it's a miracle that they aren't all stark raving mad.

Let's put Wosret in a Skinner Box and see what we can accomplish for SCIENCE.

Ah, the EMP scenario. Quite popular as a apocalypse inducing event.

One Second After is a 2009 fiction novel by American writer William R. Forstchen. The novel deals with an unexpected electromagnetic pulse attack on the United States as it affects the people living in and around the small American town of Black Mountain, North Carolina. Wikipedia

The sequel is One Year After, and the second sequel is The Final Day.

EMPs are a good plot device because, as you note, they would obscure the evidence of what happened.

I haven't read these yet. EMPs open the door to some fairly spooky plot possibilities, whether it be human- or alien-produced.

Kung pao, perhaps?

a totally free market. I think we'd agree that's a fair description of the global economy. — Mongrel

I'd agree to no such malarky.

Mongrel Enterprises, Inc. makes her contaminating windmills by not merely exploiting labor, but by exploiting the most vulnerable labor in the most degraded economic settings. She externalizes the environmental costs by flushing all of the toxic wastes from the factory into the Long Dong River, thus fucking over her unfortunate employees a second time around. The various toxic fumes which outgas from the plastics and glues used in her repellant product are not even pushed out with a fan. She just let's the miasma build up in the plant. The kiddies are dead meat anyway. (What does Madam Mongrel care? She wouldn't think of ever actually walking through this toxic shit hole.)

There are other reasons why Mongrel Enterprises is doing well. She located her malignant plants in a country that granted favorable trade deals. This SE Asian Tiger won the race to the bottom, taking away the crown of filth from Bangladesh. Not only that, Mongrel Enterprises' Country of Origin is run by a grotesque conservative party that is virulently anti-working class, anti-union, and (when you get right down to it) anti-human, who grants very favorable tax treatment to companies that assist them in their War on the Working Class.

True enough, Kranking Wind wasn't able to compete with Mongrel Enterprises criminal operations in the US market. Instead, he relocated the company to the European Union where his fine environmental and labor record led to his being showered by laurel crowns and contracts for windmills all over the globe.

In the end he died happy with a halo around his head. He went to heaven (even though he was a socialist atheist) and Mongrel went to hell (even though she was a capitalist evangelical).

If the concept of "corporation", allows for corporations to exist in an immoral way, then it follows that the concept of "corporation" is an immoral concept. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm willing to entertain the notion that the concept of the "corporation" is immoral if it shields its owners, office holders and management from the law. Takata airbags, for instance, were not as safe as advertised, and it may be that this was known for quite some time by various corporations. in the case of VW, diesel pollution control equipment was deliberately made deceptive and dysfunctional. The corporation's treasuries are being depleted by fines, (some -- not a lot proportionate to their profitability) but I suspect that few of the management who aided and abetted VW's fraud, and none of the stockholders who profited by the fraud, will be punished.

Are you saying that corporate law is immoral? — Mongrel

The consequences can be immoral. A law that shields individuals for their immoral acts under the cloak of a corporation, for instance, could be immoral.

A law (or interpretation of a law) which grants to corporations personhood, a right to free speech, and so forth, could be immoral. For instance, consider the case of Citizens United:

What is the Citizens United decision?

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Holding: Political spending is a form of protected speech under the First Amendment, and the government may not keep corporations or unions from spending money to support or denounce individual candidates in elections. Wikipedia

The law that says a corporation is an individual is absurd, and may (will probably) have moral consequences. Unions aren't individuals either, of course.

quote="Mongrel;61390"]I mentioned earlier that the concept was a significant factor in the emergence of European nation states. If you do mean to say that the concept of the corporation is immoral, you're indicting the whole global shebang.[/quote]

I am not saying that the corporation is inherently immoral or inherently good. It depends... (as questions of morality always do).

The first corporations, and the first stock issued, and the first stock holders are one thing. Today's corporations valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars, are something else. They have interlocking directorates (they share strategic board of director members), they often have near monopolies on essential products, they have enormous economic, social, and political clout, and they employ million of people. A pea and a watermelons are both fruits, but there is a hell of a lot of difference between the two. Ditto for the first and the latest corporations.

I would counter that it's not corporations. They just act in their own interests. It's the lack of global law that allows them to exploit us munchkins.[/quote]

Exploiting us munchkins is in the best interests of corporations. Making a profit (generally by exploiting workers) is their raison d'être.

