Is The United States A Corporation Or A Country? You Decide.

The US is a country. And I would not put unlimited stock in the views of Gen. Butler. No doubt he was a great soldier, but he's a lousy economist and an even worse political philosopher. We didn't enter WWI to pad the profits of Central General Leather or Anaconda Copper. We went to war because Germany was attacking US merchant ships and the Germans tried to entice Mexico to attack the US and enter the war on their side. Unless someone can find me a memo that shows a leather company was pulling the Kaiser's strings in Germany, it a silly point. So it cost 14 cents to make an army cotton shirt before the war and 30 cents to make one during the war. So what? That doesn't prove anything important. I know what happened. The increased volume in shirt orders caused an increase in cotton costs as well. Cotton doesn't grow faster just because you want more of it. If you go from needing one hundred thousand shirts a year to needing one million a year the cotton to make those shirts is going to have to come from foreign markets at market prices. I'm sure the Brazilians were crying about how the price of their shirts went up too. The labor hired to meet that increased demand was relatively unskilled, so instead of being able to sew 3 shirts an hour these new workers might only have been able to manage two, so production coast went up as well. Did companies profit during the war, sure. What's wrong with that? People buy stock in companies with the anticipation of them making money. If you told me that if I buy stock in Acme Shirts that profits are only generated in peacetime but all wartime profits are donated back to the government I would dump the stock, so would everybody else. So when war comes there would be no Acme Shirt Company because no one would invest in them. The profits bemoaned by Gen. Butler didn't go into Scrooge McDucks money room for him to swim around in. Those profits were paid to shareholders in proportion to their ownership in the company. That means those profits were paid to widows, school teachers, working men and women and retirees..In other words ordinary Americans. And while those stocks did well, other stocks took a dump because war time spending priorities change consumer spending habits. What does Gen. Butler think about the companies that went out of business during the war because there was shrunken demand for their products? The housing construction market certainly took a dump, 500,000 men were overseas, a lot fewer people were getting married and building that first house and the labor to build those houses was in uniform serving in Europe. I'm not going to try to school people here on economics but if you want to be able to build tanks, planes, guns, ships, aircraft and submarines you have to have companies in place that can build those things WHEN A WAR STARTS. You can't just invent them from nothing to fight a war with and then break them up and build playgrounds with the profits. We build at least one submarine a year because the skills to build submarines are perishable. If your workers lose those skills you will have a near impossible task in getting it back. As for his isolationist views, which were not uncommon in his time, Gen. Butler lives in a very small world. America, like it not, is a maritime trading nation. We invent, innovate, create, design and manufacture 25% of all the goods produced worldwide with just 3% of the worlds population. No country in history has ever made so much of the worlds goods. We have customers, suppliers and manufacturers all over the world. Our goods travel the world's oceans which are highways moving trade between countries. That wasn't any less true during WWII. Let's just forget all that for a moment. Did America really need the manipulation of US Steel and General Motors to get us into WWII? There was no other reason than corporatist profits that could have moved us to war? As if we never could have morally reasoned that the evil of the Axis Powers had to be stopped? Or that the conquest of China and indeed all of Asia by the supremist Japanese had to be resisted. Is he kidding? No, he isn't. He just isn't thinking and neither are the narrow minded, isolationist, nativist, immature, historically ignorant Ron Paul supporters who throw Gen. Butler around as if he is some kind of political genius. It is true that Butler was a great warrior, well, so was Napolean but his political sensibilities ruined France. Finally, we come to the old lament about corporations controlling government. I would offer just a couple of points on this. If you don't want lobbyiests in Washington DC, get that $1.25 Trillion dollars out of there. The lobbyiests will leave on the next flight. And you can't demand that 25% of taxpayers pay 90% of all the taxes on the one and and on the other tell them they have no say in the priorities of how that money is spent. That the 75% who are only contributing 10% are going to get all the say. That old saying about "No Taxation without Representation" is a two way street. There is no Representation with Taxation either. Shit like that is the reason there was an American revolution to begin with. And I would much rather have corporations influencing government policies than government influencing corporate policies. How many US Postal Services, FannieMaes and Solindra failures do you want to see? Which raises another point that Gen. Butler misses whilst counting wrenches, boots and shirts. The profits of war depends on the wastefullness of government. If Uncle Sugar ordered 25 million pairs of boots but only needed 2 million that's not Buster Brown's fault. That an argument AGAINST huge, unaccountable, wasteful government isn't it? It certainly doesn't make sense to make a wasteful government bigger and more powerful by seizing private companies and the forcing the people who run these companies to work for minimum wage. You know, they have choice. They can quit and then the government can run these companies with hirelings who will work for minimum wage, until the Unions hear about it.

Neither, if you're talking about the Federal government.. It's becoming a bureacratic monopoly that caters to lobbyists.

