I recently mentioned to some friends that corporations are required by law to maximize profits at any costs on the society, i.e. regardless of environmental impact, ethics, etc.
They reacted with incredulity, so I tried to search for some references. It was possible in my mind that I got the wrong information, or that I had been misled. Below are some excerpts of things that I found. I plan to create some polls within this Free Association (USA) to determine what the members think on this topic.
First of all, I am sure Joel Bakan's book, The Corporation. The pathological pursuit of profit and power (Toronto: Viking Canada, 2004), would provide plenty of critical information on corporations.
See also 12 Things to Do Now About Corporations:
(8) Corporations are required by law to maximize profits for shareholders. Robert Hinkley, a corporate lawyer, is pressing for a law that prohibits making profit at the expense of the environment, human rights, the public safety, the welfare of the communities in which the corporation operates, or the dignity of employees. Groups in several states have taken up this Code for Corporate Citizenship.
The Resolution to End Corporate Personhood states:
In the early 1800's corporations were required to "serve the public good." It was illegal for their object to be "merely private or selfish." For-profit corporations now have the legal obligation to maximize profits for their shareholders and managers. Even if the individual directors or stockholders wanted to serve the public good, they could not.
When For-Profit Corporations Rule The Day starts with this:
However, trusting in corporations to “do the right thing” with regards to the welfare of society, citizens, employees, et al., is pure nonsense. The reality is that companies and corporations live by one thing and one thing only: the bottom line. Hence, companies and corporations will do anything, regardless of whether they initially had good intentions or not, to keep profits not only high but also to increase them as well. In other words, companies and corporations will cheat, lie or steal, even go as far as to use spying, sabbotage and violence, as means to protect and increase their profit margins. This is simply the nature of the beast.
The article ends with a list of examples of corporate monstrosities. I personally that some apples are definitely more rotten than others, but overall the system is definitely flawed.
Last but not least, make sure you watch the video The Corporation:
THE CORPORATION explores the nature and spectacular rise of the dominant institution of our time. Footage from pop culture, advertising, TV news, and corporate propaganda, illuminates the corporation's grip on our lives. Taking its legal status as a "person" to its logical conclusion, the film puts the corporation on the psychiatrist's couch to ask "What kind of person is it?" Provoking, witty, sweepingly informative, The Corporation includes forty interviews with corporate insiders and critics - including Milton Friedman, Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, and Michael Moore - plus true confessions, case studies and strategies for change.
Winner of 24 INTERNATIONAL AWARDS, 10 of them AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARDS including the AUDIENCE AWARD for DOCUMENTARY in WORLD CINEMA at the 2004 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL. The long-awaited DVD, available now in Australia and coming in March to North America, contains over 8 hour of additional footage.
The film is based on the book The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power by Joel Bakan.
Reply to Adb.
> Corporations can act in the
> public interest, reducing their profits. If the above claim were
> true, any corporate donation to a nonprofit would be illegal.
Donations to charities are meant to improve the image of the corporation. It is the same as advertisement expenditure: a bigger return on investment is expected.
> Profit is also limited by law.
> Shareholders can, indeed, file legal
> action when corporations do not act in their interest,
That's exactly what I originally meant: the shareholders' interest is the corporation's profitability!!
download the video
You can download the high-quality, official torrent here:
http://www.mininova.org/tor/411232
Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation
Corporations and the Profit Motive
Corporations are entrusted with capital by shareholders, and a for-profit corporation is charged with the task of maximizing return for the shareholders, that's true, but the context must also be considered. If the majority of shares are held by the greedy, there is little that can be done except to bludgeon the corporation through the device of public approbation. However the situation if the majority of shareholders care about the public interest is different. A corporation is obligated to its shareholders under the theory that they purchased shares for profit, and if the corporation does not properly pursue profit, within the limits of public policy, the corporation has defaulted on its obligation, and a majority of shareholders cannot remove that obligation, for the minority shareholders retain, absent consent otherwise, rights that cannot be removed by a majority. There is a possible device whereby the majority *could* convert the overriding goal of the corporation from profit to public welfare, and that is to sell the corporation to a share corporation designed for the purpose, where the shareholders have explicitly agreed to a modification of the purpose. That new corporation might be, in some senses, a nonprofit corporation, but it would be taxed as if it were for-profit, and it would, in fact, return profits to shareholders in terms of dividends and appreciation, the same as any other for-profit corporation, and it would have similar obligations to its shareholders, but modified as necessary..
The shareholders in the old corporation would receive their choice of shares in the new corporation or fair compensation as defined in law for any corporate sale (the compensation option, if cash, for many of them, might trigger tax consequences, if the shares have appreciated, so many or most might accept the new shares.)
The big problems with corporations are the lack of independent shareholder oversight, on the one hand, and public oversight on the other. Both are necessary. And both are addressed by FA/DP. Corporations have tremendous power only because the public is not organized; otherwise, every penny they make comes from the public, and in free societies, corporations do not, in fact, control the bulk of resources, the people do (and the people also own the corporations, through various entities that sometimes themselves need oversight.)
