Joel Bakan is a Canadian lawyer and author, Professor of Law at the University of British Columbia, he holds a Masters degree from Harvard University and has a solid background in Canadian constitutional law. In The Corporation, his objective is to chart the history of the corporation, it’s unique structure and legal positioning, along with exposing some of the obvious flaws which exist within the idea of a corporate entity.

Bakan begins by giving us a whirlwind history of the development of the corporation as an institution. This history features the ‘jobbers’, stockbrokers who prowled the streets of Exchange Alley in London back in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The jobbers would search out naive investors, and persuade them into purchasing shares in bogus companies. Speculation initially caused the share price for these companies to rocket, followed by a total collapse. Bakan states that many soon became suspicious of corporations, with their separated ownership and management, instead preferring the ‘partnership’ model based on mutual trust and loyalty. This distrust of corporations lead to the English Parliament issuing a ban on corporations in 1776, which lasted for around 50 years.

The rise of corporations was assisted by the development of railways, mining, and industrial machinery, all of which relied on massive investments of capital. The partnership slowly went out of fashion as many realised the corporation was a far more efficient method to raise the massive amounts of money required for projects such as these. Bakan discusses the concept of ‘limited liability’ introduced around 1850, the idea being that an investor should only be liable for the amount they had invested in the company, rather than being personally liable for the companies debts, this allowed many more (and for the first time, the working class) to purchase stock.

One of the major themes in the book is the gradual increase in corporate power. One main event in this history was the development of the corporate ‘person’. By the late nineteenth century, corporations had begun to inherit the same legal status as a flesh-and-blood human being, allowing a company to own materials, employ staff and pay taxes just like a regular person, with the added benefit of possessing the same legal protections which any other citizen may enjoy.

In 1934 President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveiled the ‘New Deal’, an economic plan which included a set of reforms to restrict the power of business. Whilst I knew a little about the New Deal before reading this book, I was completely unaware of the plot hatched by the business leaders of the time to attempt a Coup on Roosevelt, in an effort to remove some of these restrictions and impose a business-friendly fascist regime, the type of which were currently developing in Germany under Hitler, and in Italy under Mussolini.

The embracing of neoliberalism in the 1980′s by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Regan allowed both Britain and the United States to begin to unravel some of these restrictions on business, and with the advent of globalization and the formation of the WTO, companies were now free to look around the world for the best possible economic conditions, resulting in poorer wages for developing nations, and higher profits for the corporation’s shareholders. Bakan argues that at around this time government to some extent lost control over businesses, with the (corporately influenced) WTO also enforcing unethical policies which government has very little say over. Add to this a group of politicians more heavily reliant on corporate donations to get elected, and it becomes evident that government loses a fair amount of it’s regulatory power.

Through lobbying, political contributions, and sophisticated public relations campaigns, they and their leaders have turned the political system and much public opinion against regulation. The law’s ability to protect people and the environment from corporate harm has suffered as a result.

One of Bakan’s most interesting observations is concerned with the relatively new trend of corporate ‘social responsibility‘. This can take several forms, from a company sponsoring the local football team, maintaining the local neighbourhood, or donating money to charitable causes. Obviously these displays are frequently for PR purposes, or are used purely to persuade consumers that their products are ethical, and should be purchased above all others. Bakan states that if these tactics did not result in greater profits for the company in question, the actions would technically be illegal, under corporate laws which designate that maximizing profits for shareholders is the primary responsibility of management. This reminded me of an article I read in the Guardian a few years ago, which told the tale of the writers young child, who was busy reading the label on a bottle of water which stated that for each bottle purchased, the company would send 1 litre of fresh water to a developing nation. The child questioned, with a wisdom and clarity far beyond that which any adult could display: ‘Why doesn’t the company just send the water anyway, whether I buy it or not?’.

Corporate social responsibility holds out promises of help, reassures people, and sometimes works. We should not, however, expect very much from it. A corporation can do good only to help itself do well, a profound limit on just how much good it can do.

