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The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power
Over the last 150 years the corporation has risen from relative obscurity to become the world's dominant economic institution. Eminent Canadian law professor and legal theorist Joel Bakan contends that today's corporation is a pathological institution, a dangerous possessor of the great power it wields over people and societies.
In this revolutionary assessment of the history, character, and globalization of the modern business corporation, Bakan backs his premise with the following observations:
The corporation's legally defined mandate is to pursue relentlessly and without exception its own economic self-interest, regardless of the harmful consequences it might cause to others.
The corporation's unbridled self-interest victimizes individuals, society, and, when it goes awry, even shareholders and can cause corporations to self-destruct, as recent Wall Street scandals reveal.
Governments have freed the corporation, despite its flawed character, from legal constraints through deregulation and granted it ever greater authority over society through privatization.
But Bakan believes change is possible and he outlines a far-reaching program of achievable reforms through legal regulation and democratic control.
Featuring in-depth interviews with such wide-ranging figures as Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman, business guru Peter Drucker, and cultural critic Noam Chomsky, The Corporation is an extraordinary work that will educate and enlighten students, CEOs, whistle-blowers, power brokers, pawns, pundits, and politicians alike.
Audiobook
First published January 1, 2003
About the author
Joel Bakan
15 books98 followersJoel Bakan is a professor of law at the University of British Columbia, and an internationally renowned legal scholar and commentator. A former Rhodes Scholar and law clerk to Chief Justice Brian Dickson of the Supreme Court of Canada, Bakan has law degrees from Oxford, Dalhousie, and Harvard. His critically acclaimed international hit, The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power (Free Press, 2004), electrified readers around the world (it was published in over 20 languages), and became a bestseller in several countries. The book inspired a feature documentary film, The Corporation, written by Bakan and co-created with Mark Achbar, which won numerous awards, including best foreign documentary at the Sundance Film Festival, and was a critical and box office success. Bakan’s highly regarded scholarly work includes Just Words: Constitutional Rights and Social Wrongs (University of Toronto Press, 1997), as well as textbooks, edited collections, and numerous articles in leading legal and social science journals. His new book, Childhood Under Siege: How Big Business Targets Children, will be available in August, 2011. A frequent recipient of awards for both his writing and teaching, Bakan has worked on landmark legal cases and government policy, and served regularly as a media commentator, appearing on national television and radio. He is a popular and accomplished public speaker who has, over the last few years, addressed business, government, academic, and activist audiences in the United States and abroad. Bakan, who is also a professional jazz guitarist, grew up in East Lansing, Michigan and now lives in Vancouver, Canada with his wife, Rebecca Jenkins, and their two children, Myim and Sadie.
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June 23, 2019
Corporations 101...
Preamble:
--Let's start with the mainstream confusion over “capitalism”, where everyone from outright pro-capitalists to even progressive reformers (I recently watched Jon Stewart basically echo this) still assume a distinction between:
a) “Free market”:
--Assumed as what “capitalism” should be.
...In reality, this is an ivory tower utopia where a society of shopkeepers (coincidentally, owning their means of production, so where's the labour market?) barter their goods on the market.
b) “Corporatism”:
--Since we don't live in the harmonious utopia, it's because “government interference” corrupts “the market's” perfect pricing mechanism (supply meets demand), leading to monopolies, etc.
...Curiously, this seems rather inevitable if we elevate profit-seeking to be the bottom line of social values, where money can buy anything (money-power;lobbying bribery)....
...This distinction conveniently flips upside-down the real-world history of capitalism, where European monopolist merchants merged with State violence tooutcompete destroy:
i) domestic “golden age of the European proletariat”:
-Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation
-The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation
ii) foreign Asiatic regulated markets and non-market societies:
-Perilous Passage: Mankind and the Global Ascendancy of Capital
-Debt: The First 5,000 Years
--Thus, real-world capitalism, with its endless profit-seeking and masses of dispossessed (conveniently dependent on wage labour for survival), has always relied on state violence (from the original “Enclosures”/“Bloody Laws”/“workhouses” that disciplined the European proletariat to today's prison-industrial complex; from the colonial gunboats/slave ships to today's military-industrial-complex).
--From Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present [emphases added]:
--A good example of ivory tower capitalist utopia of shopkeepers; Adam Smith's celebrated quote from his 1776 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations on self-interest producing social good: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."
...This gets lumped together with the "Invisible Hand" quote: "By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, [the merchant] intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention."
