Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Douglas Rushkoff: Life Inc.


Douglas Rushkoff: Life Inc.

How the world became a corporation and how to take it back.

From the site: In Life Inc, Douglas Rushkoff presents the unnerving, unbelievable, but ultimately undeniable proof that our world has been overtaken by an absolutely artificial economy.

He shows how our most fundamental assumptions about money and commerce are actually false ones - artifacts of a 400-year-old plan by a waning aristocracy to maintain control of Western Europe. Although the architects of this corporatism have long since passed on, we still live in a landscape defined by their plans and have internalized their values as our own.

Taking on some of the biggest assumptions of our age, this is a book filled with dangerous ideas and rather unspeakable heresies:
  • Money is not a part of nature, to be studied by a science like economics, but an invention with a specific purpose.
  • Centralized currency is just one kind of money - one not intended to promote transactions but to promote the accumulation of capital by the wealthy.
  • Banking is our society’s biggest industry, and debt is our biggest product.
  • Corporations were never intended to promote commerce, but to prevent it.
  • The development of chartered corporations and centralized currency caused the plague; the economic devastation ended Europe’s most prosperous centuries, and led to the deaths of half of its population.
  • The more money we make, the more debt we have actually created.
Most importantly, Rushkoff shows how this moment of financial crisis is actually an opportunity to reinstate commerce and communities based in creating value for one another, rather than continuing to extract it for the benefit of institutions that no longer exist.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just finished writing a tune today (posted on my blog www.psyberstreetmusik.blogspot.com) when I saw this post, and it was right in line with what I was feeling as the song was coming out. Cool sync, felt like I should link to it from my post. By the way, Dedroidify, awesome, awesome, awesome site... Thanks!

Unknown said...

The synopsis of this book & movie is exactly what the worldwide Freeman-on-the-Land communities are all about. The change we all want is already happening.

http://TPUC.org
http://freemanireland.ning.com

Also google:
Rob Menard
John James Harris
Winston Shrout
Jordan Maxwell
Mary Elizabeth Croft

Azrael said...

You should definitely check out Richard Metzger's new show on youtube, dangerous minds. He interviews Rushkoff about his new book

Unknown said...

Great vid. Life Inc looks very interesting.

Let me offer a quote from Mary Elizabeth Croft from her book; "HOW I CLOBBERED
EVERY BUREAUCRATIC
CASH-CONFISCATORY AGENCY
KNOWN TO MAN"

History of the World

"All problems, depressions, wars, disasters, assassinations – ALL of them were planned, caused,
instigated, and implemented by the International Banksters and their attempt to establish a central bank in
every country in the world, which they have now done, thanks to corrupt politicians who have been bought
and paid for. This is all you need to know about the history of the world.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who
issued silver certificates, and Abraham Lincoln, who issued treasury notes (greenbacks), were the only men who actively intended to stop them. Both were assassinated by the Banksters. Garfield and McKinley talked
about stopping them. Both were assassinated by the Banksters.

The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these
principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity. – Abraham Lincoln"

-DarkStar