Bakan then raises the concept of ‘externalities’, costs which corporations attempt to avoid by shifting them elsewhere. To illustrate he tells the story of Patricia Anderson, whose family suffered horrific burns after a car shunted the rear of her own at a set of traffic lights, and her petrol tank ignited. Anderson sued General Motors, and was eventually awarded $107 million, with punitive damages of $4.8 billion. Why so high you might wonder? Well, the car in which Patricia Anderson had been driving was designed with it’s petrol tank just 11 inches from the rear bumper. This was in spite of the fact that GM’s own internal safety guidance suggested the tank should be at least 17 inches away, if not further. To change the positioning of the tank would have added an estimated cost of $8.50 onto each vehicle, so the company instead calculated how many fatalities this design flaw might cause, multiplied by the average payout to the families of each victim, and came out with a figure of just $2.40 per car, a massive saving. Hence the car was not redesigned, and the accidents were allowed to happen. Deeply shocking. Obviously this is an extreme example, but that doesn’t hide the fact that cost-benefit analyses such as these are now performed on almost everything we consume.

The corporation’s unique structure is largely to blame for the fact that illegalities are endemic in the corporate world. By design, the corporate form generally protects the human beings who own and run corporations from legal liability, leaving the corporation, a “person” with a psychopathic contempt for legal constraints, the main target of criminal prosecution.

Something which particularly caught my attention in the light of Education Secretary Michael Gove’s recent announcement of the creation of ‘Free Schools’ was Bakan’s observations on the privatization of education. This appears to be another area where corporate donation to political parties holds great sway in deciding how contracts are awarded, and where funding is secured. The book argues, as many have done again fairly recently, that these schools do not necessarily perform any better then their public counterparts, although Bakan states that this isn’t necessarily the largest threat they represent. In the early 2000′s, Edison schools – a private American education provider – saw it’s stock price drop from over $22, to just $1. Various cost cutting measures began, with Edison’s administration staff moving into the schools to save money on office space, and the company quickly sold off school textbooks, computers, lab supplies, and musical instruments.  An example which demonstrates that applying laizze-faire economic theory to education rarely works, a lesson which Mr Gove should certainly bear in mind over the next few years.

On a closely related topic, the commercial exploitation of children and the ‘Nag Factor’ are also areas placed under the spotlight. Targeted advertising, directly to children, is in my opinion highly unethical, but is yet again another area where government has relaxed the rules, and deregulated at the expense of children’s health and mental well-being. Movie tie-ins, sponsorship of local community organisations, and even freely supplied school curriculum kits (which use the Big Mac to illustrate the four food groups) are removing parents control over their kids in ways never before seen. It also severely diminishes parents ability to safeguard children from harmful corporate influences.

In the final chapter of the book, Bakan accepts that whilst the corporation isn’t going anywhere fast, there are some useful ways we can limit it’s power and influence over us.

No one would seriously suggest that individuals should regulate themselves, that laws against murder, assault, and theft are unnecessary because people are socially responsible. Yet oddly, we are asked to believe that corporate persons – institutional psychopaths who lack any sense of moral conviction and who have the power and motivation to cause harm and devastation in the world – should be left free to govern themselves.

He makes several suggestions as to how this shift could take place. Firstly, improving the regulatory system, by means of stronger government control and effective enforcement, enabled by well staffed regulatory departments, and fines which act as a genuine disincentive against breaking the rules, rather than simply an additional cost for corporations to factor into their business plan. Secondly, the strengthening of political democracy, with a move towards publicly financed elections and a reduction in corporate lobbying. Thirdly, the protection of assets too important to be moved into private hands, such as police, schools and fire-fighters. Finally, he suggests that nations should work together to shift the policies of organisations such as the WTO, IMF and the World Bank, away from market fundamentalism, deregulation and privatization. Where these measures fail within a particular nation, or are ineffective, Bakan raises the story of the people of Cochabamba, Bolivia. Subject to the selling off of their water system (an agreement which went as far as banning them from collecting rainwater on their own property) the citizens organized and protested. Bloody confrontations ensued, as the people of Cochabamba demanded that the company leave, which under substantial pressure from a concerned and volatile public, they promptly did.

I can highly recommend The Corporation to anybody with an interest in politics, economics or social justice, and I was quickly hooked after reading the first chapter. If you’re short on time, I would recommend the documentary version, which does an excellent job of condensing the majority of the book’s topics into just a 140 minute DVD.

Hopefully I’ve given you all some food for thought there, so if anyone reading this has any comments or questions, feel free to leave a message below!

