(Underlined phrases in this article are links to further explanations of those terms)

Why Does Using The Collective Contract Matter So Much?

The Collective Contract controls the power that corporations get from the money you pay them. Why is controlling the power they get from your payments, such a big deal politically?

Think about the harm that is happening because people do not control the power they hand on, up the line, to corporations, moguls and financiers, whenever they pay cash at the till or digits through PayPal or via their credit card. When you do not use the Collective Contract, you are engaging in that power transfer and all the subsequent harm it causes.

It is all too easy to think that the problems near by and far away have nothing to do with the money we ourselves spend from day to day. Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

The money we spend in malls & high-streets, over the internet, at petrol stations; the money we put into banks or pay to insurance companies — collectively, these payments generate all of the severe problems we are facing — politically, environmentally, socially and economically.

Problems like the loss democracy, the erosion of civil liberties, the expansion of state surveillance, the installation of dictatorships around the world, the terrible poverty, deprivation, inequality, the lack of education, unfair wages and working conditions— and the almost unceasing wars — all of this is the result of our payments to corporations. Beyond the realm of political effects — the same small acts of payment are also responsible for the poisoning of the environment, the destruction of the natural climatic balance of the planet, and the loss of countless species.

“How can all this be coming from my spending money in shops?” I hear you ask.

It works like this. The money each of us pays in the course of our ordinary daily activities, ends up accumulating in corporations, to the tune of many many billions of dollars. This stuff you call money isn’t just paper, coins or digits — it is raw political power. So, if you believe when you donate this stuff at the petrol pump or in a bank, that you are just transferring paper money or coins, you are totally wrong. You are doing far more. What you are doing is generating political power in a political organization called a corporation.

This power is then used to create political agendas and policies. Examples in the recent past are the war in Iraq, the war in Vietnam, and a little further back — the American overthrow of democracy in Iran in 1953, at the behest of the major oil companies. This power-transfer into the corporations also produces a vast range other not so obvious effects, like militarization of the police, as we have seen in Ferguson USA, in Gezi in Turkey — and all around the world.

While this power you generate in the corporations may create wealth for a few, for short periods in some local areas of the globe, it also simultaneously creates lasting poverty across large areas, for far greater numbers. While a small number of people become hugely rich, the same empowerment of the corporations by your seemingly innocuous payments, produces catastrophic financial melt-downs, like the one we have all just been through. In fact — try this, go to any policy pursued by your government, that is harmful, and you will find a corporation or a group of corporations are behind it.

The truth is, we gave these corporations that power, when we paid for goods and services but we did not put any limit on how that political power could be used by them.

This problem, that money paid to corporations becomes unvoted political power, is a fundamental glitch in the democratic system. Elsewhere we have described this problem as ‘democracy’s missing link’. This missing link in democracy is the reason why no matter who you vote for, the policies they pursue in government always remain those of the dominant corporate interests. And its also the reason why well intended revolutions, like those we have seen in Egypt, always revert back to the situation, they had attempted to escape from.

If we control this non-consensual transfer of power into the corporations, all the problems that are caused by it, will stop. This is a really big deal politically and environmentally. Solving these political and environmental problems is about stopping what are already doing — but are blind to.

The way to stop this bleed of power into the corporations involves putting terms and conditions on how your money can be used by corporations. This is exactly what The Collective Contract does. This solves the problem at its source. This is why this solution is neat, so effective and so elegant. It stops it from ever becoming a problem.

If we do not stop the problem at source, we have deal with it, when it gets big — in the form of tyranny, climate change, corruption, pollution and war — and dealing with it when it has developed into these forms, means armies, violence, surveillance, torture. In short, it means untold suffering, loss, pain and misery for millions of people. And this is exactly what we see around us <in the world.

This is why The Collective Contract is so important. The price of not using it is climate change, war, oppression and untold suffering. Let’s stop funding that, shall we?