The Corporations

I agree with this, but I can easily see why we do it. When talking about politics, we assume we're talking about government, and though corporations themselves are not bad, the combination of them and government usually is. (Similar with religion: we criticize it, but the real problem is when it gets entrenched in law and war and whatever else.)

I agree with this being a lazy label. I heard an activist actor say something along the lines of "The Corporations are ruining the world" recently and all I could think was that he was living off of his residual checks which were the result of all the corporations he'd worked for over the years. (Were those not as bad or was he able to live in denial or was he just grabbing for hot button words so he didn't have to make a more detailed argument?)

You want to rail against consolidation of power in the hands of increasingly fewer corporations or whether a corporation should have the same rights as an individual under the law and I'm more than willing to hear you out. But just saying "the corporations" and expecting me to respond like you said "Hitler" and I pretty much write it off. It's kind of like the types that use "Repuglicans" and "the S-P conspiracy." It immediately makes me doubt the depth of your knowledge about whatever you're complaining about. Discourse has been far too cheapened by the use of lazy labeling.

People are really pissed off about the system, but they don't talk in terms like "incentivizing ethics," so what you get is blame for corporations in general. You miss out on how to a spirited debate on how to fix the system, but at least you have a face to put to your anger. It's certainly the lazy intellectual argument to make, but when was politics ever the place for an intellectual debate?

http://www.thecorporation.com/

EDIT: or just watch it here.

Says it better than I could hope to.

I think that film puts forth exactly the sort of argument we're talking about here.

Excellent documentary. Though actually I dont think its a development thats going to get reversed any time soon, or at all. The power of fear, of job security and of money is just too big today. How many, even outraged by some things corps like Blackwater pull off, would stand up and say something if it costs them their job ?

The film, puts forth a much more well researched and eloquent argument then simply saying "corporations are evil", which isn't really the point the film is getting at, nor is the film claiming that there's some sort of corporate conspiracy. And just to be clear we're talking about big industry here, not the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The point of the film can't really be argued with. And that is that the cogs of industry and commerce are there for just that purpose: profit. Corporations do not create wealth And how do they gain said profit? Well they don't get it by planting trees and keeping our rivers and lakes free of pollution and doing whatever else they can do to otherwise assure the continued success of life on this planet.

And who ultimately benefits from the enormous profit generated by corporations? Very very few individuals.

Why is this a problem? Why does this get boiled down by so many people today into such a simple blanket statement such as "corporations are bad"? Because the interests of corporations are directly against the interests of the majority.

Actually a lot of that film is ranting about how EVIL corporations are. Of course they're out to make a profit. That's hardly scandalous.

Sure, there's some valuable info in the film as well. It put me off non-organic milk.

In general, they profit by offering a product or service that people want and then engaging in voluntary exchange.

That money has to come from somewhere, and they have to keep somebody happy in order to keep making it (unless they are propped up by a government, and they very often are, but that's a different problem).

Way to go, Frank. You just HAD to make a thread that would bring Uncle Retard back.

It was bound to happen. Let's see if we can arrange a cage match between Uncle and Copperlocke.

I take your point, Frank, and it is a bit of rhetorical laziness on the left, but as I see it, the complaint is not so much that corporations are evil, or even that corporations misbehave, but that the entire system seems to be tilted toward giving Corporations infinite power, much more than private citizens have, in the name of maximizing profits. It's a distortion of free market economics that conservatives (and even most liberal politicians) endorse.

I'd be interested in seeing a conservative response to the Corporation documentary (which I recommend to everyone I meet as THE essential political manifesto DVD). An Amazon reviewer reccomended this as a good counterpoint to the book version of The Corporation.

Yeah, I'm not saying that the consumer holds no responsibility, however (just to give some examples) I'm sure the consumer who wants to buy a new car isn't thinking "hey I want to buy a product that runs on a fuel source which pollutes the earth and adds to the effects of global warming", or that they won't buy their Nikes unless they were made in a factory in China where workers only get paid ten cents an hour.

What does the consumer want but quality and convenience? If corporations were to be more honest about the harmful effects they and their products were having on the planet and made considerable effort to make more environmentally safe products available, affordable and convenient for consumers, you don't think people would be lining up to buy?

Consumers alone do not set trends.

Please forgive me if I don't have a lot of sympathy for "the corporations." It's not like corporations own the media and the government ... oh wait.