At this point, I see it as a waste of time to attack the "system." The system is flawed, but until we can stand outside it and collectively use our resources, which are enormous, our efforts are practically guaranteed to fail. We are like a sleeping giant, dreaming that he is being attacked by Lilliputians -- which he is -- and dreaming that the answer is to convince the Lilliputians, on the one hand, that they are bad and oppressive and should straighten up and fly right, or, on the other hand, that he just needs to manage to destroy them all, and things will be fine, he can then continue his nap.
The argument mode won't wake him up. The anger and rage mode, which the second one is, will result in all the destructive activity we have seen in revolutions over the last centuries, which, when the dust settles, have simply left a changed set of oppressors in place.
The giant needs to wake up *before* deciding what to do about the situation. Hence, FA/DP, which is rigorously neutral, it does not oppose the oppressors, it merely facilitates the consciousness. It is *essential* that this process not be given *power*, in itself. Give it power, it *will* be corrupted. However, the power to seek and find consensus is a different kind of power, and that power FA/DP organizations can have. They do not enforce consensus, they do not exclude even the oppressors from participation, but they, through their distributed structure, can rather easily resist efforts to corrupt their process. The healthy parts just separate from the others and continue. The tenuousness of FA/DP structures, their evanescence as individual structures, is an essential part of the concept.
Consciousness is not a matter of fixed structure, fixed structures are no more intelligent than a light switch. Fixed structures can *serve* intelligence, making certain processes automatic, but fixed structures cannot supervise themselves intelligently.
Awaken the giant, and there will be no more problems with corporations, no matter how large they are, and, in fact, the large corporations that do not make the mistake of attacking the giant while he is awake, will become his partners, his associates, his voluntary servants who profit from serving a wise master, and they will do well, quite well.
Naive? I think not. I think we have for too long misunderstood the situation. While there are certainly those who will not want to see us awaken, most of their opposition is based on a misunderstanding of what will happen if we do awaken, they are really fearing the groggy giant, in his blind rage, attacking them in retaliation. A truly awake giant will have a far deeper understanding of the situation, and will not be restrained in dealing with it by personal attachments and the desire for retaliation; the giant will act *effectively* with *permanent* solutions that don't leave behind the wreckage of oppressive "revolutions."
As we begin to awaken, there will be those who make the mistake of attacking us. Some of us will, indeed, fall as martyrs. But that is a battle we do not seek, and we will avoid it if we can. In the end, the only ones who will suffer from our success will be those who tried to stop it, "for he who gets hurt will be he who has stalled." That is, who tries to stop us from awakening.
Hence my struggles against propaganda, which I'm defining as falsehood or truth, presented in such a way as to manipulate opinion while confusing an integrated judgment. The masters of propaganda not only do not trust the public wisdom, the ability to sift truth from error, but they will attempt to prevent the public from having the information and analysis they need in order to discover independently what they need to know. No one of us, nor any special interest group, can predict what the wisdom of the human community will find and implement, if it is awakened. But I can pretty much expect this:
It will be beyond our wildest dreams.
I have glimpses of this, only, blessed by my own afflictions that have led me to a place of vision, these glimpses make me shiver with recognition and a deep gratitude. Increasingly, others are finding this, and, as far as I can see, matters have already progressed to the point where this is not stoppable, even though to the world it may seem, at this point, a silly fantasy.
It is just a matter of time, and time will tell, as Dylan also wrote.
The doctrine of inevitability was promoted by the Marxists, but they did not understand it. It is not necessary to destroy or harm anything or anyone to promote what is "inevitable." Indeed, destruction, hatred, coercion, all that postpone the awakening, because it requires freedom of communication and thought. Indeed, to promote the inevitable, *get out of the way.*
Want to "struggle against the machine," in a truly effective way? I am suggesting, paradoxically, stop struggling, start trying to *understand*. Why is it the way it is? There are reasons, historically, economically, thermodynamically. Before taking your computer apart to fix it, notice carefully how it is put together, how the parts interrelate and function, and assume that usually there is a reason for every detail. Scavengers and parasites may seem useless to us, but, in fact, they serve the ecosystem, and, without them, it can fall apart.
Absolutely, when you see injustice and you have the power to oppose it, do so. The giant, attacked by a Lilliputian when he is awake, will pick him up and talk to him. The giant will be slow to anger, he will not crush a child who foolishly attacks him, he will simply restrain the child to prevent him from doing harm to himself or others, and then he will show the child how to be happy without harming others. If the child gets hurt, it will be through his own unwise struggle, not at the hand of the giant.
The AA Big Book mentions that "there are those unfortunates," referring to those who have no capacity to be honest, and, indeed, there are those who have been so damaged, or who were born under such an unfortunate star, that there is no end for them except loss and harm, but we mourn them, we grieve for them, as we know, at the same time, that we must protect others from them. Being a compassionate parent does not mean that we allow our sympathy for a child to prevent us from preventing harm! It means, indeed, being firm and clear in what is right.
I do wander about, don't I?