Schwab: Help From Business

Off The Couch

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To fully acknowledge this deeper form of global engagement, businesses should start to create what I call corporate global citizenship. This idea goes way beyond corporate social responsibility, since it focuses on the global space, which is increasingly shaped by forces beyond the control of nation-states. Global corporations and their leaders have not only a license to operate in this arena but also a civic duty to contribute to the sustainable health of the world in cooperation with governments and civil society. Global corporate citizenship, moreover, can not only improve general well-being but become a catalyst for a new global governance system. No one knows exactly what that new system will look like. But if we're lucky, it will enable world leaders to stop switching channels. It will get us to stand up from our collective couch and start tackling the real issues that threaten us all—together.

Schwab is founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum based in Geneva, Switzerland.

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There is a danger lurking in the movement to rid the country of what some refer to as ???Government Schools??? when they talk about our Public Schools. This attempt to rename our School system is a blatant lie. The Public Schools are funded through government, state, local, and federal agencies by tax dollars. The lie is when pundits with covert agendas claim that people, the citizen have no control over ???Government Schools.??? Well I guess the PTA and Publicly Elected School Boards mean nothing? I guess the state and local control of citizen elected representatives mean nothing? People we do have control over our schools that is why they are Public Schools. They are at the whim of ???We the People??? who are the government. We decide as a community how our schools are run, and what representatives in federal, state, and local legislatures that we elect enact our wishes. This subversive tactic of calling our schools ???Government Monopolies??? or ???Government Schools??? and ??? agents of Statism??? are tools of those who want nothing more than a piece of the billions of dollars in the feeding trough of tax payer funding for our schools. The only way the citizen could loose control of schools is if we stop voting, participating, and allowing the enforcement mechanism of the citizen???s wishes (government) to be replaced or usurped. Privatization or capitalization of our Public Schools removes the citizen from any direct control of cost, educational standards, & teacher certification standards. Education should not be ???for profit??? of the educator rather it should be for the profit of the student. We as a society profit from the ease of access to quality Public Educational programs. We loose when Education is converted into a privatized diploma mill. If we think that kids fall through the cracks now, imagine when K-12 is for profit. The banner on the low paid teacher???s lounge will say, ???get them in, get them out.??? If people complain about the commercialization of their children by modern corporate consumerism and shallow materialism, why would they ever want to hand over all education to the people or institutions they blame for tainting their kids in the first place?

Has the Free Market with out oversight truly kept either competition alive for small business, costs down in Health Care, or kept the products sold safe for consumers? Has the Free Market concept of a lack of Governmental oversight increased the honesty of Big Private Business and Corporations? I would argue, No, it has not resulted in either a better world for consumers. We may have wonderful products that make our lives more convenient, true. Yet, at what cost has all this ??? Free Market??? dogma brought us ease in our lives? The cost? Outsourcing, Pollution, Monopolies, Lead Toys, or Tainted Food, Cosmetics and other products, and a market that is free only for the few not the consumer. Regulation of rules guiding business are mistakenly viewed as socialistic or communism, taking sovereignty from the citizen. We must realize that a corporation or business is not a person. They are creations of man, a legal entity. Yet they are afforded the same rights as real people. Corporations or businesses have no pulse, reproductive organs, nor individual consciousness or soul. They have no emotions of their own, nor anything that we would consider Human, They are nothing more than a group of words on paper. They have used the legal system to gain the same rights as real people and in some cases, more rights or protections than individual citizens. The Conservative notion of ??? leave it to the Free Market??? can not be trusted to police itself; for it will always look out for the bottom line and not necessarily the consumer.

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Posted By: Johndavidprince @ 03/17/2008 10:39:31 AM

There is a danger lurking in the movement to rid the country of what some refer to as ???Government Schools??? when they talk about our Public Schools. This attempt to rename our School system is a blatant lie. The Public Schools are funded through government, state, local, and federal agencies by tax dollars. The lie is when pundits with covert agendas claim that people, the citizen have no control over ???Government Schools.??? Well I guess the PTA and Publicly Elected School Boards mean nothing? I guess the state and local control of citizen elected representatives mean nothing? People we do have control over our schools that is why they are Public Schools. They are at the whim of ???We the People??? who are the government. We decide as a community how our schools are run, and what representatives in federal, state, and local legislatures that we elect enact our wishes. This subversive tactic of calling our schools ???Government Monopolies??? or ???Government Schools??? and ??? agents of Statism??? are tools of those who want nothing more than a piece of the billions of dollars in the feeding trough of tax payer funding for our schools. The only way the citizen could loose control of schools is if we stop voting, participating, and allowing the enforcement mechanism of the citizen???s wishes (government) to be replaced or usurped. Privatization or capitalization of our Public Schools removes the citizen from any direct control of cost, educational standards, & teacher certification standards. Education should not be ???for profit??? of the educator rather it should be for the profit of the student. We as a society profit from the ease of access to quality Public Educational programs. We loose when Education is converted into a privatized diploma mill. If we think that kids fall through the cracks now, imagine when K-12 is for profit. The banner on the low paid teacher???s lounge will say, ???get them in, get them out.??? If people complain about the commercialization of their children by modern corporate consumerism and shallow materialism, why would they ever want to hand over all education to the people or institutions they blame for tainting their kids in the first place?
- Reply
- Report Abuse
Posted By: Johndavidprince @ 03/17/2008 10:38:16 AM

Has the Free Market with out oversight truly kept either competition alive for small business, costs down in Health Care, or kept the products sold safe for consumers? Has the Free Market concept of a lack of Governmental oversight increased the honesty of Big Private Business and Corporations? I would argue, No, it has not resulted in either a better world for consumers. We may have wonderful products that make our lives more convenient, true. Yet, at what cost has all this ??? Free Market??? dogma brought us ease in our lives? The cost? Outsourcing, Pollution, Monopolies, Lead Toys, or Tainted Food, Cosmetics and other products, and a market that is free only for the few not the consumer. Regulation of rules guiding business are mistakenly viewed as socialistic or communism, taking sovereignty from the citizen. We must realize that a corporation or business is not a person. They are creations of man, a legal entity. Yet they are afforded the same rights as real people. Corporations or businesses have no pulse, reproductive organs, nor individual consciousness or soul. They have no emotions of their own, nor anything that we would consider Human, They are nothing more than a group of words on paper. They have used the legal system to gain the same rights as real people and in some cases, more rights or protections than individual citizens. The Conservative notion of ??? leave it to the Free Market??? can not be trusted to police itself; for it will always look out for the bottom line and not necessarily the consumer.