[2] "moral sentiments":
--Smith's conveniently-forgotten book prior to Wealth of Nations, the 1758 The Theory of Moral Sentiments sets out how society requires many more moral values than just self-interest; of course vulgar economists erase the fact that Smith was a moral philosopher! For more, see: The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values
[3] "anonymous shareholders":
--The stock market is a key capitalist market. Markets for goods (real commodities, i.e. Smith's butches/bakers/brewers) have long existed before capitalism. Capitalism innovated peculiar markets: labour/land/money, which feature "fictitious commodities" (humans/nature/purchasing power are not "produced" like real commodities just for buying/selling on markets): Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: or, How Capitalism Works—and How It Fails
...Now, onto Bakan's book:
The Good:
--The documentary version is useful intro to watch in a group. I decided to review the book version for more details and a different pace/presentation style.
Ch.1 “The Corporation’s Rise to Dominance”:
--Most people are uncomfortable with corporations but cannot imagine alternatives. That's why we start with history, to examine how we got here. As the author is a law professor, this first chapter sets the stage: the history of the corporation (focusing on the large Anglo-American publicly-traded business that now dominates the modern economy):
1) Emerging in the late 16th century, joint-stock companies drew concerns over Ponzi scheme speculation. Classical economists worried about the separation of management (directors, managers) from ownership (shareholders), which differed from business partnerships (where few wealthy owners pool resources and also manage).
...for a deeper history of corporations, see Graeber's Debt: The First 5,000 Years
2) Joint-stock companies gained acceptance from being able to pool the resources required for increasingly large-scale projects during steam-powered industrialization. (Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming)
3) 19th century US railway construction by the robber barons established a national market for company securities that included middle class investors.
4) Mid-19th century saw enactment of Limited Liability to protect investors from the risk of company debt. However, publicly-traded corporations were still rare.
5) 1890s saw a drastic transformation: New Jersey and Delaware changed state laws to attract corporations. Corporations no longer needed narrowly defined purposes + limited duration + operate in particular locations + controls on mergers/acquisitions.
6) End of 19th century, with growing (diluted) shareholders, corporations were granted the status of legal personhood. 1886 Supreme Court ruling confirmed 14th Amendment rights for corporate personhood under the Equal Protection Clause (originally an anti-discrimination clause for post-Civil War freed slaves).
7) Early 20th century mergers led to a public legitimacy crisis. The corporate response was public relations (i.e. capitalist propaganda; see Chomsky's Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies), to create the image of corporate human values. Similarly, the Great Depression prompted the image of corporate responsibility.
8) The 1973 OPEC oil shock and stagflation led to the response of Neoliberalism: laws (GATT, WTO) and technology (transportation, communication) allowed corporate globalization to smash domestic labour.
-Note: technology is not neutral in its application (see Noble's America by Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism)
-Note: connecting Neoliberalism with Wall Street financialization and the collapse of Third World industrialization is crucial:
-Varoufakis' The Global Minotaur: America, the True Origins of the Financial Crisis and the Future of the World Economy
-Hudson's Super Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance
-Prashad's The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World and The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South
Ch.2 “Business as Usual”:
--Useful examples of the consequences of the corporate bottom line, the “best interest of the corporation principle” where the shareholders are legally entitled to have their corporation run on maximizing profits at any costs (psychopathic self-interest).
--Thus, Enron’s Ponzi scheme is hardly the exception ("bad apples" myth). Also, unpacking corporate “philanthropy” (ex. Pfizer), the use of compartmentalization by human participants, etc.
Ch.3 (“The Externalizing Machine”):
--You cannot comprehend the totality of capitalism without understanding “externalities” (costs not paid by externalizing from the market), from polluting the environment (Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World) to unpaid reproductive labour (The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values) to exploiting the cheapest labour globally to precarious domestic labour.
--Capitalism is run on profit. Thus, to survive and succeed, you must cut costs. The Neoclassical economics propagandized assumption is progressive innovations in technology and organization cut costs. However, in the real world, it is often easiest to simply move the costs off your plate, to make it “external”. Given the power imbalance, regulators and consumers will always be many steps behind in catching these hidden costs, let alone addressing them.
--Given the corporation’s legal mandate to profit, they are compelled to break regulatory laws because it is often more cost-effective (the profits outweigh the risk of trivial fines)! For capitalism’s assault on the planet, see Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System.
--Furthermore, corporations can collect extensive criminal records without scrutiny, while shareholders and managers are protected from legal liability.
