**Actually from a class I took whose topic was zombies in America.**
Capitalism allows the control of corporations around the world, most specifically within the United States, to create a population of wage slaves who not only enable those corporations to grow larger and control more, but also contribute to the collective decline in national and world wide quality of life and individual freedom. These corporations' emphasis on the importance of material wealth leads to people exalting not only possessions, but the money that allows them purchasing power. With people thinking primarily of what they can buy, worrying about debt due to credit cards education or medical bills, and fretting over holding onto the jobs which allow them to keep health insurance, they stagger through life occasionally groaning to one another about the price of gas, the currently most tweeted pop superstar, a recent professional sports game, or which state of the art newly released technological gizmo they're saving their money to purchase. Blinded by the above, the majority of the country's (and the world's) citizens don't realize they are enslaved. They aren't aware that by upgrading their phones bimonthly, spending hours watching television, accepting what major news sources tell them, and idolizing reality TV stars, they are allowing personal freedoms and, quite frequently, genuine happiness to pass them up. By dutifully working nine to five jobs, and by thoughtlessly paying their taxes, they are contributing to their own zombification. Though they may be aware that the money they pay for health care and the debt they accrue via credit cards and loans also serve to keep them subservient and that a subservient population is exactly what the monopolizing companies and government want, they the majority do little to nothing-- because they're scared. They're scared that uniting and revolting against a corrupt system will lose them the jobs that allow them to send those minimum payments, thus losing their coveted health insurance, and in the end forcing them to succumb to the crushing debt seventy percent of Americans face (U.S. News). In a 2007 interview with film maker Michael Moore, Tony Benn, a former member of British Parliament said, "…there are two ways in which people are controlled; first of all frighten people and secondly demoralize them. An educated, healthy, and confident nation is harder to govern (Sicko)." For fear of accruing debt, most Americans are uneducated, for lack of health insurance they are unhealthy, and because of their government's war mongering they are not confident. A population paralyzed by fear and lacking affordable education, health care, and confidence are demoralized and controlled-- nothing but zombies, shuffling through each day lifeless and wanting.
Many examples of the the melding of corporations and government can be found with little or no effort, but for brevity's sake the following paper will address only a few. It will also discuss literary works and films which approach those government abuses by utilizing the figure of the zombie and allowing Americans to see themselves reflected in the faces of the undead-- the virus causing their infection being Capitalism itself.
One of the major corporations whose finances have been and most probably still are tangled up with government officials is Halliburton, one of the world's largest oilfield services companies. In 1992 when the Pentagon paid the Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root nine million dollars to create a report (which was classified) describing how privately owned companies (such as Halliburton itself) could minister "logistical support" for US soldiers in zones where wars were deemed possible throughout the world, Dick Cheney was the Secretary of Defense (the person in charge of allotting these funds) (GAO Report). Not long after this report, Brown & Root were given a five-year contract by the Pentagon to provide logistics for the Army Corps of Engineers. Via this contract Halliburton made approximately two point two billion dollars (GAO Report). This was just the beginning however, because following his service as Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney then went on to become CEO of Halliburton and held that position from 1996 to 1998, and from February to August in the year 2000-- rather suspiciously, less than a year before the start of a war which has lasted over eleven years. Also, from 2001 to, at the very least, 2005 Cheney was being paid a deferred salary from Halliburton in the range of hundreds of thousands of dollars (Turnipseed). Halliburton and its subsidiaries provided meals to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as delivered fuel to bases in both countries-- grossly overcharging for both. It was revealed that Cheney was reaping huge benefits from Halliburton's involvement in the war and in 2002 it was also revealed that Halliburton was overcharging for their services and partaking in tax fraud (Newsweek). Yet, this crooked, major corporation is still allowed to gain huge profits from a war which was both designed to be and seems to be never-ending against a foe who is named only as "terror."