All things considered, I'd rather be a decent fellow who drinks a bit too much that a dead sober creep.

Alcoholics have a very bad rep these days; it wasn't all that long ago that the standards for qualifying as alcoholic were pretty high. One had to drink an awful lot and be totally dysfunctional. Now, if one gets drunk a few times a year (responsibly, of course, designated driver and all), or usually has a couple of cocktails after work, he or she is likely to be classified by somebody as alcoholic . I've known a few completely dysfunctional alcoholics. It's a bad state to be in.

But still, let us thank God for fermentation.

If India Inc. doesn't know how to take care of itself, it should hire a lawyer. Of course that kind of conflict can drive potential employers elsewhere, so India might have a hard choice to make. Whining isn't a productive choice. — Mongrel

Really? Amazing.

The law is often not a matter of morality. For instance, laws specifying how real estate property is transferred from one person to another, or rules defining what "jam" is, as opposed to a "spread" aren't loaded with a lot of morality. But the Nuremberg laws which the Nazi's passed to strip Jews of property, access to public places, careers--life itself--can't be described as mere "legal technology". The intent, texts, and implementation of the law was entirely immoral. So also were American laws segregating whites and blacks. So are a lot of laws.

Aliens established themselves on earth quite some time ago. Some of "us" are aliens--from where, how we got here, and what our plans are--is none of your business (for now). But when "scientists at Harvard speculate" about aliens, they are really just leaking closely held insider information. Fortunately most earthlings (or 'dirt things" as we call you) consider these leaks too far fetched to believe -- which is fine. Just keep believing that and all will be well with you (for now).

Benevolent Overlords

A corporation is a group which is treated as an individual in the eyes of the law. — Mongrel

That's right, but... maybe the law is an ass.

Corporations can be a means to at partially or totally shield individuals from the consequences of their acts, and others' acts on their behalf. Take the Bhopal, India gas poisoning:

It occurred on the night of 2–3 December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. Over 500,000 people were exposed to methyl isocyanate gas and other chemicals. The highly toxic cloud made its way into and around the shanty towns located near the plant.

The gas killed thousands and injured scores of thousands of people:

The government of Madhya Pradesh confirmed a total of 3,787 deaths related to the gas release. A government affidavit in 2006 stated that the leak caused 558,125 injuries, including 38,478 temporary partial injuries and approximately 3,900 severely and permanently disabling injuries.[4] Others estimate that 8,000 died within two weeks, and another 8,000 or more have since died from gas-related diseases.

"Accidents happen" but accidents are more likely when maintenance is minimal, when safety systems are turned off, and when large quantities of highly toxic stuff is stored and/or manufactured in densely populated areas.

Union Carbide Corporation's stockholders (and financial beneficiaries) were not held liable, and for all practical purposes, neither were the various employees of the corporation who had a duty to maintain the plant (like managers who approve or deny work orders in corporate headquarters).

Whether morality is involved is debatable. Ciceronianus says no. — Mongrel

Morality is involved regardless of what Ciceronianus says.

like what Bitter Crank says about "eternal vigilance") — jkop

Oddly enough, or not, it isn't clear who actually first wrote or spoke the phrase, "Eternal Vigilance is the price of liberty." Thomas Jefferson may or may not have said it, an abolitionist may or may not have said it, an Irish lawyer may or may not have said it. I definitely know that I didn't make it up, so somebody said it, sometime, somewhere, to someone.

Thanks a lot for stealing all of my thunder. But I did like this highlighted quote in the Monbiot piece

It may seem strange that a doctrine promising choice should have been promoted with the slogan 'there is no alternative'

I believe that it should be one of the goals of human society. To be able to coexist peacefully with one another. — MonfortS26

I'll drink to that several times -- "And they all coexisted peacefully with one another ever after. The End." But Globalism as we have seen it in operation over the last couple of centuries, as "peaceful coexistence", has not been very peaceful or even mutually tolerant a good share of the time.

Globalism has become a highly ameliorated euphemism for the same old competition for profits, resources, territory, influence, power, and so forth

That has been on a roll since 1492
When Columbus sailed the oceans blue,
And paved the way for them all getting screwed.

There is an alternate version of globalism that doesn't get mentioned a lot at Davos: "Workers of the World, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains, and a world to gain." Labor still creates all wealth, and the working class of the world (which is just about everybody) also consumes most of the goods it makes. It doesn't need Capitalists to exist, thrive, and prosper. indeed, the sooner we get rid of Capital, the better.