Ch.4 (“Democracy Ltd.”):
--One-dollar-one-vote is not one-person-one-vote, and will silently suffocate the latter with liberal privatization or, during crises, smash the latter with fascism. Thus, we read about capitalism’s connections with fascism, from doing business with fascists to America’s very own fascist corporate coup plot against FDR (“Business Plot”).
--Not detailed here, but fascism is the attempt by State Capitalism to blame its own socioeconomic contradictions onto vulnerable groups:
-Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism
-And the Weak Suffer What They Must? Europe's Crisis and America's Economic Future
-fascism as colonial practices returning home: Discourse on Colonialism
Ch.5 (“Corporations Unlimited”): the spread of corporate psychopathy via privatization and marketing.
Ch.6 (“Reckoning”): protests against the corporate takeover.
-The State has not lost power; the power has been redistributed to favour corporations. Since the State still grants the following to corporations, they can be challenged/revoked.
i) Legal personhood
ii) Limited Liability
iii) Legal mandate for profit
iv) Protection + property rights
The Missing:
--The author makes it clear that non-Government reforms are often a gift for corporations, as they are non-binding by law, thus the enforcement is even weaker than legal regulations. While the author does not say it, a Marxist proletariat takeover of the State is an obvious theoretical route.
--Follow-up topics not discussed:
1) Economic Rent: Finance/Insurance/Real Estate (FIRE) sectors extract rent/unearned income/passive income via usurious interest payments, landlords with land rents, monopolists with extortionary fees... this was the rentier feudalism that Classical economists wanted to "free the market" from. The vested interests reversed this with Neoclassical economics, which avoids economic rent.
-Why Can't You Afford a Home?
-The Bubble and Beyond
-Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy
-The Public Bank Solution: From Austerity to Prosperity
2) Economic democracy: even when workers take control of the State, how does the proletariat State wither away? We need to talk about worker co-operatives, owned-and-operated, to re-envision the labour market, automation, and democracy at the workplace.
-micro and macro: Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present
-micro: Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism
3) Global division of labour, Imperialism: this book focuses on the Anglo-American sphere, as the history of “the corporation” details. Much more can be written about the pillaging and rent-seeking of global division of labour. China plays a curious role in its State planning and control over its own Finance while being a crucial part in global capitalism. How does the rest of the world envision the future?
-The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions
-Perilous Passage: Mankind and the Global Ascendancy of Capital
-Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present
-The Agrarian Question in the Neoliberal Era: Primitive Accumulation and the Peasantry
Preamble:
--Let's start with the mainstream confusion over “capitalism”, where everyone from outright pro-capitalists to even progressive reformers (I recently watched Jon Stewart basically echo this) still assume a distinction between:
a) “Free market”:
--Assumed as what “capitalism” should be.
...In reality, this is an ivory tower utopia where a society of shopkeepers (coincidentally, owning their means of production, so where's the labour market?) barter their goods on the market.
b) “Corporatism”:
--Since we don't live in the harmonious utopia, it's because “government interference” corrupts “the market's” perfect pricing mechanism (supply meets demand), leading to monopolies, etc.
...Curiously, this seems rather inevitable if we elevate profit-seeking to be the bottom line of social values, where money can buy anything (money-power;
...This distinction conveniently flips upside-down the real-world history of capitalism, where European monopolist merchants merged with State violence to
i) domestic “golden age of the European proletariat”:
-Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation
-The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation
ii) foreign Asiatic regulated markets and non-market societies:
-Perilous Passage: Mankind and the Global Ascendancy of Capital
-Debt: The First 5,000 Years
--Thus, real-world capitalism, with its endless profit-seeking and masses of dispossessed (conveniently dependent on wage labour for survival), has always relied on state violence (from the original “Enclosures”/“Bloody Laws”/“workhouses” that disciplined the European proletariat to today's prison-industrial complex; from the colonial gunboats/slave ships to today's military-industrial-complex).
--From Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present [emphases added]:
Liberalism’s fatal hypocrisy [...] was to rejoice in the virtuous Jills and Jacks, the neighbourhood butchers, bakers and brewers [1], so as to defend the vile East India Companies, the Facebooks and the Amazons, which know no neighbours, have no partners, respect no moral sentiments [2] and stop at nothing to destroy their competitors. By replacing partnerships with anonymous shareholders [3], we created Leviathans that end up undermining and defying all the values that liberals [...] claim to cherish.[1] "butchers, bakers and brewers":
--A good example of ivory tower capitalist utopia of shopkeepers; Adam Smith's celebrated quote from his 1776 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations on self-interest producing social good: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."