Similarly, major credit card corporations influence government officials in equally as insultingly obvious ways. In 2001 and 2002 Providian Financial, a large credit card company, was caught defrauding its card holders (Koudsi 143-7). Providian would hold payment checks from customers until after the payment due dates which would cause their accounts to accrue a late fee and if the account was put over limit by that late fee, an additional over limit fee. Once these fees had been added to the account, frequently the interest rate would skyrocket as well and finance charges would increase burying in debt any card holder who was not closely examining their invoice each month (Maxed Out). (Note that Providian's holding of the checks being the only illegal aspect here. The rest of the actions taken are standard to most credit card companies.) Two years after their being caught in illegal activities, then president George W. Bush, decided to appoint someone to police corporate criminals. The person he chose was Larry Thompson, a directer of Providian Financial. The connections unfortunately don't stop there. One of Bush's top campaign contributors was MBNA, a bank holding company, which was at that time the country's second largest credit card issuer. In fact, in 2005, Bush endorsed the Bankruptcy Bill, which made it much more difficult for the average American to bounce back from bankruptcy-- this bill was written by MBNA (Consumer Affairs). These are all facts available to the public, but yet again, these corporations are still allowed to openly dispense massive sums of money to politicians and unfairly add charges to customer credit accounts.
The health care industry in America is another contributor to the creation and upkeep of the American zombie public. One in four Americans don't have health insurance, and approximately eighteen thousand die per year because they don't (Morgan). Even people who do have health insurance do not always get the care they need because the corporations they pay to insure them frequently refuse to cover necessary treatments. The power of the Managed Health Care System isn't imagined, nor are its origins difficult to trace. There are four times as many health care lobbyists than there are members of congress and in 2003 George W. Bush passed something called the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act which allowed drug companies to charge whatever they pleased and for insurance companies to be the middle man between patients and medications (H.R. 1 (108th)). Remarkably, fourteen congressional aids who worked on the Medicare Act quit after it was passed and began working for health insurance or pharmaceutical companies. One congressman, Billy Tauzin, resigned from congress and became CEO of the lobbyist group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America making over two million dollars a year (Sicko). Of course in the past politicians with good intentions have suggested universal healthcare and each time were immediately labeled Socialists trying to make the US a Socialist country. Those whose interests laid in keeping health care privatized induced the fear of Socialism-- compared it to Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and told Americans they would have no freedom if they allowed the government to control their health care. (Never mentioning of course that they already do.) Paralyzed by fear, the population trusted those in power and the corrupt politicians rid themselves of the threat of universal healthcare. Somehow, these enormous corporations and the politicians they've purchased are still running rampant in 2012, while the citizens they swindle continue to elect and to pay them.
Having ties to members of government is one way for corporations to heavily influence occurrences and make obscene amounts of money in and out of the country. Another way to gain and keep control is by becoming so enormous that governments are either unable or unwilling to put the corporation in check. Exxon Mobile, while also being closely connected to politicians (namely the Bush family), falls into this category as well. According to Forbes Magazine Exxon is the largest and most profitable public corporation in the world as of April 2012 (Forbes). It funds several right wing/conservative think tanks such as the Heartland Institute, which openly decrees that global warming is not taking place and that if it were it would be a positive development for the planet. Exxon also funds (with millions of dollars) the conservative Heritage Foundation and American Legislative Exchange Council, as well as the libertarian Cato Institute, all three being think tanks which lobby for oil companies and against federal policy restrictions on their business practices (Corporatewatch). Exxon has its metaphoric hands in Australia, Europe, Peru, Ecuador, Russia, the US, Nigeria, Chad, Indonesia, and Colombia (just to name a few) and has displaced indigenous peoples, caused massive environmental catastrophes, destroyed previously nearly pristine wildernesses, and discharged toxic waste into the sea-- all of this going virtually unchecked by the United States government or the majority of its citizens.