Edwards begins the book (as he and David Cromwell did in Guardians of Power) with a description of the propaganda model devised by Chomsky and Herman, but the similarities between the two works essentially end here. Edwards then begins to widen out the propaganda model to encompass the myriad of different areas where we face a constant barrage of control and manipulation, and where views are filtered to fit the state and business interests. Whether it be in our personal lives, our religious beliefs, or our ethics. Edwards relies not on simple ‘conspiracy theory’ or other shallow explanations, but to the systemic ‘filtering’ of unwanted ideas and opinions described in the propaganda model itself.

Edwards bases many of his ideas on Buddhist teachings, something which I admit I had my concerns about beforehand, although I can safely say that my initial misconceptions around Buddhism were soon shattered, as I realised that Buddhism is a world away from the conventional theistic religions, the ultimate goal being personal enlightenment, rather than belief or worship of a spiritual God.

Edwards uses many examples throughout the book, the most interesting in my opinion being the desolated day-tripper, a man who sets off on a day trip with his family, and then becomes overwhelmed with fear when he realises that he cannot explain why he is taking the trip. Edwards then takes us through this man’s life, looking at how his mind has been moulded from birth to conform in our society, and how the sudden realisation of his dissatisfaction with life manifests itself.

Edwards reserves special (and very accurate) criticism for our profit-driven capitalist system. A system which, as he points out elsewhere in the book, is concerned not just with satisfying (essentially false) needs and desires, but of creating the very dissatisfaction it aims to cure:

The forbidden truth is that we are living by a set of lies which are necessary for short-term profit, at the expense of human physical and psychological life and global environmental integrity. We are living in a system where power ensures that the requirements of profit take priority over the requirements of living things – including to know that this is the case. Consequently our freedom extends as far as, and no further than, the satisfaction of these requirements, with all else declared neurosis, paranoia, communism, extremism, the work of the devil,or Neptunian nonsense.

In addition to criticism of capitalism as a whole, Edwards has many excellent points to make about the damaging effects of the beauty industry and their exploitation of post-war feminism in the pursuit of profit. He states that the emergence of diet articles and plastic surgery have contributed to an increase in physical and mental disorders, as well as a great distortion in the way women have come to see themselves, and is a perfect example of the mass media’s power to manipulate. (For example, he quotes from Naomi Wolf’s book ‘The Beauty Myth‘, which states that between 1966 and 1969, in direct correlation to the media’s new fixation on thinness and perfection, the number of women who perceived themselves as being overweight rose from 50% to 80%.) I was also fascinated by Edwards’ suggestion that the literature we now perceive as important to society, for example Shakespeare and Orwell, may also be a product of the filtering system, in that unpopular historical works may be suppressed entirely, or not published at all, whereas literature which supports the dominant classes or the current socio-economic system is exalted as ‘classic’.

Edwards also discusses the indifference with which most of us treat conflict, poverty and inequality around the world, and how we now tend to psychologically distance ourselves from these horrors, remaining passive to atrocities such as the Indonesian invasion of East Timor. One of my favourite quotes in the book comes towards the end, where Edwards discusses the sometimes absurd rationalizations we create when something we are told, which in essence makes perfect sense, conflicts so completely with our ingrained beliefs and learned knowledge:

Having chosen one of these rationalizations, moments later we can be settling back in our chairs in the office, or in the pub, or in front of the TV, feeling as ‘comfortably’ as part of the ‘real’ world as before. We will have avoided conflict and disruption in our individual, familial, social and career lives; we may have avoided confronting the waste of years, or decades of effort and striving for a deluded dream in a profoundly immoral and brutal system. (The cliché of the transformation of young socialist into old conservative is not a change from idealism to pragmatism but from rationality to rationalization.) The cost of surrendering our reason to rationalization is that we will tend to reject ideas that allow access to a coherent understanding of the world, including it’s problems, including our problems.

In chapter three, Edwards criticises the belief in a cosmic father-figure (CFF), inherent in the great monotheistic religions, and then concludes that Atheism is just as dangerous because it provides ‘believers’ with the same certainty and security. This certainty then removes our need to look for answers to life, as our belief makes asking these questions unnecessary. Whilst I cannot argue at all with his reasoning on this point, Edwards then goes on to suggest that Atheism forms part of an ‘Unholy Trinity’ along with ‘Progress’ and ‘Consumerism’. Edwards’ reasoning appears to be that since Atheism does away with all spirituality, and emphasises the ‘pointlessness’ of existence, that consumerism and the idea of ‘having fun’ and satisfying our lusts will naturally take over as a result.