...This gets lumped together with the "Invisible Hand" quote: "By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, [the merchant] intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention."
[2] "moral sentiments":
--Smith's conveniently-forgotten book prior to Wealth of Nations, the 1758 The Theory of Moral Sentiments sets out how society requires many more moral values than just self-interest; of course vulgar economists erase the fact that Smith was a moral philosopher! For more, see: The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values
[3] "anonymous shareholders":
--The stock market is a key capitalist market. Markets for goods (real commodities, i.e. Smith's butches/bakers/brewers) have long existed before capitalism. Capitalism innovated peculiar markets: labour/land/money, which feature "fictitious commodities" (humans/nature/purchasing power are not "produced" like real commodities just for buying/selling on markets): Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: or, How Capitalism Works—and How It Fails
...Now, onto Bakan's book:
The Good:
--The documentary version is useful intro to watch in a group. I decided to review the book version for more details and a different pace/presentation style.
Ch.1 “The Corporation’s Rise to Dominance”:
--Most people are uncomfortable with corporations but cannot imagine alternatives. That's why we start with history, to examine how we got here. As the author is a law professor, this first chapter sets the stage: the history of the corporation (focusing on the large Anglo-American publicly-traded business that now dominates the modern economy):
1) Emerging in the late 16th century, joint-stock companies drew concerns over Ponzi scheme speculation. Classical economists worried about the separation of management (directors, managers) from ownership (shareholders), which differed from business partnerships (where few wealthy owners pool resources and also manage).
...for a deeper history of corporations, see Graeber's Debt: The First 5,000 Years
2) Joint-stock companies gained acceptance from being able to pool the resources required for increasingly large-scale projects during steam-powered industrialization. (Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming)
3) 19th century US railway construction by the robber barons established a national market for company securities that included middle class investors.
4) Mid-19th century saw enactment of Limited Liability to protect investors from the risk of company debt. However, publicly-traded corporations were still rare.
5) 1890s saw a drastic transformation: New Jersey and Delaware changed state laws to attract corporations. Corporations no longer needed narrowly defined purposes + limited duration + operate in particular locations + controls on mergers/acquisitions.
6) End of 19th century, with growing (diluted) shareholders, corporations were granted the status of legal personhood. 1886 Supreme Court ruling confirmed 14th Amendment rights for corporate personhood under the Equal Protection Clause (originally an anti-discrimination clause for post-Civil War freed slaves).
7) Early 20th century mergers led to a public legitimacy crisis. The corporate response was public relations (i.e. capitalist propaganda; see Chomsky's Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies), to create the image of corporate human values. Similarly, the Great Depression prompted the image of corporate responsibility.
8) The 1973 OPEC oil shock and stagflation led to the response of Neoliberalism: laws (GATT, WTO) and technology (transportation, communication) allowed corporate globalization to smash domestic labour.
-Note: technology is not neutral in its application (see Noble's America by Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism)
-Note: connecting Neoliberalism with Wall Street financialization and the collapse of Third World industrialization is crucial:
-Varoufakis' The Global Minotaur: America, the True Origins of the Financial Crisis and the Future of the World Economy
-Hudson's Super Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance
-Prashad's The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World and The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South
Ch.2 “Business as Usual”:
--Useful examples of the consequences of the corporate bottom line, the “best interest of the corporation principle” where the shareholders are legally entitled to have their corporation run on maximizing profits at any costs (psychopathic self-interest).
--Thus, Enron’s Ponzi scheme is hardly the exception ("bad apples" myth). Also, unpacking corporate “philanthropy” (ex. Pfizer), the use of compartmentalization by human participants, etc.
Ch.3 (“The Externalizing Machine”):
--You cannot comprehend the totality of capitalism without understanding “externalities” (costs not paid by externalizing from the market), from polluting the environment (Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World) to unpaid reproductive labour (The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values) to exploiting the cheapest labour globally to precarious domestic labour.
--Capitalism is run on profit. Thus, to survive and succeed, you must cut costs. The Neoclassical economics propagandized assumption is progressive innovations in technology and organization cut costs. However, in the real world, it is often easiest to simply move the costs off your plate, to make it “external”. Given the power imbalance, regulators and consumers will always be many steps behind in catching these hidden costs, let alone addressing them.
