Nobody really knows when Corporate America came about.  Some say that it took its first breath and exhaled death over the natives.  Some say that it showed its face as soon as the pilgrims landed on that famous rock.  Others say it started when it began shipping humans from Africa as commodities.

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I think that Corporate America was born a child of conflict before and during the Civil War. It is largely believed that the Union opposed the condition of slavery for the dignity of humanity, but I disagree.  I think that a small and important segment of an ideological society did indeed share a commonality with the movers and shakers of the North.   But understanding of human life doesn’t allow for the naivete that it was purely altruistic.

The landowners of the North and their tools in government were covetous of the monopoly of certain industries of the South which were due in large part to slavery.  When this couldn’t be resolved through legislative action, compromise after compromise, or money, they decided to go to war.

The South felt that tariff protection in favor of the North was wholly unjust and violated and infringed on the rights of the individual states.  The driving parties of both sides were not truly interested in an egalitarian society or rights at all.  Unless money was involved.

The material capabilities of the North allowed them to triumph and the lack of industrial diversity did the South in.  The industry of the Union also served well the Reconstruction of the South, corporatization, and expansion westward.  Corporate America grew through recovery and its spinach was rail.

Corporate America steamed and whistled into the 20th century with reckless abandon.  It was a definitive time for the young system.  The United States was growing quickly.  The industrial revolution and the stock market gave rise to unprecedented wealth and a widened margin between the rich and the poor.

Few regulations protected workers, and robber barons were sleeping with the government in a way never seen before.  Corruption and monopolies  swelled  to new heights, and machine politics with special interests became the norm.

But bloated ledgers of large corporations helped press technology forward too.  This led to many technological innovations and money to research and education.  For the first time, many people could experience some hint of wealth, in some small way, and had access to information like never before.  In one way, there were unintended consequences to the system too.  An increase in literacy allowed workers to organize through leadership and demand better work conditions.  Women were able to likewise organize and eventually won a voice in the system.

These setbacks aside, the war was won for Corporate America through even socialist ideas such as free public education, higher universal living standards through codes and regulations, and at least theoretical legal equality.  Indoctrination in schools and identity through success allowed a perpetuation of the capital agenda to the point that even the idea of America changed.

What once was understood as finding a place in the world free from persecution and rooted in self-reliance, the “American Dream” now turned to “find a way to get rich and live comfortably.”

But then, the Depression hit.  The virtual liquidity of corporations failed and the stock market crashed.  It would be a long time before Corporate America regained its health and in the meantime, Big Brother stepped up to herd the people into a different kind of dependency.

Corporate America made a come-back in WWII however and did so on a large scale.  Mass production, a common goal, and an underused workforce willing to do its part helped save the world from fascist takeover and bring the boom of growth back.  It most probably was Corporate America’s finest hour.  And it was a positive advance.

But it was too soon back to the good old days of before the Depression.  Corporate America coaxed the government to become the antithesis of any sort of communist or socialist thought.  Greed was good and any ideas to the contrary made those ideas communist and thus bad.  This is where Corporate America and Big Brother finally consummated their marriage.

The government’s wedding present was trillions and trillions of dollars of infrastructure subsidies to the automobile industry in order to send a message to the “proletariat transit.”  Cars were the epitome of the individualist rationalist thought.  Big Brother bought Corporate America a suite in Berlin and a honeymoon in Korea.  Then Vietnam.

War had been a successful strategy and backbone for economic expansion since at least World War I.  So the two stuck with the plan and went imperial under the guise of containment.  Trade opened in ways unimagined and success followed.

But the new technologies that were sold to the public were backfiring.  People became more and more informed and backlash ensued.  Corporate America was in trouble.  Equality and war became “issues.”  After these losing rounds, Corporate America countered with a left hook, connected, and regained control by fighting a new war.  The Culture War.

It was a new market altogether.  Advertising and network time were the new handguns and bombs.  People were plugged in for good.  Wars continued to serve the economy.  First bananas,  contras, and then oil.  Corporate America had learned to diversify.

The suburbs were the way to go.  Lawns were desired for status but also to keep dependence on the supermarket.  One should have a castle and land, but it should be sterile.  Big cars and a blatant disregard for the environment may have been the final straw.  Indeed it was when virtual trading of fake companies caused many to lose faith.  That faith would be restored shortly after, but it was weakened.

The plug was pulled though with the most recent major recession.  The trust required of consumerism to feed Corporate America was lost forever when it became unable to support itself on meaninglessness and inauthenticity.  Homes were lost, retirements were lost, livelihoods were lost, faith was gone.  The snake had finally eaten its tail.

Corporate America did nothing for genocide.  It did nothing to save its consumers from cancer.  It did nothing to teach people independence, self-reliance, or equality.  It rewarded only those who served it and was resistent to changing its ways.  It claimed to be for the individual and to snub its nose at authority, and it did.  But it also invested in authority for miracle grow by infrastructure, copyright protection, and favoritism.

But we loved it.  Like our old racist grandma, we loved it.  We are sad to see it go.  It is our identity.  The fissure stings deeply.  We lusted for its excess.  Each and every one of us benefitted from its existence.  But we were also enslaved by it.  Dependent upon it.  We let it guide us blindly and now the sun hurts our eyes.  And we cry.

But Corporate America lives on in our memories.  We will not forget the injuries, but we will remember the necessity and the progress that it brought.  And though we will seek refuge with its widow, Big Brother, it won’t be for long.  It is not a preferable living situation either.

Soon, instead, we will reemerge stronger, recovered, and ready for the new independence, power, responsibility, and challenges that face us, in a life after Corporate America.