Diaries
Everything
Who's Online?
FAQ / Help

Print Story The Corporation
Diary
By LoppEar (Tue Sep 07, 2004 at 12:32:06 PM EST) (all tags)
A few months ago I watched The Corporation, a wide-ranging documentary on corporate history, power, and systemic failings. I highly recommend it, although the film's suggestions for improving the situation are thin.

I scribbled notes as I watched it. Some commentary and notes inside.


My notes don't deal with many of the issues brought up. They are spoilers, although how I spoil a documentary I'm not sure. The movie largely consists of in-depth examples and interviews with relevant figures from the examples and from corporations.

The two interviewees who stand out the most, and who are used throughout the 3-part documentary, are Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface Carpets and Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, then Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell.

Under Anderson's vision, Interface carpets undertook a giant project to evaluate all of the corporations costs in terms of environmental and societal impact, and to make effort towards real environmental sustainability, and by doing so increasing profits. An amazing story of still aiming for shareholder profit, but not at the expense of the greater concerns of an entity as a member of society. I think watching the movie solely to hear Anderson's commentary and to see the Interface story is worthwhile.

Through most of the movie, Moody-Stuart argues the side of corporations as incapable of evil, and of the men at the top of the corporation doing their best pulled between these competing goals of society and profit. At one point, we see a group of 'anarchists' sneaking onto his property (a small country house in England, suprisingly small) and hanging anti-corporate banners on his roof etc. Moody-Stuart and his wife act very calmly about this, and invite the demonstrators to sit on the lawn and have tea, and to discuss their concerns and Moody-Stuart's responses.

Ok, now, a selection from my notes. These are thoughts straight out of my head, get a good look at the processes going on there! I don't necessarily stand behind all of these, but feel free to argue against them, I'll take it all into consideration.

---

Laws must incorporate morals for corporations to be considered persons. To be human is to have compassion balancing self-interest. The corporation as as legal entity still needs that balance.

Workers have to work regardless, but are losing the benefits of being a member of society - society's benefits should be more than just making it possible to be employed.

Neo-cons and corporate power are dangerously liberal - the idea of patenting life, particularly human life, is new and shocking.

Florida Fox News case shows companies can fire you (ie, it is not protected whistleblowing) for not doing something immoral. (Case involved an investigative report on rBGH, and antibiotics given to cows to treat the side-effects of rBGH such as mastitis were showing up in the human milk supply. Fox refused to air it without changing it to be, as the first jury concluded, false and distorted.)

Democracy vs. Socialism is not an either-or dichotomy. Democratic socialism is conceivable. Free market fascism, conceivable.

WorldBank/IMF required privitisation to fund Bolivian watersupply system, Bechtel was hired. When citizens resisted unaffordable pricing for WATER, government troops enforced Bechtel's corporate interests at expense of citizens. IMF and corporations are opposed to democracy.

Corporations not liable for selling to unethical organizations, but profit from it. Money laundering of related unethical gains, OK.

Slavery did not fail because of market forces. To say that corporations are designed not to require intervention and regulation to stop injustice seems false.

If we could change corporation's place in society, do we change their broad charter (deny the corporations-as-persons, change liability, change focus from solely shareholder profit, etc), or do we legislate the specific morality/justice concerns?

If corporations are to be treated as people, is my desire for castration or punitive damages hypocritical? What form would corporate rehabilitation take, to make them better members of society?

Legislating morality scares Democrats and Liberals.

< This is a short attention span diary | BBC White season: 'Rivers of Blood' >

Login
Make a new account
Username:
Password:
Related Links
- The Corporation
- Interface Carpets
- LoppEar's Diary
Google

Comment Controls
View: Display: Sort:
The Corporation | 16 comments (16 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback
Synopsis by Rogerborg (3.00 / 0) #1 Tue Sep 07, 2004 at 01:57:27 PM EST
Rich and powerful people tend towards asshattism and self preservation.

-
Metus amatores matrum compescit, non clementia.


Central issue by LoppEar (6.00 / 1) #2 Tue Sep 07, 2004 at 02:18:57 PM EST
Does society enable the rich and power to become MORE asshattish and self-preserving? Or is democracy not about ensuring everyone's theoretical ability to rise to the top of the rich and powerful (ahh, American Dream, may you be buried deep for all the harm you've done), but to ensure that being rich and powerful is not tied to political influence.

A democracy has to actively work to counter the influence of monetary power in order that everyone's vote (political power) remains equal - the definition of democracy.

But I won't disagree, the vast majority of the rich and the powerful are that way because of asshattism and self-preservation.


[ Parent ]

What is this "democracy"? by ad hoc (6.00 / 1) #6 Tue Sep 07, 2004 at 05:36:58 PM EST
If you're talking about the US, this is not a democracy per se, but a democratic republic. A republic concentrates the power in a few who are (supposedly) chosen by the masses to represent them to do their work. The US is a massive corporation. Once every [two|four|six] years, the shareholders elect a new [board|CEO]. That new board and CEO are in the business of doing all they can to ensure their reign remains uninterupted. It's any corporation you can think of writ large.
--

[ Parent ]

Indeed by LoppEar (3.00 / 0) #12 Wed Sep 08, 2004 at 12:21:33 AM EST
Not the democracy we tout in the US, but what I see as the ideal of democracy: equality of power. I might even go so far as the Progressives of the turn of the century, and say that government should exist to counter any force that concentrates power which diminishes the equality of political power for any person or group.


[ Parent ]

shared costs by 606 (6.00 / 2) #3 Tue Sep 07, 2004 at 03:10:59 PM EST
One thing that I recall from my Econ class (bear with me, I got a C+ in it) was that it is the government's job to enforce social costs. E.g. ruining the environment. If a company is charged for dumping a whole bunch of toxins into a lake, it isn't because the government is "impeding the free market", but that it is billing the company for its use of public, shared resources.