Anyone read Richard Maybury's book "Whatever Happened to Justice"? It was written for high-school/college age readers but the principles are pretty basic and universal. A good read - though I'll be the first to say I don't agree with everything he said. http://www.amazon.com/Whatever-Happened-Justice-Uncle-Eric/dp/0942617460

Here's a description:

 Discusses the difference between higher law and man-made law, and the connection between rational law and economic prosperity. "Whatever Happened to Justice?" introduces the Two Laws:

1) Do all you have agreed to do, and

2) Do not encroach on other persons or their property.

ive heard it all. everything from jesse ventura to my freshman year chemistry professor that says " America is only terrorist nation in world to ever use neclear weapons" " we  are baboons compared to europeans" "its only a matter of time before we callapse  as a nation" " we are cowards for using aircraft carriers" "the miliary are a  bunch of murders who work for multi million dollar companies"....sure we had the bannana wars, coups to get cheap fruit, etc.....but these are very small part of our history. keep in mind that we had a neutral policy regarding international wars. it took a surprise japanese attack in order for us to declare war. and in WWI we were one of the last countries to enter the war.

I still find that Gen Butler and Gen Eisenhower where informed by first hand experience at the highest levels.  You recall that Gen. Butler helped circumvent what was possibly a nascent military coup to over throw the US government during the FDR administration?  

I feel I must defer to the wisdom and experience of these heroes.  If the US isn't a corporation it is at the very least highly controlled by them.  The recent SOCUS finding about "Super Pacs" that referenced a Montana law that was originally designed to help curtail Mining Company monopoly of politics within the state, was particularly worrisome.  Prior to this Corporate America had influence but there where limits, I'm not naive, yes there will always be loopholes.  But the current decision opens up a huge door to abuse, and unchecked corporate influence.

I still wonder how much influence the healthcare and insurance lobby wielded to get the OBAMA care package through?        

I believe we started off as a country. Of course, politicians will do what politicians do, and the further we drifted away from the source, the more corrupt our politicians grew. However, with the formation of corporations, that is where the game changed. I'd have to do more research and try to pinpoint where it happened, but I would theorize that somewhere along the way, once big business had its momentum going, they realized they could get more done with politicians on their dole, and we started a habit that has carried on into today. I believe that to make it into the higher halls of power, you'll have to get in good with the party leader, who is more than likely bought and paid for by corporate interests, special interests, or both. Then, some day, if you wish to get on his level or ascend to the White House, you'll have to make a deal with the right people and make the right promises. It's a vicious cycle, and due to a largely apathetic populace, it's been allowed to continue while the average American lives in ignorant bliss.

Just my two cents.

@BrandonTWebb at this moment I'm seeing it more as a corporation than a country.

My opinion -

The founding fathers were all businessmen\politicians that had something to gain ( additional money earned to thier advantage as they would define the rules) by separating from England.  They (being politicians what say what wants to be heard) wrapped the revolutiuon around some basic rights, freedom of speach, freedom of religion being a few (commonly called the bill of rights).  These are the idea's that the masses took and ran with, the rest is history.

There are many compelling arguements today both ways ,including, but not limited to, the country needs to be run like a corporation, the country needs to be run by the voice of the people.  Both have merit, both have issues.  I have been fortunate to have travell around the world.  While I wonder sometimes if our system works (especially today), it is in my opinion, still the best in the world.

There was a young Major that went to the USAF Command Staff College in 1966 to 1967.  This young Major wrote his thesis on the Military\Industrial complex.  In his paper, he lamented on the procurement process that would spend inordinate amounts of money and time on developing simple and brilliant weapon systems that would not get to the troops when and how they needed them.  This paper is often quoted today and some of the issues that he complained about have changed in the past 10 years.  But the more that things change, the more they stay the same.

Country?  Corporation?  Who knows.  Good arguements for both points.

The USA is a country, embedded in our constitution are inalienable rights that can not be denied by the whims of a dictator/bureaucrat/corporate board. Though the forces arryed against those rights are trying damn hard.

The most common argument I've heard for America being a corporation usually comes from the US Code (Title 28, 3002, in case you were wondering), which demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of how to read law and proves conclusively why America needs lawyers.  All jokes aside, I think the idea that the US is a corporation being linked to War is a Racket is tenuous at best.

I'm not gonna lie, but I am going to paraphrase Stephen Hawking a bit here - every time I hear about the military-industrial complex I reach for my (non-existent) gun.  In my opinion it is a grossly overused term that has turned into a glittering generality that can be used to demonize just about anything.  I could make the logging industry of America sound like a credible threat if I just call it the carpentry-industrial complex, making illicit profits off of cutting down trees and lobbying Congress to de-regulate various forestry-related sectors.

A military-industrial complex is a natural occurrence when you have a modern, technologically-dependent military with as many moving parts as ours, but I tend to agree with President Eisenhower more on this.  Specifically, I agree about the need for an active, informed citizenry.  An American population that cares what happens beyond its borders, evaluates whether starting a war suits our interests, and then acts accordingly.  An American public that looks at issues of procurement and policy and makes its opinions heard.

People often forget the last line of Eisenhower's famous quote - "so that liberty and security may prosper together".

I've read War is a Racket, great book.  You can find it for free on Amazon.  Butler is an American hero.  We need more like him.  I think you'd be hard pressed to prove that America was established to be a corporation rather than a state.  I've never actually heard that argument in regards to the founding fathers, 1776, ect...  America was established in a manner to maximize freedom, foster cooperation, and to that end, promote commerce.  I suppose the big shift began with the so-called Robber Barons during industrialization.  Now today in 2012, is America a state or a corporation?  That gets pretty dicey.