--Given the corporation’s legal mandate to profit, they are compelled to break regulatory laws because it is often more cost-effective (the profits outweigh the risk of trivial fines)! For capitalism’s assault on the planet, see Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System.
--Furthermore, corporations can collect extensive criminal records without scrutiny, while shareholders and managers are protected from legal liability.
Ch.4 (“Democracy Ltd.”):
--One-dollar-one-vote is not one-person-one-vote, and will silently suffocate the latter with liberal privatization or, during crises, smash the latter with fascism. Thus, we read about capitalism’s connections with fascism, from doing business with fascists to America’s very own fascist corporate coup plot against FDR (“Business Plot”).
--Not detailed here, but fascism is the attempt by State Capitalism to blame its own socioeconomic contradictions onto vulnerable groups:
-Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism
-And the Weak Suffer What They Must? Europe's Crisis and America's Economic Future
-fascism as colonial practices returning home: Discourse on Colonialism
Ch.5 (“Corporations Unlimited”): the spread of corporate psychopathy via privatization and marketing.
Ch.6 (“Reckoning”): protests against the corporate takeover.
-The State has not lost power; the power has been redistributed to favour corporations. Since the State still grants the following to corporations, they can be challenged/revoked.
i) Legal personhood
ii) Limited Liability
iii) Legal mandate for profit
iv) Protection + property rights
The Missing:
--The author makes it clear that non-Government reforms are often a gift for corporations, as they are non-binding by law, thus the enforcement is even weaker than legal regulations. While the author does not say it, a Marxist proletariat takeover of the State is an obvious theoretical route.
--Follow-up topics not discussed:
1) Economic Rent: Finance/Insurance/Real Estate (FIRE) sectors extract rent/unearned income/passive income via usurious interest payments, landlords with land rents, monopolists with extortionary fees... this was the rentier feudalism that Classical economists wanted to "free the market" from. The vested interests reversed this with Neoclassical economics, which avoids economic rent.
-Why Can't You Afford a Home?
-The Bubble and Beyond
-Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy
-The Public Bank Solution: From Austerity to Prosperity
2) Economic democracy: even when workers take control of the State, how does the proletariat State wither away? We need to talk about worker co-operatives, owned-and-operated, to re-envision the labour market, automation, and democracy at the workplace.
-micro and macro: Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present
-micro: Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism
3) Global division of labour, Imperialism: this book focuses on the Anglo-American sphere, as the history of “the corporation” details. Much more can be written about the pillaging and rent-seeking of global division of labour. China plays a curious role in its State planning and control over its own Finance while being a crucial part in global capitalism. How does the rest of the world envision the future?
-The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions
-Perilous Passage: Mankind and the Global Ascendancy of Capital
-Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present
-The Agrarian Question in the Neoliberal Era: Primitive Accumulation and the Peasantry
April 2, 2009
It is no secret that nearly all human societies - including our present societies - favor the rich and powerful at the expense of everyone else.
The dominant institution for implementing this type of exploitation today is the corporation. Corporations get politicians elected, take over our minds with advertising, dump pollution into our environment, and routinely commit crime upon crime.
The basic Premise of this book is fairly simple: Corporations are not run by evil people, but are systematically designed in such a way that harming and exploiting people is a necessary component of their operation. Corporations are created to maximize profit and minimize cost. Corporations are legally bound to put profit above all other concerns. These claims are backed up by an enormous amount of legal data.
The second point is that currently Businesses are insufficiently regulated and not remotely penalized severely enough for their crimes. This means that, given that their structure is to maximize profit, they will lie, cheat, fraud, and harm consumers and employees - as this is in the long run the most profitable course.
What is the solution to this? A rethinking of and legal rewrite of the purpose and function of a corporation. Instead of merely a profit making machine, a corporation, the author argues, should be highly regulated, and subject to severe penalties when it violates the law. Furthermore, social responsibility must be legally written into the charter of a corporation and the common good, not merely profit, must be part of their tasks as a social institution.
Only by so re-creating the corporation and its structures can we remove the horrible harms corporations do and make them a force for good, rather than a force for harm and destruction.
As we celebrate the workers of the world this May Day, let us no only honor their labor and speak out for their rights; let us also come to understand the systemic problem of the corporate structure which keeps them exploited.
If we are to have true rights for working people, then we must restructure the corporate machine into something very differe
The dominant institution for implementing this type of exploitation today is the corporation. Corporations get politicians elected, take over our minds with advertising, dump pollution into our environment, and routinely commit crime upon crime.