These zombie forming groups don't always go unrecognized however. There are artists of all sorts who see the corruption just below the surface and use zombie fiction to display modern society's faults clearly. As a symbol of superficial human attributes, George Romero used zombies to make a statement with Dawn of the Dead which suggested that mall goers were already zombies and with the entire Dead series that indifference, materialism, sexism, and racism are far more dangerous and abhorrent than undead monsters who want to eat your flesh. Main character Peter (Ken Foree) says in Dawn when asked what the zombies are,"They're us that's all, there's no more room in hell." Shaun of the Dead does similar work while also depicting everyday life and the people around us as so like zombies that were they to actually become undead monsters, it may take us some time to even notice. Another film, 28 Days Later, while also taking pains to exhibit the danger of human nature over that of zombies, includes one particularly interesting shot when the two main characters are trying to reach flashing lights on an apartment complex. When they approach, the hall leading to the stairs is filled with shopping carts which act as a barricade. The two main characters climb over it, but a man who is being chased and runs up after them isn't quite as lucky. This can easily be interpreted as a statement about consumerist culture as a barricade from awareness and ultimately security. Fido, yet another zombie film, comments on the concept of security as well. In this movie's society, zombies have been domesticated and made into status symbols by a corporation which controls every aspect of the small town it's set in. Basically, "Zomcon" has used the zombie threat as a way to control a population-- telling its people that without its help they would cease to exist, instilling fear to gain control. This is strikingly similar to the US government and large corporations' holds on American citizens. Author Colson Whitehead with his novel Zone One, set a significant amount of time post zombie apocalypse, makes several references to pre apocalypse humans as zombies while also showing his readers that too much trust in government will get you killed. He creates types of zombies called "stragglers" who are reminiscent of Romero's mall walking zombies. Stragglers linger in familiar settings, the bulk of them mindlessly haunting former work places much as they did when alive (52). The main character, Mike Spitz, even compares interpersonal relationships to zombie-like actions saying,"We never see other people anyway, only the monsters we make of them (214)." Among these comments on human thoughts and actions, Whitehead also speaks to American society as a whole. In a conversation about why the zombie apocalypse happened in the first place, a character called the Lieutenant states,"It picks us out of our robotic routine, what they called my dad before they pulled the plug: persistent vegetative state. Comeuppance for a flatlined culture (217)." World War Z is of course another literary work which addresses the state of human society. In this piece however, eventually human beings survive, but only because they unite for a common good. Brooks seems to be asking though, if humans are really worth all the devastation they cause everywhere they exist. He visits the thought that humanity is the flesh eating monster and challenges readers to prove otherwise.
Though most entertainment media sources depict zombies as the foul, rotting undead impossibly walking around and reeking havoc on society; credit card companies, big pharma, Halliburton, and Exxon (just to name a few) are well aware that this is not the case. They know, that with their business practices, with mind numbing reality TV, with innumerable forms of technology making real human contact unnecessary, and with advertising literally everywhere a person exists, they produce automatons-- people who don't think for themselves but are vulnerable to sneaky suggestion. In our capitalist society where free enterprise is taken advantage of to the highest extreme they, with the help of the government, create a form of zombie out of living human beings. The American government (as well as world government) has been purchased by corporations. People who hold, have held, or will hold government offices have and are receiving money from and funding wars around the world, accepting bribes from multi million dollar Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs), allowing major credit card companies to influence public policy making, and telling the news broadcasters what to tell us to keep us frightened yet docile. Direct results of this deplorable behavior are huge populations of people believing that the whole of the September eleventh attacks were perpetrated by foreign "terrorists", accepting the "official" report stating that the solid steel reinforced Twin Towers "collapsed due to fire", not questioning the fact that thousands of low income and African American voters were disenfranchised during the 2000 presidential elections, allowing their government to spend their tax money on professional sports stadiums rather than on keeping Post Offices open or on funding Public Schools, and consuming the over processed poison grocery store stocks labeled as food. Surely live, conscious human beings couldn't witness the desperation evident throughout society without knowing something is dreadfully awry. Surely a man being trampled and killed in a swarm of black Friday, Wal-Mart, shopping-hysterical, robots would be a mighty clear indication that our society is fundamentally ill. But they aren't conscious, and although buried somewhere deep they're probably aware things are bad, they don't notice all that much because… they're zombies. Hypnotized by technology, poisoned by greed, killed with the illusion of choice, buried in debt, and reanimated as the average American consumer existing in a cultureless society built to crumble.
Capitalism is not a totalitarian or tyrannical form of domination. It primarily spreads its effects through indifference (that can be compared to the zombie’s essential lack of protagonism). It is not what capital does, but what it doesn’t do or have: it does not have a concept of society; it does not counteract the depletion of nature; it has no concept of citizenship or culture; and so on. Thus it is a slave morality that makes us cling to capital as though it were our salvation—capitalism is, in fact, what we bring to it.
-Zombies of Immaterial Labor: The Modern Monster and the Death of Death
Lars Bang Larson
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