Ok, ok, I get it -- not going to happen in your life time. But, NEWSFLASH global peace, motherhood, and apple strudel aren't going to happen in your lifetime either, as long as a few thousand Apples. Exxons, Archer Daniel Midlands, Volkswagens, Gazproms, and any number of hedge funds are toiling over the world to squeeze out the last dollar they can get.

and "IF the lazy blue collar workers in Indiana won't work for 93¢ an hour, somebody in Asia, Africa, or South America will. So fuck you greedy Hoosier bastards -- not willing to WORK for 93¢! We live in a global economy, now. We don't need you sons of bitches."

And, of course, they don't need them.

What do people expect, for countries to shut their borders down and prevent anyone from coming and going? — Marchesk

It's been done, and in terms of world history, seconds ago. In fact, quite a few countries have closed their borders in various ways--take the Great Fire Wall of China, for example. Or Iran pulling the plug on the Internet when things were bubbling over for a bit, or North Vietnam, or the USSR and the German Democratic Republic et al until 1991 -- not very long ago at all.

An interest in "the Globe" and what else might be over the horizon has been around for a long time, true. But "globalism" is more recent -- like, the British, French, Hapsburg, Russian, and various other empires. And "globalism has a much more complex agenda than finding out what surprises might be over the horizon. Like, making sure there are no surprises.

I can definitely recommend you: Peter Ulrich — Ralph Luther

Please don't. I have a long list of reading I am trying to get through before I drop dead.

Of course I don't mean that Organizations are literally capable of reason. — Ralph Luther

I know you don't mean that. And yes, people in an organization are most definitely affected by the character of interactions established by other people in the organization. Corporations, organizations, are only the abstract devices by which actual people work together for large-scale ends.

When it comes to ethics, there is only the ethics of how people behave toward each other, directly or indirectly. In some organizations, people behave rather ruthlessly and amorally toward each other. These tend to be ghastly workplaces for everyone except sharks, vultures, and jackets. In other organizations people behave rather nicely toward each other, assisting rather than shafting one another. I much prefer the second kind.

Enlightenment comes (if it comes) by way of other people. Libraries aren't valuable cultural assets because they contain megatons of paper or are well organized. They are valuable cultural assets because some people's thoughts can be read on the page and absorbed, and may produce enlightenment. Most often they will just put people to sleep. Similarly, it is other people in an organization (like Waste Management, Inc.) who say and do things that are enlightening--on those rare occasions when people say enlightening things.

as long as corporations are holding most our wealth — Ralph Luther

To a large extent, corporations don't hold most of our wealth. It is the stockholders -- the people who own the corporation -- that hold much of our wealth. As we discussed earlier, some corporations are private, and whoever owns that corporation also owns the wealth--like the Cargils, for example. The wealthiest 1% of the American population are so rich because they own a large share of corporations.

I suspect a lot of the conversation we are having is about defining words like corporations. I don't know... I would be surprised if we differ that much about what constitutes ethical action.

Peter Ulrich's Integrative Economic Ethics — Ralph Luther

Never heard of it.

But why should they be trated as "boxes"? Are those entities not capable of change and reason? They shape our lifes as well, as we shapes theirs. — Ralph Luther

The rhetoric employed in talking about organizations of any kind can become confusing if one isn't careful. So a couple of decades ago, some people were tossing around the buzz word "a learning organization"--an organization that carefully learns from its experience. Some people started to take this notion almost literally. Well, an organization can learn nothing because it is an abstraction. The employees of an organization can learn or forget, but the organization can not do anything of the sort.

We, persons and people, can affect each others' lives for better or for worse. We can organize ourselves into organizations -- like a Benedictine monastery, the Social Democrat Party, Volkswagen, the secret police (KGB, FBI, Stasi, whatever...) or the Strudel & Streusel Society. But these organizations are nothing more than individual persons carrying out tasks and policies that other people have devised.

Why is all of this an issue? Because... In the United States as a matter of interpretation of the word "person" in the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, U.S. courts have extended certain constitutional protections to corporations. Some of us are adamantly opposed to this extension of rights to corporations.

At the moment corporations influence politics in backroom meetings, because it would invoke public outrage, they would lose coustomers and probably be in the center of a major shitstorm. By making their influence official, they could act as before... — Ralph Luther

Again, "corporations" do not influence politics, or anything else. The board of directors, the operating management, and employees of a corporation influence politics. If one has enough money, or power, one can buy access to backroom meetings. This is, has been, and probably will be 'Standard Operating Procedures' for the foreseeable future.