The basic Premise of this book is fairly simple: Corporations are not run by evil people, but are systematically designed in such a way that harming and exploiting people is a necessary component of their operation. Corporations are created to maximize profit and minimize cost. Corporations are legally bound to put profit above all other concerns. These claims are backed up by an enormous amount of legal data.
The second point is that currently Businesses are insufficiently regulated and not remotely penalized severely enough for their crimes. This means that, given that their structure is to maximize profit, they will lie, cheat, fraud, and harm consumers and employees - as this is in the long run the most profitable course.
What is the solution to this? A rethinking of and legal rewrite of the purpose and function of a corporation. Instead of merely a profit making machine, a corporation, the author argues, should be highly regulated, and subject to severe penalties when it violates the law. Furthermore, social responsibility must be legally written into the charter of a corporation and the common good, not merely profit, must be part of their tasks as a social institution.
Only by so re-creating the corporation and its structures can we remove the horrible harms corporations do and make them a force for good, rather than a force for harm and destruction.
As we celebrate the workers of the world this May Day, let us no only honor their labor and speak out for their rights; let us also come to understand the systemic problem of the corporate structure which keeps them exploited.
If we are to have true rights for working people, then we must restructure the corporate machine into something very differe
June 1, 2017
Psychopathic
This book, despite being a decade old now, is still utterly damming in its analysis of the ruling institutions that dominate our society. The fact that when Bakan and others note of how, in history, corporations have flirted with authoritarian regimes, is especially chilling (especially the Plot to overthrow Roosevelt with a fascist dictator) given today's political climate in America.
I worry immensely for our species sometimes.
This book should make you worry as well.
This book, despite being a decade old now, is still utterly damming in its analysis of the ruling institutions that dominate our society. The fact that when Bakan and others note of how, in history, corporations have flirted with authoritarian regimes, is especially chilling (especially the Plot to overthrow Roosevelt with a fascist dictator) given today's political climate in America.
I worry immensely for our species sometimes.
This book should make you worry as well.
January 4, 2011
One of Cambridge Sustainability's Top 50 Books for Sustainability, as voted for by our alumni network of over 3,000 senior leaders from around the world. To find out more, click here.
The Corporation begins by reminding us that, originally, corporations (meaning large Anglo-American publicly traded businesses) were established with the explicit purpose of serving the public good (enshrined in a charter), with liable shareholders. Today, however, corporations have a legal obligation to pursue profits above all else, which becomes a pathological (i.e. valueless) mission that overrides the values of the individual executives working for corporations or the values of society.
Bakan explains that the nature of the corporation changed when the US Supreme Court ruled that a corporation should have the same rights as individuals, thus making it a legal person. However, it is a 'person' with no moral conscience and an exclusive focus on the benefits of shareholders. This results in a pattern of social costs imposed by bsuiness in exchange for private gains for its executives and owners.
The Corporation begins by reminding us that, originally, corporations (meaning large Anglo-American publicly traded businesses) were established with the explicit purpose of serving the public good (enshrined in a charter), with liable shareholders. Today, however, corporations have a legal obligation to pursue profits above all else, which becomes a pathological (i.e. valueless) mission that overrides the values of the individual executives working for corporations or the values of society.
Bakan explains that the nature of the corporation changed when the US Supreme Court ruled that a corporation should have the same rights as individuals, thus making it a legal person. However, it is a 'person' with no moral conscience and an exclusive focus on the benefits of shareholders. This results in a pattern of social costs imposed by bsuiness in exchange for private gains for its executives and owners.
July 16, 2022
I was only 19 when I realized the corporation didn’t give a fuck about me. Decked out in a shamefully bright, highlighter yellow polo and a fresh new name tag emblazoned with my name and the title “Lead” on it, I carried the responsibility of my $8.50 an hour management position at the local Six Flags like a jackass dutifully delivering the weight of an encumbering load. One day, while sweating beneath 100 degree weather and moving boxes of heavy stock around the park, I collapsed from dehydration. After a quick trip to First Aid in which I was administered an incredibly generous medicine in the form of a paper cup of water, I was shunted back to work without any question or care as to my well being.
And that wasn’t even the first time I’d fainted on the job like that.
In The Corporation, Law Professor Joel Bakan considers the legal designation of corporations as people and applies a psychiatric diagnosis of sorts in arguing that if corporations really are people, they must suffer from psychopathic tendencies. Bakan points to the corporation’s singular interest in delivering maximum profits to its shareholders as an endemic symptom of its pathology, and reflects on how this myopic purpose has empowered a culture of toxicity that puts the dollar before the individual.