The truth is, FC, you do have a point, but we are all only human. All of us live in constant war between our best and worst inclinations. A kid who grows up in gang territory will see gangbangers with money and nice cars and a taste of the "good life," and it takes moral courage, a clear vision of one's place in a community, and an extraordinary amount of will to resist the temptation to become a gangbanger himself. There's no immediate reward for living life on the straight and narrow.

In simplified terms, corporate executives and stockholders are in the same position as kids growing up in gang-infested neighborhoods. How they choose to use their wealth and power really comes down to the same moral courage, sense of community, and sheer force of will as the kid facing the prospect of joining a gang.

So, how are they faring?

Well, the 1% richest Americans make more than 50% of the rest of us, and you can't argue that money buys influence in the government and outright ownership of the media, the so-called "fourth estate." The middle class is disappearing. More people live in poverty. We're in a war that is costing all of us billions, and after five years, what do those billions buy us? Nothing. What do they buy the corporations doing business in and with Iraq? Riches beyond their wildest dreams and increased odds at controlling policy. And that's not even getting into slow-motion cancer of outsourcing.

So, yeah, blaming "the corporations" sounds lazy because obviously not every corporation gives in to the level of venality available to them, but enough of them do that it gives them all a bad name.

'The corporations' is just shorthand, like 'politicians'.

I agree. The corporation act as a shield for those base impulses of human nature to run wild and unchecked. The corporations people own or work for provide a shield of anonymity and legality to said individuals. So these people do things they would not normally do, if they were acting on their own.

Frank, I think you have a good point in that there are some companies that need to be reigned in more than others, and that it is lazy to go after an amalgamation of all corporations as the bogey man. My major complaint is with corporations in general is the way that they are chartered and the powers the law gives a corporation once chartered. If you are running a company that essentially has the same rights as a person, there should be some basic safeguards put in place which at least will result in your corporate charter being dissolved if you break the rules/behave badly. For example, if you cause huge environmental damage, you lose your corporation status and individuals within the company responsible for the disaster get exposed to the full weight of the inevitable lawsuits, etc., etc.

Having an advanced economy like we do in the West just means that, if you are of a mind to do it, there are more opportunities to take advantage of your fellow man than there were in the past. The "richest 1%" arguement really boils down to how people feel about how those individuals got that rich. For every dude who is getting uber rich, there are several thousands of us who have retirement plans based on the fates of those same corporations who made that dude rich. For every Exxon, there's a PBS.

The division/specialization of labour has driven us to a point where the corporation could be created. Human corruption may have made it so that a corporation can act seemingly unfettered, and there are corrupt people who want to take advantage of you that use corporations to do so. But that really has more to do with a select group fo people than corporations in general.

Here's a (re-pinted) small primer about corporate charters and power in case people were confused when I mentioned about corporations existing as people in the eyes of the law: http://www.nancho.net/corperson/adbcorpI.html

I think Frank made the crucial point, and then skipped rght over it:

Actually, that's not the same thing at all. It's acknowledging that the system is problematic, and that we're all contributing to it, and thus, that we are the ones who are capable of making a change.

It may be true that blaming "evil corporations" is reductive, but unfortunately the way things are set up, the opportunity for corporations--yes, corporations in general--to act unethically and to contribute to societal malaise is unacceptably vast. In fact, I'd say we're at the point where it's much harder for a largish company to act ethically than it is for them to add to the world's problems--no matter how well-intentioned the individuals who run that company.

The two big problems are bloat and inertia. The economic system, via the stock market, rewards unfettered growth, to the point where a company that's a solid, consistant earner can see its stock drop for failing to increase profits, while a flash-in-the-pan company that triples its size overnight but may be declaring bankrupcy in six months is considered a good investment. The internet bubble was an extreme example of this warped system, but on a larger scale, the same thing is happening. I'm no economist, but it seems like the recent housing market problems stem from the same issue: growth today, collapse at some unspecified future point that won't affect me. Investors and businesspeople are able, and even encouraged, to get in, make a mint, and get out, without a thought to what kind of an economic mess they're leaving behind them.