("having a lot of money" per se is not sufficient to get into a back room meeting. One has to have used some of that money to benefit other people in the backroom meeting, or people they think are important. Tom Steyer, a Democrat and a wealthy hedge fund manager in San Francisco, donated $66 million dollars (!) to Political Action Committees. $66,000,000 is enough to get one into several back room meetings with Hillary herself. I donated $100 to Bernie Sanders. That much got me onto Bernie's mass mailing list, along with 30 million other people.)

By making their influence official, they could act as before, but the public would have chance to be involved. — Ralph Luther

The best way for the ordinary working class/middle class public to be involved in politics is through large scale organization of themselves. As Lenin observed, "quantity has a quality all its own". That's why labor union membership and participation, low-level political organizing, civic engagement, and political engagement are critical to ordinary people. In the absence of effective working class/middle class political organizing, We, The People, are getting screwed left and right.

People are always in danger of losing their freedom whether there is 1 centralized military or 50. There are several entities -- the military, the local police, educational institutions, religious organizations, political systems, etc. who would like to trim back the sails of freedom -- get people's thinking and actions under control.

What keeps people from losing their freedom, is (to borrow a phrase) eternal vigilance. One must be on guard against control by brute force, mind control, fear mongering, propaganda, lies, drugs, media, and so on. Use your freedom or lose it.

pls note, i don't know if corporate have to make their balances public, in every country. In my country they have to. And will face dire consequences if they are late, tempered with in form. — Ralph Luther

Public for-profit corporations in the US have to issue regular financial reports. Non-profit corporations are not obligated to do so, and privately owned companies (even very big ones) don't have to, either. For instance #1 Cargill (Agribusiness), #2 Koch Industries (Conglomerate), and #3 Mars (Food Processing--candy, especially) are multi-billion dollar companies that do not have to tell you just how good their year was, unless they feel like it.

At least, that's my understanding. Hanover???

Corporations are accidental relational structures between people — Benkei

Accidental? Maybe 'accident' isn't quite the right term. The state created the template of corporations and upon formal application and payment of fees, grants them a license to do business--as a stock-issuing corporation, for instance.

I do not want to give them access, because I assume, they already have it — Ralph Luther

I want to deny them access, period. Arthur D. Levinson is Chairman of Apple, Inc. Mr. Levinson can spend his own money and go to Washington, DC or Sacramento, CA and chew on whose ever ear he wants to. So can you, assuming you can afford to do it. If you can't, then you don't get to chew on Paul Ryan's ear. (Ryan is a rep. from Wisconsin and is Speaker of the House.) It has to be HIS money, though, not Apple's. Apple isn't entitled to a hearing, but Levinson is. That Mr. Levinson or Bill Gates has a huge amount of money in his pocket is well known, and buying political influence is another problem -- separate from corporate issues.

Going to your state capitol and nagging or ragging on your local rep or senator is much more affordable, generally. State and local issues are often as important as national issues. Unfortunately, big money is even bigger in state capitol hallways than it is in Washington, where politicians dream in trillions of dollars, not millions, which is what local politicians dream of.

Until the revolution and we get rid of them, corporations should stick to business: buying, selling, renting, exchanging, digging, refining, farming, building, packaging, wrecking -- whatever it is that the corporation does.

The managers of the corporation being citizens (if they are citizens) are entitled to engage in politics, and they will represent their interests which probably will align pretty closely with the corporation. Stockholders who are citizens are liable to do the same thing -- represent their own interests which will probably align with their investments. If corporate managers or stockholders choose to act as citizens contrary to the interests of their corporations, that's their prerogative.

But... as legal entities, corporations should not be counted as persons or citizens. IBM, Apple, Ford, Target, Walmart, and Dairy Queen are 'boxes' where humans come to work, produce, consume, or manage. There is no reason to count a 'box' as anything more than a structure. We don't count the little Dairy Queen box as anything more than a place, a thing. It sells ice-cream. It has no role beyond that. The corporation is nothing more than that either. Apple and Exxon are just big boxes.

All of the state's creations -- corporations, non-profits, armies, port authorities, sanitation districts, park boards, and so on -- are subsidiary to the state which defines the terms of their existence. The state, in turn, is a creation of citizens (at the time of the state's founding). The citizens have ultimate control over the state (ideally; they might not be able to exercise effective control practically).