Re: The Corporation (was Re: CG: Ligatures etc)
Rich, you appear to be somewhat in the grip of an ideological fervour, which
I'd
suggest you examine more closely.
The problem (in the most general sense) is not to declare 'corporations --
good', or 'corporations -- bad'; problems result from what groups of people
band together to do and to espouse, and how they go about it. Drug cartels
and the Mafia are 'corporations', as are governments and
whorehouses. There are corporations (even legal ones) whose literal business
is the making of war; these are called mercenaries, and sometimes
governments do business with them. Historically, corporations have 'made
war' -- or something very like; of course, if you define war as something
which only governments can make, then you're stuck with that simplistic
definition. And so forth...
Aspersion-wise, so-called 'social Darwinism' is a *naive* point of view, at
least in most hands, and you intermingle normative with factual statements
rather loosely in your judgments. Darwin did not
'show' that either competition or cooperation was necessary; certainly not
one to the exclusion of the other -- whatever that might mean. Both occur,
and both may be 'necessary' (necessary to what end?). Arguments about them
are what we live with; these are arguments about values. Etc.
I gather that the book you're discussing maintains that there are problems
about the
legal and institutional nature of modern for-profit corporations. That may
be an interesting argument, even a sound one, but I don't know the
details -- do you?
"Conservation is a great moral issue; for it involves the patriotic duty of
insuring the safety and continuance of the nation." -- Theodore Roosevelt
"Beware of small expenses, for many small leaks can sink a great ship." --
Ben Franklin
-Jay
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rich Cooper" <rcooper15@comcast.net>
To: <cg@CS.UAH.EDU>; <lupso@inna.net>;
<standard-upper-ontology@listserv.ieee.org>
Cc: "John F. Sowa" <sowa@BESTWEB.NET>
Sent: Sunday, August 07, 2005 10:46
Subject: Re: The Corporation (was Re: CG: Ligatures etc)
> John Sowa wrote:
>
>
> <snip/>
> > > Where is the paper you mentioned that compared the modern
> > > corporation to sociopathic behavior? I red flagged the e-mail
> > > it was in, but I have red flagged too many and have forgotten
> > > where the reference is located.
> >
> > I don't remember what I cited earlier, but you might be
> > interested in the book and subsequent movie on that subject:
> >
> > _The Corporation : The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and
> > Power_ by Joel Bakan. Available in paperback for $11.20.
> >
> > For the movie, _The Corporation_, see the following collection
> > of reviews, most of which give it very high praise. If it's
> > not at any nearby theaters, you can try renting it:
> >
> > http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/corporation/
> >
> > Following is a book review:
> >
> > http://www.thecorporation.com/index.php?page_id=47
> >
> > Excerpts below.
> >
> > John Sowa
>
> Take a look at the reviewers listed in these two URLs; all of them
> are academics or journalists. Their points of view are amazingly
> naive wrt corporations since none of the reviewers run any.
>
> The fact is, money makes corporations run. From the first investor
> to the last customer, every person dealing with a corporation
> puts their own interests absolutely first. Its the nature of man
> that seems so corrupt to these reviewers, instead of understanding
> the elegance and economic balancing act a corporation has to
> perform just to keep the doors open.
>
> Where public good, social value, and ecological benefits are
> foremost, the corporations are NGOs, nonprofits, and funded by
> governments or by very wealthy individuals. But the nonprofits
> are mere shadows of the real corporations. Society couldn't
> exist in its present form without for-profit corporations making
> up the vast majority of organizations.
>
> To pick an example, look at how the post office or the dmv or
> the city planning departments operate. The soviets tried to use
> central planning and the profitless organization of work to benefit
> society, and they got incredibly inefficient organizations like
> those examples.
>
> Its a sad fact that the vast majority of people put themselves
> first, but its a necessary one, as Darwin showed, and as the more
> modern mathematical models explaining evolution show. Even
> in the womb, there is a competition between the sperm DNA
> and the egg DNA over how large male babies will be at birth.
> Corporations are shadows of human nature, and naturally
> they reflect these kinds of competition. Competition doesn't
> stop in the womb, it continues throughout life in limited forms,
> along with cooperative behavior when that kind of behavior
> is in the self interest of the cooperating partners.
>
> In most economic niches where geography isn't a major factor,
> a few corporations dominate most of the market. That was
> explained very well in the book "Bionomics", which traced the
> success of the few corporations to the learning curve which
> ultimately makes a few corporations the most efficient producers
> of their market's goods and services. Only this competition
> makes the for-profit corporations much more efficent than the
> DMV, PO and planning departments. And without it, we
> wouldn't have the wealth that the average American enjoys
> today.
>
> To limit the corporations from pure laissez-faire policies, we
> have democratic governments to legislate and enforce limits
> to the natural competitiveness of corporations. Those limits
> apply to all players, corporate or personal, except for the
> government itself. If the reviewers were less naive, they would
> understand that its the government, not the corporations, that
> has insufficient checks and balances. The government can take
> whatever it wants between now and the next few elections.
> Only when the pain is so great that the electorate rebels are
> the players changed, and even then its usually more of the
> same kind of players that replace them.
>
> I think limiting government's access to tax money, controlling
> their access to personal and corporate information, and generally
> making the government much more accountable to citizens
> would be far more beneficial than finding more ways to limit
> corporations. Corporations never fight bloody wars, never
> jail people, never execute people, at least not legally.
>
> Rich