Chapter 4 …If Smedley Butler had accepted the Gerald
MacGuire’s determined but persistent pleading, what would U.S. be like today? I
thought about this while reading chapter 4 of “The Corporation”. President
Roosevelt would have been forced to resign from his position and either moved
to a weaker, insignificant position or removed altogether. As tactics to tackle
the Great Depression, they would have continued to strangle the less-wealthy
with low wages and long working hours, which means huge gaps between the rich
and the poor. Their solutions to the Great Depression must have solely been
from a corporation’s point of view, not from the welfare of the public.
Moreover, people were desperate because of the devastating effect of the Great
Depression. If Butler had accepted the offer, two Hitlers may have
simultaneously existed in the world… quite scary…
Next Hitler?
Chapter 5… Until reaching one point in this chapter, I was
thinking that privatizing administration of all schools would not change too
much since even in public schools, profit is valued. For example, Hitomi said
in her presentation that the educational board in the U.K. cut 68% of its fund.
With budget cuts like this happening, it is impossible to contend that the administration
of schools is corporate-free. However, it said in this book that the Edison
Schools sold the schools’ computers, textbooks and instruments to save costs,
and I was so astonished that they would do something like this. One of the
person running the Edison Schools declares that privatization of schools is
beneficial for all: parents, students, and teachers. It’s clear that that is a
big fat lie. What is shocking to me is that these people do not even have the decency
to consider about the future of these students. What if it were their own
children? Would they sell their children’s textbooks so they can spend it on
other matters? Probably not. Just as Chomsky says, this chapter proved to me
that privatization is dangerous as it robs people of the sense of community. It
encourages people to think that nothing is worth doing unless the dollar sign
come along with it.
Another surprising fact. How psychologists collaborate with
corporations, so corporations can invade kids’ minds through advertisements
with the necessity to nag to their parents to buy their products. To me, that
seems like the wrong way for psychologists to use their skills. I think that
child psychologists should be helping kids overcome psychological problems, not
helping corporations in maximizing their profit. Furthermore, these
advertisements can also be harmful to children such as portraying junk food as the
“cool” food replacing more nutritional food. Although indirectly, by helping corporations,
these psychologists are causing more social problems in children. In this book,
it mentioned that the laws banning advertisements intended for children were
lifted. I think that they should still be banned for children under age 5.
Although I don’t know too much about children’s cognitive development, I think
under 5 year olds are incapable of deciding what they really want and need.
Instead, they are inquisitive about almost everything and are easily
influenced, which can prompt them to have interests in harmful products such as
junk food. In the first place, I don’t think children under 5 should be
watching too much television.
Undercover marketing. I probably must have some been under this
somewhere. This is not necessarily undercover, but the School Festival
Committee at ICU goes around the neighbourhood asking stores or companies to provide
them some money in exchange of advertising them in the school festival
pamphlets. In the stores or companies they advertise, there may be ones where their
products or their service are not so good to humans. For example, they might be
causing major pollution in the city. However, I don’t think the students sort
out which companies they’d like to advertise in their pamphlets because they
are friendly to society. I am not saying that they are but, in a sense, the committee
may be advertising companies that do not place the well-being of humans before profit.
ICU allows a lot of advertisement. For example, they let
workers from driving schools hand out tissues that advertise their schools and
programs. Mac does a great job in advertising their products to students as
well. First of all, they provide really small discounts for students and form ties
with schools where additional discount is possible. Although the discount is so
small that it cannot significantly affect their profit, it must be successful
in getting students to buy a mac computer. These all seem to somewhat be “undercover
marketing”, and since this book presented undercover marketing as a negative
thing, I now see these corporations as manipulative. However, I think that
undercover marketing is everywhere and it is impossible to avoid being
influenced by it. So it is also our responsibility not to be easily swayed by these advertisements but first check whether they are good or not.
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