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E<\/span>arlier this year my colleague David Boyle and I published a New Weather pamphlet called The Absent Corporation in which we explained our (then) daring theory that the modern giant global corporation now treats its customers with contempt and neglect as a matter of course.<\/p>\n We explained that such corporations were now virtual monopolies in fields like banking, airlines, communications, and increasingly, retail. They are not going to acquire more customers- they have most of the available supply. And customers are therefore a cost, not a benefit. Dealing with them and their tedious complaints costs money which- in the way of the modern corporation- is much better going to shareholders and very senior management.<\/p>\n Our pamphlet enjoyed modest success. No one quarrelled convincingly with our radical theory that human beings, so used to \u2018the customer is always right,\u2019 are now to be bled from every angle and then treated as \u00a0costs to be cut rather than assets to be cosseted.<\/p>\n But it turns out we did not go far enough. We did not, for instance predict that these huge corporations would take to attacking their customers physically.(United Airlines).We did not realise that car hire companies(Europcar) could be accused by a major tabloid of institutionalising \u00a0false vehicle damage claims which customers are forced to pay. We did not foresee the ground rent scandal which so benefits major house builders and ruins the people who have bought new houses from them.<\/p>\n But most of all we did not foresee the Ryanair scandal.<\/p>\n