The trouble is that corporations are becoming so widespread that a collapse affects thousands of "little people". If we were talking about more reasonably-sized, community-based companies, there'd be some impetus for stability. But increasingly it seems like you can't even choose to be a mid-sized business; you have to either expand to compete with the big boys, or get crushed or absorbed by them. And having a handful of huge companies control your consumer options is, obviously, putting a limitation on consumer choice. Media companies are the most obvious example; we're getting to a somewhat creepy place where there's more and more that people in the media can't say for fear of upsetting some other arm of the corporate octopus to which they belong. It's not censorship in the classic sense, it's just complicating what ought to be a straightforward job.

Plus, of course, the bigger a company gets, the more emphasis gets placed on profit at any cost. A small or mid-level company, without any other corporate obligations, can make quality or low price or community ties a major priority, but the bigger you get, the more you're beholden to a series of masters, including shareholders, and the less freedom you have to make a choice that might limit your profits. A CEO who says, "Well, I had a chance to make a few billion dollars for the company, but I'm convinced that the process involved would have had long-term negative repurcussions for the economy or the environment" is going to find himself out on the street pretty fast. This means you have to start sinking to the same level of your competitors if they, for instance, save on manufacturing costs by having their shoes made in third-world sweatshops. (Which, by the way, is the moral issue with outsourcing.)

Even someone like Richard Branson, who's made social and environmental responsibility part of his brand, is still making his basic profits off of air travel, which is a major contributor to global warming.

And the really frustrating part is that the things that capitalism is supposed to be encouraging--technological innovation and economic adaptability--seem to get smothered by huge multinational corporations, which benefit off the status quo. I hate to sound paranoid, but is it really a coincidence that it's taken so long to move away from oil-powered transport? It's not even conspiracies I'm talking about, it's the fact that no one seems to want to put a lot of money and energy into researching alternatives. A car that runs on dandelions might make someone a lot of money in the long run, but again, everyone's focused on THIS year's bottom line. They don't want to struggle for ten years to create something that will then very slowly turn a profit, no matter how much it will benefit society.

So, yeah, it's a broad generalization to criticize "the corporations", but it's not neccessarily unfair. They're the beneficiaries of a broken system. Just as there are broad criticisms you could make of "The Reds", "The Politicians", "The Lawyers", et. al., there are problems that seem to be inherent to multinational corporations, and it's fair to call them on that.

I'll agree to that. My main point is that there seems to be an event horizon where a company goes from providing all the benefits capitalism is supposed to bring to smothering those same benefits. And yeah, it does seem to be an across-the-board problem with the way corporations function. Clearly it's not the work of some cackling mastermind in a dimly lit room somewhere, anyway. The Enron guys weren't evil geniuses, they just managed to rationalize horrible behaviour because their jobs depended on keeping the money flowing in. There was no real single person who could have put the brakes on what was happening without bringing the whole company down--not to minimize the illegal behaviour that was going on, but it seems like both the opportunity to juke the numbers and the pressure to do so were far too strong.

This is why I say the system is broken. If we're going to rely on the free market to push society in beneficial directions, you can't have it fighting against the law. I understand the problems created by governments saying "OK, you're making too much money, you have to stop it," but I don't see any other solution.

Double post... hopefully not a triple. d'oh@

I'm no where near as articulate and informed as Prankster but I'll respond as well as I can...

I think it's arguable that it's the height of hypocrisy. Managing trade imbalances is an internal issue - we should be concerned that trade agreements and practices, especially if they're being subsidized and awarded with tax breaks, are to the benefit of the US population at large and not just the CEOs and shareholders of the corporations. I don't think that's irrational. it's tending our own garden, not telling other countries how to tend theirs.


Good point. But post-Reagan political philosophies have ushered in a period of intensely pro-corporatist policies that have benefited the corporate bottom line while draining the middle class of money and fairness - starting with tax breaks, subsidies and relaxed regulations for corporations with caps on taxes on corporations and the wealthy, and almost nonexistent oversight.

Money hangs like a cloud over Washington. You have industry lobbyists appointed to regulation posts. You have regulatory heads leaving their jobs for lucrative contracts in the industries they were charged with regulating. You have the power of the media conglomerates threatening the political futures of anyone who would confront or cross them. And that doesn't even address the brewing cataclysm of privately held, publicly financed armies like Blackwater.

I just think something is very wrong when you look at the statistics from the New Deal to Reaganomics, and from Reaganomics to Bush II (statistics already cited). meanwhile, people are dying by the truckloads in Iraq for the oil industry. Congress is about to relax media ownership rules even further. It's becoming nearly impossible to buy something not made by a third world slave. Etc. etc. Issues like these have massive possibilities of hurting us, and virtually no benefit to us as a society. Yet there they are.

