COMMON SENSE II

Finished Su 12/18/16

By The Peoples Bicentennial Commission    

"Tom Paine's Common Sense sparked the American Revolution 200 years ago. This Book sounds the alarm against today's tyrants- The Giant Corporations"

This is one of my paperbacks. The flyleaf doesn't mention when I last read it, but I was shocked to find that my father had written a rather lame summation at the end of the book. Needless to say, he thought that the 'men in the gray suits' were doing a fine job steering our obviously unfair economy. I must have gotten him to take a look at this fine book, and he missed the point entirely.

"Five years after its founding, the People's Bicentennial Commission is using an economic analysis to unify and reform American workers. The Commission was founded in 1970 by Jeremy Rifkin to provide "revolutionary alternatives for the Bicentennial years."Apr 28, 1975".

Jeremy Rifkin's page at wikipedia-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Rifkin

The premise of the book is that there is no earthly reason why corporate charters could be changed so that Fairness and The Common Good could replace Profits as their primary motivation. I think that the authors make the case that most people in colonial times believed that the aristocracy was ordained by god. Today, most people feel that the structure of the contemporary corporation is god given. Both positions are complete fallacy.

And, clearly the treatise makes the case that the American worker is not being properly compensated for the labor provided. The book also shows that if the common worker was given more responsibility and 'free reign' in the work place he'd be even more productive. Thus, most of the corporate hierarchy is completely unnecessary.

This is a very short book and I read it during the 'Amazing Ice Storm of December, 2016', and I think that it should be required reading for high school students. Certainly it provides a strong antidote to the Free Market nonsense that is currently in vogue.