This was one area of the book were I did have some slight reservations. Whilst I would not argue that Atheism does have potential to fuel consumerism, I would counter that this is true of most mainstream beliefs. Therefore I can’t quite understand the assumed link between the three members of this ‘Unholy Trinity’ and why this is exclusive to Atheism.

I emailed Mr Edwards to congratulate him on an excellent piece of work, but also to question this link between Atheism and Consumerism. He very kindly responded with the following comments:

Incidentally, by “atheism” I really meant the assumption that life is ‘meaningless’, a happy (or unhappy) accident, that ethical norms are intellectual inventions with no grounding in anything beyond personal opinion, and so on.

To be sure, theistic religions have often been at the heart of systems of exploitation and violence, but they’re more useful for promoting servility and deference, less useful for promoting unrestrained hedonism. After all, they have traditionally (at least nominally) emphasised restraints on behaviour. Modern atheism promotes ‘Do as you please so long as you can get away with it.’ But that of course does not mean that theists are not often hedonists, or that theistic religions cannot also promote consumption.

My point was that atheism is really perfect for our kind of unrestrained consumer society where all values are subordinated to profit (as a matter of legal obligation for corporate managers). It also satisfies our conceit that we are scientific, rational creatures who have moved beyond all superstitious religious dogma. In fact there is no greater superstition than belief in the intrinsically existent self or ‘I’ – the new god at the centre of the materialist universe.

- Email from David Edwards  (22nd April 2010)

Free to be Human must rank as one of my favourite books, I doubt that any other author has sparked so much thought about my own existence and way of living, and I certainly see some aspects of myself in the desolated day-tripper, as I’m sure most people would. I can highly recommend this book as an effective antidote to the largely hidden ‘filtering’ system operating in the world today, and I will certainly be looking into the rest of Edwards’ work.

Update 22/04/10: Article updated with comments received from Mr Edwards.

Guardians Of Power – David Edwards & David Cromwell

Before I review this book, I’d like to give a little background to medialens and what they do. Medialens is a ‘UK-based media watch project’ who publish informed criticism of media bias and censorship, revealing the distorted view of the world which mainstream media often provides. Run by the aforementioned Edwards and Cromwell, they publish weekly media alerts and base their work on Chomsky and Herman’s 1988 book ‘Manufacturing Consent – The Political Economy of the Mass Media’. In addition medialens also encourage their readers to challenge individual journalists on their work, something which has gained them some enemies in the past. However they are also influenced by the Buddhist view that ‘while greed, hatred and ignorance distort reason; compassion empowers it’, which hopefully provides us with the means to create a peaceful society, along with a fair and balanced media.

This, their first book, represents a compilation of their media alerts on a wide range of subjects.They start by giving some background on Chomsky and Herman’s ‘Propaganda Model’ of the media, on which the project is based, along with some examples of how ownership and advertising can play a huge role in what we actually read. Here’s wikipedia’s brief summary:

The propaganda model is a theory advanced by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky that alleges systemic biases in the mass media and seeks to explain them in terms of structural economic causes.

It views the private media as businesses interested in the sale of a product — readers and audiences — to other businesses (advertisers) rather than that of quality news to the people. The theory postulates five general classes of “filters” that determine the type of news that is presented in news media. These five classes are: ownership of the medium, the medium’s funding sources, sourcing, flak and ‘Anti-communist ideology’. The first three are generally regarded by the authors as being the most important.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model

The authors make it quite clear that advertisers and owners are able to exert a high-level of control over their publications. In addition the pressure to retain advertisers, which medialens quote as providing 75% of their revenue, can necessitate self-censorship along with helping to decide which stories get coverage in the first place. For example, a newspaper may decide to omit any mention of carbon dioxide emissions from air travel if today’s edition also features a large cut-price flights promotion. A frightening thought indeed, but one which does occur frequently, largely unnoticed.

In coverage of news events, medialens ignore the right-wing and go straight for the UK ‘liberal’ media, beginning by exposing systematic failings in coverage of the Iraq war, along with the sanctions that preceded it. Their exchanges with former UN assistant secretary-general Denis Halliday and his criticism of the way in which sanctions were reported in the media were enlightening.

Their alerts covering the build up to the 2003 Iraq war again demonstrate how little a threat was posed by Saddam Hussein and his ‘weapons of mass destruction’, along with discussion of how certain (highly-qualified) voices were sidelined if their views didn’t quite match up with those of the establishment.

