The Corporation

Chapter:

  1. Why study the corporation in a government class? All pervasive, dominant institution.
  2. What is a corporation? What makes it different?
    1. Bad Apples – corporate corruption scandals, societal impacts include – safety & health, personal financial ruin. E.g. Enron, MCI, Arthur Anderson,
    2. A paradox – institution that creates great wealth yet produces immense cost and hidden harms.
    3. Power – ubiquity, image,
    4. Birth of the Corporation:

                                                              i.      1700s, the drive for efficiency, Chartered corporations had limited life and purpose. Corp. were subordinate to the public interest, to serve the public good.

                                                            ii.      Post Civil-War: Corp. lawyers use the 14th Amendment to empower corporations, turning them into permanent institutions, enshrining the corporation as “a person”. How does having the rights of a person give corporations an advantage? Political rights to contribute to campaigns, buy influence world-wide.

                                                          iii.      Limited Liability: no other business form has this. Charters create corporations as persons. But, the owner has NO Liability. No morality – only concern is the profit of the stockholders (not community stakeholders).

                                                          iv.      Social Responsibility Issues: Corps. Do produce goods and services for society, Profit Motive: insatiable, drives it to pursue amorally the “bottom line”- legally required to do so. E.g. cigarette companies, arms companies (land mines). Externalities: Hidden Costs are passed on to the rest of us.

  1. Case Histories – Determining the Corporate Personality (callous disregard for the feelings of others + inability to sustain enduring relationships  + Reckless disregard for the safety of others + Deceitfulness + Incapacity to experience guilt + unlawful behavior
    1. NLC: What’s ironic about Kathy Lee’s proceeds going to children?

                                                              i.      Corporate perspective- it’s all these people have to offer; their cheap labor. Corps move-on when wages go higher.

                                                            ii.      Nike – science of exploitation

                                                          iii.      Petro-Chemical industry – epidemic of cancer linked to corporate products (e.g. DDT).

                                                          iv.      Monsanto: hormones in cows, Agent Orange in Vietnam.

  1. Moral Responsibilities
    1. Corps. have no moral resp. but the individuals do. Friedman
    2. Human nature allows us to be Hitler or Christ. Chomsky
    3. CEO’s don’t have the luxury for taking into account human consequences
    4. Institutional Role of individuals is where “nice people” can do monstrous things. CEOs must turn a profit, regardless.
  2. Mindset
    1. Self-destruct seeds – to create dependence on agri-corps. Farmers cannot reuse their seeds.
    2. Covert interviews – corp. intelligence
    3. Racial/class divide of the CEO – Phil Knight of Nike
  3. Trading on 9/11 – War as a business opportunity
    1. When oil supply is threatened, inflation fears emerge, the value of gold (the preferred hedge against inflation) goes up.
    2. Gold traders cheered on war and devastation
  4. The End of the Commons – People belonged to the land, the land belonged to God. Now the land belongs to people. Is anything sacred to the corporate capitalist?
    1. Enclosure movement, post medieval society began selling off the commons.
    2. Who creates wealth? Private property is wealth usurpation.
    3. Public Trust: one fire department
    4. Privatization: giving public institutions to a private tyranny.
    5. Public institutions have unique benefits, can run at a loss as needed.
    6. Trading pollution – developing accountability, sell off the universe. – Why can’t there be public accountability? Why must narrow self-interest be the only measure that works?
  5. The Science of Nagging – Basic Training
    1. $10,000 to sing “Happy Birthday” in a film.
    2. The science of child psychology is applied to developing advertising to children.
    3. Marketers play to their developmental vulnerabilities; knowing what their needs are at given age and playing to that. Teenagers and acceptance by peers, pre-adolescents
    4. Goal is to move products without consideration of the ethics of manipulating children.
    5. Being a good consumer is a value set of the corporate ethos.
    6. Created wants, philosophy of futility, fashionable consumption to distract them from what matters.
  6. Perception Management
    1. Corps. sell themselves as “just regular folks” who share your values.
    2. Corp. charity as a smokescreen to cover tax breaks.
    3. Branding – disseminating ideas about your company. E.g. Disney sells itself at family oriented, happy.
  7. The Shill – how do undercover marketers operate?
  8. Patenting life itself – can people create life or do they just modify life? If the latter, how does that affect a company’s argument that they have a rights of ownership? How are corporations acquiring the rights to genomes? Did they invent the gene or merely discover it? If the latter, what gives them rights of ownership? How can this be argued that they are claiming ownership (intellectual property) over nature’s (God’s?) invention?
  9. Corporations and the Media: The case of Fox News censoring a story on Monsanto’s growth hormone and its potential affects on human health. Should falsifying the news be a crime?
  10. Corporations and Fascism: Why do corporations do well under fascist governments? IBM, Coca Cola, and Hitler | 1930s fascist coup attempt against FDR, | Goodyear CEO explains how now corps are more powerful than governments, hence no coups necessary.