Bakan makes no secret that he has a big axe to grind, but he is responsible and thorough in the presentation of his points. Bakan consistently references the best possible justifications provided by corporate mouthpieces and right-leaning economists as throughways to his own dissension, and while I frequently felt like he failed to leave much room for elaboration from the likes of such brilliant thinkers as Milton Friedman, the fact that he invited their positions at all speaks strongly to the faith Bakan had in the strength of his own. And as a pissed off millennial who would very much like to kill a CEO, I believe Bakan’s logic has been getting its reps in at the gym. I’m not sure how much I agree with his prognosis that corporations are more like Frankenstein’s monster than constructs of Dr. Frankenstein himself, however, as the argument would seem to absolve corporate managers of their responsibility in furthering the shitty situation we find ourselves in as normal, everyday people just trying to live our lives.
However dated The Corporation is, I find it to be an instructive introduction to the ills of our frighteningly big business-oriented country here in the United States. So much of what Bakan had to say here bore out in even stronger evidence since of the evils of profit chasing, externalities, money in politics, and the disconnect between managers and shareholders. Many of the stories he relates even seem quaint with 2008, Amazon, and Elon Musk in our rear view mirror or windshield. Bakan’s primary argument that the corporation’s one legal purpose of maximizing profits sets any purported actions for the greater good as being diversions to further its ultimate goal is one that I feel is important for global citizens to remember, especially as we move further into an incorporated world.
And that wasn’t even the first time I’d fainted on the job like that.
In The Corporation, Law Professor Joel Bakan considers the legal designation of corporations as people and applies a psychiatric diagnosis of sorts in arguing that if corporations really are people, they must suffer from psychopathic tendencies. Bakan points to the corporation’s singular interest in delivering maximum profits to its shareholders as an endemic symptom of its pathology, and reflects on how this myopic purpose has empowered a culture of toxicity that puts the dollar before the individual.
Bakan makes no secret that he has a big axe to grind, but he is responsible and thorough in the presentation of his points. Bakan consistently references the best possible justifications provided by corporate mouthpieces and right-leaning economists as throughways to his own dissension, and while I frequently felt like he failed to leave much room for elaboration from the likes of such brilliant thinkers as Milton Friedman, the fact that he invited their positions at all speaks strongly to the faith Bakan had in the strength of his own. And as a pissed off millennial who would very much like to kill a CEO, I believe Bakan’s logic has been getting its reps in at the gym. I’m not sure how much I agree with his prognosis that corporations are more like Frankenstein’s monster than constructs of Dr. Frankenstein himself, however, as the argument would seem to absolve corporate managers of their responsibility in furthering the shitty situation we find ourselves in as normal, everyday people just trying to live our lives.
However dated The Corporation is, I find it to be an instructive introduction to the ills of our frighteningly big business-oriented country here in the United States. So much of what Bakan had to say here bore out in even stronger evidence since of the evils of profit chasing, externalities, money in politics, and the disconnect between managers and shareholders. Many of the stories he relates even seem quaint with 2008, Amazon, and Elon Musk in our rear view mirror or windshield. Bakan’s primary argument that the corporation’s one legal purpose of maximizing profits sets any purported actions for the greater good as being diversions to further its ultimate goal is one that I feel is important for global citizens to remember, especially as we move further into an incorporated world.
August 8, 2016
This is the companion book to the excellent documentary called, unsurprisingly, "The Corporation". The documentary, to be honest is more fun and has a more attuned sense of humor, which is refreshing. The book tends to be a little drier and feels rushed at times as if Bakan is trying to get the point across as quickly as possible, and with as little depth as possible. Which is fine. Let's face it, if you're reading this book in the first place, much of what is in it will seem familiar or even redundant. It's more of a basic outline of how shitty corporations are for people who might still not quite understand that. For me, it's value lies in showing the layfolk of the land that their anger, directed usually at people of differing pigmentation (plain damn dumb) and/or deity (iffy, at best), is misdirected down. It should be pointed up.
