"The public be damned, I work for my stockholders."
William H. Vanderbilt
A scorpion, eager to get to the other side of a stream and unable to swim, pleads with a frog to allow him to ride on the frog's back, across the stream.
"Certainly not," said the frog. "You would kill me."
"Preposterous!," replied the scorpion. "If I stung you, it would kill the both of us."
Thus assured, the frog invited the scorpion to climb aboard, and halfway across, sure enough, the scorpion delivered the fatal sting.
"Now why did you do that," said the frog, "you've killed us both."
"I am a scorpion," he replied, "this is what I do."
What corporations do is strive to maximize the returns on the investments of their stockholders. As Milton Friedman put it, "The social responsibility of business is to increase profits." Unfortunately, if corporations are unconstrained by law or regulation, they can, by simply "doing what they do," suck the life out of the economy that sustains them. Like cancer cells, lethal parasites, and the scorpion, unconstrained corporations can destroy their "hosts," without which they cannot survive, much less flourish.
By saying as much, I might appear to be favoring the abolition of corporations, like some far-out Commie nut case.
On the contrary, I approve of corporations. I have seen, in the former Soviet Union, the results of an alternative system, the "command economy." It isn't a pretty sight.
How can I disapprove of corporations when I am surrounded by devices and conveniences that were developed and marketed by corporations? The computer with which I write this essay and the internet that publishes it would be impossible without the corporate structuring of our economy. (However, let us not forget, they would likewise be impossible without government sponsored research and development).
So here's Two Cheers for Capitalism. Thank God for Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Bill Gates, and the millions of others who have, by exercising free enterprise, immeasurably improved our lives.
But I withhold that third cheer as I view with foreboding, the dangers of capitalism and corporatism unconstrained and running wild.
My message is a simple one, if familiar: corporations are invaluable servants that can become ruthless masters, to prevent which: "Governments are instituted among men [and women], deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." This means that laws and regulations, which implement limitations and constraints, are enacted and enforced in behalf of "the public good."
Remove these constraints, and the servant soon becomes the master, as well as the parasite which consumes its host, thus destroying both the parasite and the host on which it feeds.
Dr. Ernest Partridge is a consultant, writer and lecturer in the field of Environmental Ethics and Public Policy. Partridge has taught philosophy at the University of California, and in Utah, Colorado and Wisconsin. He publishes the website, "The Online Gadfly" (www.igc.org/gadfly) and co-edits the progressive website, "The Crisis Papers" (www.crisispapers.org). His book in progress, "Conscience of a Progressive," can be seen at www.igc.org/gadfly/progressive/^toc.htm .
As an ex commie nut case I commend you for your critique of the corporations but I disagree that they can be reformed or controlled when they have gotten so powerful that they totally dominate our government and have usurped our sovereignty as human beings. We need a free market and we need investors but we do not need corporations. Thomas Jefferson among other commie nut cases. "The end of democracy, and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur whjen govern,ent falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed corporations."
This was written before the Supreme Court decided in 1867, (Santa Clara V The Southern Pacific Railroad} that corporations had all the rights of a human being under the IV amendment. The corporation business form is a robot and is not owned. It was made that way to seperate ownership from liability. This is a direct violation of the common law on ownership where ownership and liability are joined at the hip.
The only solution is for corporations to become cooperatives. If this is not done we can count the continued life of this planet in decades.
by
gramps (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 107 comments)
on Thursday, September 14, 2006 at 12:18:29 PM
but not the corporation. It is the undue influence of corporate money in our governmental decision making, caused by the ceaseless need to increase profits, that is the rascal here.
I would note that the CEO of Costco has determined that no salary, including his own, will exceed twelve times that of the average wage earner at that company. He currently earns a bit over three hundred thousand dollars a year in salary, nice money but no match for the multi millions of most executives of corporations as large as his.
The problem is not the companies but the people who run them, and the system that allows them such undo influence.
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments)
on Friday, September 15, 2006 at 7:14:40 AM
Corporations and the quality of American democracy
This is the core issue: How has modern, American corporatism impacted our democracy? Of course, it has been disastrous because of corporate/Wall Street greed, loss of national loyalty (from globalization), and the tight connection between corporate money and politicians. These are all structural problems, meaning that attacking them requires changing federal laws, regulations and policies. Plus - remember that our corporatist state/plutocracy is the basis for growing economic inequality. The corporate world wants illegal immigration to lower labor costs. If you think that Democrats are able and willing to attack the roots of the corporatist stranglehold on our democracy, you are nuts - as time will again verify if the Dems take over the House. The American public, however, also has the power to greatly change this very negative situation: STOP SPENDING MONEY ON STUFF AND SERVICES THAT ARE NOT ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY FOR A DECENT LIFESTYLE. The top 5 percent of Americans own the vast fraction of our national wealth - BUT TWO-THIRDS OF THE ECONOMY DEPENDS ON CONSUMER SPENDING BY THE 80 PERCENT OF THE PUBLIC ON THE LOSING END OF THE INEQUALITY DIVIDE. Reduced consumer spending is the only thing that really frightens Bush and all the other political and economic power elites!!
by
Joel S. Hirschhorn (126 articles, 31 quicklinks, 58 diaries, 509 comments)
on Friday, September 15, 2006 at 9:23:28 AM
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