Similarily, look at the Bechtel water supply issue. (I haven't seen the movie but heard about this). Corporate interests are trying to turn water into a consumer product, but water is required for a person to live. Water should be a shared resource -- it should be government controlled, because failure to supply drinking water results in a negative social impact to the entire country. Free market economists and the IMF seem to ignore any ideas about social health. They think it's a LIBERAL MYTH or something.


-----
imagine dancing banana here


But if the government controls the water... by schwerve (6.00 / 1) #4 Tue Sep 07, 2004 at 04:00:58 PM EST
... then they control who gets the water. Yeah, the same could be said for a private company, but private companies typically don't have guns, tanks, bombs, etc., to keep the thirsty masses in line.

[ Parent ]

yes and no by 606 (6.00 / 1) #5 Tue Sep 07, 2004 at 04:08:26 PM EST
That's true. The government could deny its citizens water. You hope, of course, that the government is a democracy and thus those who deny citizens water would be voted out, but I know that's not always the case.

One thing, though, is that denying your citizens water is bad for your country, and thusly for you. If you don't give your citizens water, they die, and if they're dead they're not producing the goods and services nor doing the research that would grow your country's GDP.

This is the thing that always bothered me about 1984. So you have this ruling class, right, and they have absolute power over the proletariat... and? They deny them food and water and education and as a result they're not as smart or as energetic as they could be and so the country is actually getting worse over time. And though things may be better for the ruling class, in this equation the ruling class has to become smaller and smaller as the amount of goods produced by the disenfranchised, dying proles decreases. Eventually the boot runs out of faces to stomp.

From what I can see you can get more wealth by distributing your existing wealth into education and health than by hoarding it. Hell, isn't that the definition of capitalism?

-----
imagine dancing banana here
[ Parent ]

corporations are not for the longterm by LoppEar (6.00 / 1) #11 Wed Sep 08, 2004 at 12:17:51 AM EST
The benefits you point to are real and beneficial, but not in the short term. Money is for status, and status is now. Status is also limited: we can grow the overall output of the nation, or build more bombs, but only the top select few of any status item hold status: it is about who has the most now.

The things you point out are the benefits not of capitalism, but of democracy - of improving society's state as a whole. This doesn't mean we throw out capitalism, as we have to create the wealth to drive social goals, but government needs to be there to enforce those goals, not just to facilitate creating the wealth. Solely profit driven systems will not invest in the society, so long as people have lifespan-oriented goals.


[ Parent ]

Ugh by ad hoc (6.00 / 2) #7 Tue Sep 07, 2004 at 05:39:45 PM EST
I think you need to do a little more research.

Start with Coca-cola and Guatemala or United Fruit Company and Central America.
--

[ Parent ]

But in each of those cases... by schwerve (6.00 / 1) #8 Tue Sep 07, 2004 at 06:39:01 PM EST
... the government and the corporation were effectively the same thing. Large amounts of Guatemalan officials, for example, were paid off by the corp. Each gov let the corp oppress people, because the gov's interests happened to coincide in some perverted fashion with the corp's interests. If the gov didn't like what the corp was doing, the corp would've been folded like a tent.

[ Parent ]

I disagree by ad hoc (6.00 / 3) #9 Tue Sep 07, 2004 at 07:20:35 PM EST
The governments were there at the corporation's pleasure. In the case of United Fruit Company, they had the CIA working to make sure the government toed the line. In the case of Guatemala, the government was installed in a CIA coup that ousted a democraticaly elected (but anti-US) government.
--

[ Parent ]

No by LoppEar (6.00 / 1) #10 Wed Sep 08, 2004 at 12:11:20 AM EST
In both examples, the government wasn't "letting" the corp oppress their people, they were no longer for the people - corporate interests bought their complicity. When money is allowed to have that power, to be the sole motivator for corporate success, it breeds these ills.


[ Parent ]

And this is different than current USistan by zantispam (3.00 / 0) #14 Wed Sep 08, 2004 at 07:22:16 AM EST
how, exactly?

Look at who contributes the largest amount of dollars to the political parties in the US.  The government lets the corporations oppress the citizenry because it's in both the pols and the CEO's best interests.

Another interesting corollary (to me, anyway) is how often businessmen 'retire' to a life of politics.  I will say that it's because running a multi-billion dollar company and governing a populace are, in this day and age, exactly the same thing.

Oh dear.  I'm starting to get wound up about politics and corporations and such for the first time in years.  I can't tell if this is a good thing or not.

Also, HIBT?

-- no sig
[ Parent ]

YHNBT by schwerve (5.00 / 1) #16 Wed Sep 08, 2004 at 08:23:21 AM EST
Just my naïveté showing.

[ Parent ]

Corporate personality type by jimgon (3.00 / 0) #13 Wed Sep 08, 2004 at 05:27:56 AM EST
I don't remember where I read it, and a quick Google didn't provide anything, but I remember reading an article somewhere that insisted that if corporations were human their psychological profile would indicate sociopathy.  I don't have time for a better Google right now, maybe later.



That's the first third of the movie by LoppEar (3.00 / 0) #15 Wed Sep 08, 2004 at 07:34:56 AM EST
making the case through examples and checking off the DSM-IV symptoms, that corporations are psychopaths.

Not sure I bought into it, the examples were quite good but perhaps not brought back to apply to the larger populace of corps.


[ Parent ]

The Corporation | 16 comments (16 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback

Powered by Scoop   
 
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective companies. Comments and Stories are owned by the Poster and Licensed to "Hulver's site". See our Copyright page for more information.
faq | help | accounts