The book also features chapters on Afghanistan, Kosovo, climate change and the fight for independence in East Timor. All of which are truly excellent pieces of work. Towards the end the book makes a slight detour, concluding with suggestions for how the media can become more compassionate. The story of Helena Norberg-Hodge’s visit to the residents of Ladakh in Northern India really interested me, in that their way of life allowed them to be so happy and emotionally healthy whilst living in relative poverty, unaffected by the egotism and consumerism of the west.

I opened this book at 9am one day and quite honestly could not put it down until I’d finished it, it’s a fabulous wake up call to anyone who believes that we possess a honest and unbiased mainstream media. A second book was released this year called ‘Newspeak in the 21st Century’ and I can’t wait to get my hands on it.

I’d highly recommend that everyone visit the website and read some of their excellent work, subscribe to the weekly medialens alerts, and donate if you can.

Welcome to LRL09! (Photo Credit Solexious)

Well here we are again, another year, another LugRadio Live. For anyone who has never heard of it, LUGRadio Live is a community conference for supporters of Free and Open Source software.

Some big changes are taking place this year though, as the date had been altered from July to October, the venue has moved to the Newhampton Arts Centre just outside Wolverhampton, and unfortunately the conference is only for one day. Still, these points aside it remains an excellent event. Here’s a quick summary of what went on, and of the talks I attended:

Brock Craft – tinker.it

Brock is from London-based design-studio tinker.it, he spoke about the open-source hacking platform Arduino. Arduino was designed to be a cheap and easy method for learning about electronics and hardware hacking, and as a quick method for building devices. Brock gave examples of its usage by artists, designers and hobbyists, and it certainly seems like it could have many ingenious uses, including the RFID cat flap which Brock had built for his own feline friend.

Gervase Markham – Mozilla Drumbeat/BBC Basic

Gerv spoke firstly about Mozilla Drumbeat, which is essentially a grass roots campaign to keep the web completely open to all. Gerv mentioned net neutrality, the mobile web, and closed application stores such as the Apple app store as examples of threats to the web. The project’s motto is ‘people, ideas and action for a better internet’ and it’s certainly an admirable aim we should all support! In the spirit of the conference’s ‘back to basics’ theme Gerv then presented his first ever program, written at age 8, a ‘choose your own’ adventure style game written on a BBC Micro. Gerv is a charismatic and engaging speaker, and the presentation raised a few good chuckles from the crowd.

Matthew Somerville – MySociety

Matthew works for MySociety, a registered charity probably best known for their work with the Number 10 petitions website. Matthew spoke about the various projects they have undertaken over the past few years. These include TheyWorkForYou, which can alert users when their MP speaks in Parliament, and holds transcripts of Hansard from 1935 onwards. It has also recently started hosting videos of parliamentary proceedings. Closely related to this is WriteToThem, which allows anyone to contact their MP directly, and HearFromYourMP, which is essentially the opposite.

Matthew also spoke about some projects which are designed to make life easier for people and communities, for example FixMyStreet which allows members of the public to report problems such as potholes and graffiti to their local council quickly and efficiently. MySociety has produced some excellent and easy to use services and hopefully this will continue.

Brock Craft - Tinker.it

Des Burley – A Real Lawyer Speaks

Des works for the independent law firm Martineau, and came to speak about trademarks and licensing in free/open source software. He covered the reasons why people would want to trademark software, what can be covered/protected and the differences between trademarks and copyright. He also spoke about the harm that can be wreaked by patent holders, with the model railway software designed by Jacobsen being a good example.

Andy Robinson – OpenStreetMap

OpenStreetMap is a project designed to provide everyone with a complete, open and free mapping facility. I already had a little background info on OpenStreetMap from a talk given at Manchester Free software last year, but it was really interesting to see how far the project has come since it’s conception, and that we might soon reach a point where the information stored in the OSM database is of better quality than that of any mapping company. Andy also gave the interesting example of the work done in OSM to build the first complete and accurate map of the Gaza Strip, which was then being used in the humanitarian relief effort during the Gaza war in January this year.

Steve Lamb – The Changing Face of Work

Steve Works for Microsoft, but don’t let that put you off, honest! Steve has been at loads of the LRL events and always puts forward an excellent talk to present to us freedom-lovers. Steve spoke about giving employees more freedom and flexibility in their use of technology, whilst somehow creating a balance between work and home technology. He quite rightly suggested that it can be counter-productive if an employer forces specific tools or devices onto employees, and there were many excellent points to agree with.

