Greetings from Matt Clarke!
Just FYI this is some of the publicity for the course I am giving in September.
The Spring session went well, but almost half the class were my old pals so I NEED new people. Please send me some!
It costs $25 to enroll and @$30 more for the course, which includes the cost of the Monks book, (the text for the course,) and a book equivalent on classic and current issues in handouts to read & discuss.
An announcement. First meeting Sept 23
Contact Person: Matt Clarke 594-6453 25 Suffolk St #4, Rockland ME 04841
New Senior Discussion Course Features Nationally Know Maine Authors on Current Crises of the Corporation and Capitalism
Attention Seniors! (age 55 up) Are you interested in the current crises in the corporation and capitalism like Enron and Subprime Mortgages? Then join us now for 8 to 10 multi-media study and discussion sessions this Fall. We delve below the news to clarify the root issues and key concepts.
Two nationally known Maine author-activists on “The Corporation and the New Capitalisms” are featured in a new “Study Circle” at Senior College Rockland that begins September 23. Tuesdays 1 pm to 3 or 3:30 pm. Room 404 for 8 to 10 weeks. (We decide.)
One is Robert A. G. Monks of Cape Elizabeth, whose new book is “Corpocracy: How CEOs and the Business Round- Hijacked the World’s Greatest Wealth Machine—and How to Get it Back”. Monks champions stock-owner and pensioner rights, and holds that “capitalism without (active) owners will fail.” Monks and his capitalist colleague John C Bogle’s views are that system is self destructing,—again,—and requires institutional and constitutional re-designs, not illegitimate bailouts.
Monks view is that failure control CEOs has now given us “CORPOCRACY, government by the corporation; that form of government in which the sovereign power resides in corporations, and is exercised either directly by them or by elected and appointed officials acting on their behalf.” Bogle call its economy “manager’s capitalism.”
The course opens with a DVD speech by Monks specially edited for this Study Circle by his Cape Elizabeth office. CORPOCRACY, the textbook for the course, is included in the fee as well as handout texts from a wide spectrum of views. Sessions feature other speakers on DVDs, power point presentations, and plenty of discussion.
Monks, is a a capitalist guru, an entrepreneur, a former Maine Republican Chair and U. S. Senate candidate (Senator Collins beat him in the primary) and a philanthropist. (See www.ragm.com).
The other Mainer is Peter Kellman, a principal founder of the group www.POCLAD.org, the Program on the Corporation Law and Democracy. It is known for discovering and bringing to public attention the idea that a constitutional illegitimacy, corporate-personhood, has given the corporation its excessive powers, and that this must be abolished, and democratic values asserted. Selections from his work and an interview are shown.
Kellman a Maine labor activist, aims at asserting radically democratic control over Monks “corpocracy” by use of local ordinances. Control means limiting corporate speech to prevent corporations such as Wal Mart or Beverage Corporations from paying to collect votes during initiatives or other electoral matters, a practice that stifles or dilutes the voting powers of real-person citizens. Right now we have a State case of this actually happening. Key Supreme Court cases are at issue.
Many more authors, cases, and events, are discussed selected from the entire intellectual history of our political economy. The class is then asked to select a set of policy preferences from a wide spectrum.
For more information, call the Instructor, Matt Clarke 594-6453. To register early and join Coastal Senior College, call the office, 1 800 286-1594 at 91 Camden Street which also houses University College at Rockland. Fall Catalogue on line is at www.coastalseniorcollege.org.
