Today’s links A taxonomy of corporate bullshit: The six lies they’ve always told. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2003, 2013, 2018, 2022 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading A taxonomy of corporate bullshit (permalink) There are six lies that corporations have told since time immemorial, and Nick Hanauer, Joan Walsh and Donald Cohen’s new book Corporate Bullsht: Exposing the Lies and Half-Truths That Protect Profit, Power, and Wealth in America* provides an essential taxonomy of this dirty six: https://thenewpress.com/books/corporate-bullsht In his review for The American Prospect, David Dayen summarizes how these six lies “offer a civic-minded, reasonable-sounding justification for positions that in fact are motivated entirely by self-interest”: https://prospect.org/culture/books/2023-10-27-lies-my-corporation-told-me-hanauer-walsh-cohen-review/ I. Pure denial As far back as the slave trade, corporate apologists and mouthpieces have led by asserting that true things are false, and vice-versa. In 1837, John Calhoun asserted that “Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually.” George Fitzhugh called enslaved Africans in America “the freest people in the world.” This tactic never went away. Children sent to work in factories are “perfectly happy.” Polluted water is “purer than the water that came from the river before we used it.” Poor families “don’t really exist.” Pesticides don’t lead to “illness or death.” Climate change is “beneficial.” Lead “helps guard your health.” II. Markets can…Pluralistic: A taxonomy of corporate bullshit (27 Oct 2023)