Summary

The Twitterfall

The event was well organised this year, with the main stage featuring three big screens. One featured the presentation slides as they were delivered. One was used by an excellent portrait artist who sketched each speaker as they were on stage using the Gimp and a drawing tablet. The final screen featured a live twitter feed (or ‘twitterfall’), to which any conference attendee could tweet using the #lrl2009 hashtag, all tagged messages then appeared live on-screen. This produced some hilarious moments during and in-between talks, as ASCII drawings and abuse were consistently twittered by the delegates throughout the day. The conference music was excellent as always, with Rage Against the Machine, Paramore, Bowling for Soup, System of a Down and the Offspring all featuring prominently!

During the recording of the live show, the presenters announced that this really was the last LugRadio event, although it was later discussed that if someone else were to arrange the event next year, then the LugRadio presenters agreed to attend to provide another dose of their unique presenting style. So hopefully this won’t be the last we hear from the LugRadio crowd and I’ll be back in Wolverhampton next year!

OggCamp

UbuntuUK & LinuxOutlaws

With LugRadio Live having been cut down to just one day this year, it was obvious that someone would come along to fill the void. OggCamp is an ‘unconference’ (ie: an unorganised conference) where rooms are set aside and anyone can turn up and offer to speak on any free/open source related subject.

The event was held in the Connaught Hotel, around 10 minutes walk from the centre of Wolverhampton. The schedule of talks for the three rooms quickly filled up, and I attended a few fantastic presentations. I attended Tim Dobson’s presentation on his DFEY group, and Bruno Bord’s talk entitled ‘Explaining programming to my grandmother’. Although my favourite was presented by Andy Stanford-Clark with his talk on his ‘Twittering House‘ (as featured on the BBC) which tweets such events as power consumption, windows/doors opening, light/appliances being turned on/off, phones ringing, as well as other useful information about the house.

Unconference Schedule

His most recent addition being an SMS controlled Rudolph light display on his roof. This tied in with other cool little projects Andy had been working on, such as monitoring his local ferry using the ship’s radio frequencies which were then fed into Twitter, and eventually adopted by the ferry company as their live ferry update service, it was very entertaining to see how much could be achieved on such a small budget.

OggCamp certainly filled the void left behind the second day of LugRadio, and hopefully OggCamp will continue even if a LRL event can’t be arranged for next year. All in all, an excellent weekend, I met some nice new people, put some faces to names, and caught up with old friends. Roll on next year, in whatever form it takes!

Bernays was born in Austria in 1891, and was nephew of the renowned psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Bernays went on to become the father of modern Public Relations, and pioneered many of the PR techniques still in use today. Although rather than exploiting his uncle’s popularity, things surprisingly worked in the opposite direction, as at this time Freud was almost unknown outside his native Austria, and Bernays was to be instrumental in popularising Freud’s theories in the US, as they were inherently linked to Bernays’ own work within PR.

One of Bernays’ most famous successes was to break the taboo on women smoking. Whilst working for the American Tobacco Company in 1929, he staged a PR event to launch his so-called ‘Torches of Freedom’ campaign, which attempted (and largely succeeded) to convince women that smoking was a symbol of independence and freedom, and a protest for equality in society.

His book ‘Propaganda’, although written in 1928, is just as relevant today as when it was published, and although some of the examples are slightly dated, the basic principles of public relations remain almost unchanged to this day.

Bernays firstly documents the history of propaganda and it’s usage by governments around the world, and explains why the phrase itself fell into disrepute, mostly due to it’s heavy usage by the German’s in the first world war. Bernays believed that manipulation of the masses through PR was essential to create a properly functioning society:

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are moulded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.

Two of Bernays’ techniques interested me greatly, and can be spotted as a common fixture in today’s advertising-driven culture. The first was the theory that it was necessary to sell the ‘need’  for a particular product, rather than the product itself. He gave the example of a business struggling to sell pianos. Now, rather than advertising the piano itself, Bernays created the idea of a ‘music room’ which people could set aside within the home, he then organised to fill the publications of the day with features on the benefits of the music room, and ideas for furnishing such a room. This would inevitably create the ‘need’ for the piano to fill the space set-aside for it in the newly created room, and so vast swathes of the public had been manipulated into purchasing a product they essentially didn’t need, without even knowing it.