What do you think will happen if the post-Reagan, Bush-intensified policies continue? Do you think life will get better in America?

As I see it there are two major problem with Corporations. They shield individuals from illegal behavior, and Corporations have way to much say and power in the political proses. I really think it should be illegal for any form of Corporation to have any dealing with a politician. What I mean by Corporation is not only for profit businesses groups, but political parties, unions, none profit groups, and special interest groups. Only individual citizens should be aloud to make political donation, or approach politicians about problems and possible solution.

Wait? So now I'm supposed to be careful and not lump billion dollar industries together out of fear of sounding lazy?

Guttenburg's right, it's shorthand. Get off your soapbox of nothingness, FC.

Hey, sprankton's back already. Swell.

Which is exactly the problem with multinational corporations. This ability to, essentially, bail out on the local laws by moving your operation seems like it's going to put more and more economic power in the hands of countries with shitty legal oversight and bad human rights records.

Over and over again, I keep hearing the supposed defenders of the free market (which really means defending the status quo) talk about how we can't limit the ability of corporations to make money, because we'll be limiting our economy. And they're correct, but taken to extremes it also means we'll be giving up the rule of law for the law of the jungle. Eventually we have to stand up and say that there are more important things than making money, and suffering a blow to the economy is not the worst thing that could happen. Who was it that pointed out, just recently, that auto manufacturers complained every single time new safety standards (windshields, seatbelts, airbags) were introduced that it was going to destroy the industry and devastate the economy? And then, somehow, it didn't. The idea of laws restraining corporations are always painted as if the economic sky was about to fall, but it eventually just starts to sound like blackmail.

I don't think it's any more sloppy and misleading than anything else in the massively broad scope of things that fall into political discussions. I think on these boards, some credit has to be given to most of the posters that frequent here. I don't think when the term "The Corporations" is used that they're referring to or lumping the Jelly Belly corporation with Big Oil or Clear Channel or any of the likes.

Or is Big Oil too broad of a term, too?

I agree words have meaning, but seriously... I think that most people around here aren't calling out the destruction of all corporations because most understand that they're a necessay cog of the American machine.

I just want to see the supporters of the Bush Corporation finished.

Interesting. I'm supposed to be working on my thesis right now (I'm getting to it, I'm getting to it...). One of the chapters that I've recently completed is an analysis of how corporatist models of service are encroaching upon more traditional approaches to library service, undoing the progress that the field has made in creating its own service ethic and body of professional knowledge (for some, an extremely important step in creating a legitimate profession). I've been thinking a lot about this subject as of late and I really do think that it is a matter of word choice.

I gave a talk last week at my state's library conference on this part of my thesis. The audience was with me (or, at very least, being quiet) until I got to the part of my lecture when I used the phrase "capitalist or male-coded professional models of service." That's when the eyebrows went up. I think that those of us who want to point to the excesses of capitalism and the very real problems with the current incarnation of the free market system have been Red Scared out of using the word "capitalist" as a pejorative and so we fall back on the catch-all "corporations." It means the same thing, really, but it sidesteps confrontation and makes what should be a philosophical argument into an us-versus-them confrontation. It sucks all of the subtlety right out of the room and hamstrings the argument before it can even start.

Yes! But the problem is capitalism and more libertarian governing policies - but the left won't say this because we're pussies. As the government recedes its funding for social programs like SCHIP because it has no responsibility to the people it, uh, governs, the private sector is expected to pick up the slack, except these corporations can't do much because they're profit-based and lack obligation to anybody except those who posess a sizable share. They are no more ahead by giving Jimmy a spleen. But if Jimmy's daddy has to pay for it out of his own pocket, he'll work more hours and the corporation in question will profit from his productive time spent. However I am not sure how long you'd last without a spleen. Sorry Jimmy! You died the American way.

It's just weak how those of us on the left are reduced to using such vague, shadowy words when describing anything. The Corporation! It's like we really took it to heart when our fathers called us lazy bums; wounded, we don't want to risk being labelled a semen-swilling, anal-retentive bleeding-heart commie.

I'll be back later on my theory of how "earning your living" and work for work's sake is basically the cause of global warming and the undoing of human civilization as we know it.