The second of Bernays’ techniques revolved around using a person in authority, who the public would inherently trust, to influence their purchasing decisions:

Suppose the old type of salesmanship, acting for a meat packer, was seeking to increase the sale of bacon. It would reiterate innumerable times in full-page advertisements: “Eat more bacon. Eat bacon because it is cheap, because it is good, because it gives you reserve energy.” The newer salesmanship, understanding the group structure of society and the principles of mass psychology, would first ask: “Who is it that influences the eating habits of the public?” The answer, obviously, is: “The physicians.” The new salesman will then suggest to physicians to say publicly that it is wholesome to eat bacon. He knows as a mathematical certainty, that large numbers of persons will follow the advice of their doctors, because he understands the psychological relation of dependence of men upon their physicians.

This kind of technique I’m certain is familiar to most people and although the public relations business still utilises the services of trusted professionals, nowadays it seems to rely much more heavily on celebrity endorsements, which I suppose signifies the much greater role they play in our lives and the importance we place on their opinions.

Bernays was obviously a highly-intelligent man, who possessed a deep understanding of psychology, psychoanalysis and sociology which he wielded to great effect, it’s certainly a testament to his work that people are still reading it 80 years on. Propaganda is an astounding and highly enjoyable book and as I said earlier it is just as important now (if not more so) than on it’s original release. If you’re interested, the full text can be read online here and here or purchased from here.

Noam Chomsky – Hegemony or Survival

Chomsky’s 2003 book is a summary of US foreign policy from the end of World War II up until the current Iraq War, examining America’s pursuit of global dominance and it’s terrible consequences. Chomsky expresses his view that although the attacks of 9/11 were shocking and deplorable, the biggest shock was that for the first time the guns were pointing in the opposite direction. My only criticism of this book was that due to the high volume of names, dates and figures, I found myself occasionally reading paragraphs twice. Nevertheless it was a fantastic book and I’d highly recommend it alongside the pocket book ‘Media Control’ as a excellent intro to Chomsky’s world view.

The Cold War – A Very Short Introduction

The ‘Very Short Introduction’ series from OUP provides an excellent foundation for exploring a subject, giving the reader a wide-ranging overview of events and opinions whilst attempting to maintain impartiality. This particular book is no exception, it begins by explaining the radical changes taking place after the end of the Second World War and going on to discuss how events all over the world, such as the wars in Vietnam and Korea, fueled tensions between the US and the USSR and how diplomatic measures were in full swing in an attempt to prevent a full-blown nuclear war. I’m almost at the end of this book and while almost all of the events took place before I was born, it has been very enjoyable history lesson for me.

British Politics Unravelled – Giles Edwards

I came across this little gem from 2005 whilst in my local library and whilst it’s now sadly out of print, I managed to find a copy for myself on eBay. It’s essentially a beginners guide to British Politics, covering important questions such as: How does the Constitution work?, What actually happens in No 10? and What is an early day motion? The book also has chapters on British Law, Elections, the EU, the Economy and even the Media. It discusses for instance, how a newspaper chooses it’s political allegiance, what the purpose of a party whip is, how ‘spin’ works, it even details the powers that exist within courts and local governments. In fact, the entire book is a goldmine of useful and interesting information, presented in an easy to understand and concise manner. I ended up tracking down Mr Edwards to congratulate him on a job well done, which isn’t something I have done with any other author. Politics isn’t exactly everybody’s cup of tea, but like it or not, it affects almost every aspect of our lives and if you have any interest in learning about the political process in the UK then this book should be at the top of your shopping list.

I have spent the last few months watching journalist John Pilger’s television documentaries, having first discovered his film-making through the 2007 award-winning “The War on Democracy”, an excellent account of US greed and it’s effects on Southern and Central America, including the events surrounding the US-backed coup d’état against Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez in 2002 and many other instances of US involvement in attempts to overthrow democratically elected governments around the world.

I became hooked on his work after purchasing “Documentaries which Changed the World”, the first DVD box set of his films, and have since snapped up the rest of the DVD’s. These include some classics ranging from ‘Burp’, which chronicles the history of the ‘ice cold war’ between Pepsi and Coke, ‘The New Rulers of the World’ examining the effects of globalisation on Asia, and ‘Stealing a Nation’ which tells the tragic story of the Chagos islanders, expelled from their homeland in the 1970′s by the British government, the Chagos having been given to the US in order for them to build a military base on the largest island, Diego Garcia.

I recently finished reading his 1998 book ‘Hidden Agendas’, a collection of essays on many subjects, some now outdated although many just as relevant today as when they were first written. Pilger states that he lives by the Claud Cockburn quote, ‘Never believe anything until it is officially denied’ and it certainly shows in all of his books and documentaries. Despite the dangerous places the ventures to, he remains determined to uncover the facts at all costs.

In his chapter on the Gulf war, Pilger shows how manipulation of the media during the conflict helped to steer the journalists in the right direction, encouraging them to focus on the new ‘high-tech weapons’ and the miraculously low US and UK casualties, therefore largely ignoring the hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths which occured during the conflict. Pilger also covers the devastating impact that the sanctions against Iraq had on the civilian population.

In the section on the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975 Pilger exposes not just the complicity of the UK government in the mass slaughter of civilians, but also that British manufacturers were arming the Indonesian army. The story of the Ploughshares and their acts of ‘military conversion’ using only hammers to destroy hawk jets destined for delivery to Indonesia was heartening, and showed that direct action against arms suppliers can be successful, their trial and subsequent aquittal can only reinforce this.

One of the most memorable sections is the two chapters on Burma and it’s brutal military regime, here Pilger’s reporting is undercover and has to be remain low-key to avoid detection by the authorities. Some of the interviews with ordinary citizens, although sometimes cut short, provide a fascinating insight into their lives under the Junta and just how bad things have gotten for them, as the west turns a blind eye to western oil and gas companies reaping the profits of Burma’s natural resources, being extracted via forced and even child labour. His interview with Burma’s elected leader in exile, Nobel Peace prize winner Aung San Suu Ki is deeply moving and shows the determination within Burma’s ‘National League for Democracy’ to return to a democratic system of government.

Chapters on the British media (including the rise of PR) and the docker’s strikes in the 80′s certainly filled gaps in my knowledge of issues so close to home, and gave excellent examples of how a monopoly over the mass-media can be abused and used to mould public opinion in any way imaginable.

In his writing and documentaries, Pilger joins Noam Chomsky in successfully exposing the depth of the government and media manipulations of the truth, challenging the ‘official’ and established versions of events. He opens your eyes to what is really going on around you, without a hint of scaremongering, and I highly recommend anyone interested in world affairs to purchase Pilger’s books and DVD’s right away, with “Documentaries which Changed the World” being an excellent starting point for further exploration of his work.

8.10 isn’t a massive release by any measure, there are only several noticeable improvements, although it seems that a lot of time and effort has gone into making this release as stable as possible. For me, even though 8.04 was a LTS (Long Term Support) release, it seemed to lack the stability that I had come to love in Ubuntu, applications would crash for no reason, and I had massive conflicts with Flash9, Firefox and Amarok all trying to hog the sound output, with no end of frustration caused.

Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop

8.10 is a fantastic return to form for the Ubuntu team, the addition of Flash10 (despite it’s proprietary evilness) is a welcome upgrade as it solves a lot of the issues that dogged my daily web browsing sessions. Network manager has had some major improvements, now supporting VPN, Wireless, DSL, and mobile 3G broadband services, through a nice (although sometimes confusing) screen.

There’s the usual updates to X.Org, the kernel and Nautilus, the latter now providing a nice tabbed browsing interface, probably not something I’ll use, but I’m sure some people will see great uses for this. Nautilus is also now more tightly integrated with Pidgin, meaning things like status messages can be updated through the Gnome panel, a nice little addition. Another upgrade to File Roller means that it supports many more compressed archive types, which saves wasting time installing different archiving applications.

We also have the addition of an optional encrypted private directory, meaning your sensitive files can now be stored and encrypted very easily, although with the advent of the 2000 Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which forces citizens to hand over their encryption keys/passwords if requested by the authorities, this facility may have lost a lot of it’s advantage for some users.

Another nice little feature is the built-in guest account, something I have previously had to create myself, which allows you to quickly launch a low privilege password-less account, with absolutely no access to the file-system, in case your mate needs to quickly check his or her email on your laptop.

All in all I have found 8.10 to be rock-solid so far, and really wish that 8.04 LTS had offered this same high level of stability!