May 18, 2018
Alle radici del male di una società da salvare
Non so se sia un libro importante (e per me lo è), ma è importante il tema che propone. La Corporation, o Società per Azioni che dir si voglia, e la sua storia, la sua intima natura per mandato legale egoista e cinica, e l'evoluzione del suo ruolo sempre più dominante nella nostra società. Una storia che, nata dalle esigenze di delega allo scopo di realizzare scopi che lo stato non era in grado di gestire direttamente, si è man mano evoluta sino a fare di essa una entità che aspira al controllo di quello stesso stato che l'aveva creata.
Da quando Dodge azionista vinse la causa contro Ford, che voleva che la sua fabbrica facesse anche del bene, alla sottrazione della responsabilità individuale degli azionisti, dalle valutazioni puramente economiche di danni fisici e ambientali sempre più esternalizzati alla privatizzazione patologica di servizi primari come acqua o scuola, l'evoluzione della Corporation ha sempre tenuto fede al mandato legale del profitto. E con sempre meno scrupoli, meno controlli, più potere su quelle istituzioni che dovrebbero esserne i controllori.
Tramite una lobbying pervasiva che riduce le leggi di tutela, tramite il controllo (come col fallito colpo di stato contro Roosevelt del 1934) di regimi politici economicamente coinvolti e soggiogati, tramite la sistematica manipolazione di una pubblicità scientificamente progettata sulle menti anche deboli (tipo i bambini sotto gli 8 anni) come nelle scuole d'America privatizzate, la Corporation è sempre più finalizzata a convincerci che la società migliore è quella in cui i singoli sono in grado di arricchirsi a qualunque costo.
Ma la natura umana non è solo egoista e cinica. C'è una parte dell'uomo che la Corporation, pur se persona giuridica, non può per sua natura replicare o tutelare. E' la nostra natura empatica, il nostro desiderio del giusto e che la nostra vita e quella delle persone care splendano attraverso valori positivi, che ci si comporti tenendo conto degli effetti delle proprie azioni oggi e in futuro, che ci si assuma la responsabilità di plasmare la società secondo un modello più complesso, un modello 'umano' che ne permetta la sopravvivenza.
Per far ciò occorre trasformare la Corporation, limitarne gli istinti, restituire allo Stato (con la S maiuscola) quel ruolo di controllore e regolatore pian piano abdicato, manipolato in cattiva fede e vittima della natura stessa della Corporation. Non c'è progresso nel lavoro sfruttato, nella manipolazione delle menti, in una alimentazione malata, nello sfruttamento e morte del nostro pianeta, nella democrazia pesata col capitale, in un uomo che aspira solo ai suoi bisogni indotti. Il progresso è altro, occorrerà capirlo presto.
Non so se sia un libro importante (e per me lo è), ma è importante il tema che propone. La Corporation, o Società per Azioni che dir si voglia, e la sua storia, la sua intima natura per mandato legale egoista e cinica, e l'evoluzione del suo ruolo sempre più dominante nella nostra società. Una storia che, nata dalle esigenze di delega allo scopo di realizzare scopi che lo stato non era in grado di gestire direttamente, si è man mano evoluta sino a fare di essa una entità che aspira al controllo di quello stesso stato che l'aveva creata.
Da quando Dodge azionista vinse la causa contro Ford, che voleva che la sua fabbrica facesse anche del bene, alla sottrazione della responsabilità individuale degli azionisti, dalle valutazioni puramente economiche di danni fisici e ambientali sempre più esternalizzati alla privatizzazione patologica di servizi primari come acqua o scuola, l'evoluzione della Corporation ha sempre tenuto fede al mandato legale del profitto. E con sempre meno scrupoli, meno controlli, più potere su quelle istituzioni che dovrebbero esserne i controllori.
Tramite una lobbying pervasiva che riduce le leggi di tutela, tramite il controllo (come col fallito colpo di stato contro Roosevelt del 1934) di regimi politici economicamente coinvolti e soggiogati, tramite la sistematica manipolazione di una pubblicità scientificamente progettata sulle menti anche deboli (tipo i bambini sotto gli 8 anni) come nelle scuole d'America privatizzate, la Corporation è sempre più finalizzata a convincerci che la società migliore è quella in cui i singoli sono in grado di arricchirsi a qualunque costo.
Ma la natura umana non è solo egoista e cinica. C'è una parte dell'uomo che la Corporation, pur se persona giuridica, non può per sua natura replicare o tutelare. E' la nostra natura empatica, il nostro desiderio del giusto e che la nostra vita e quella delle persone care splendano attraverso valori positivi, che ci si comporti tenendo conto degli effetti delle proprie azioni oggi e in futuro, che ci si assuma la responsabilità di plasmare la società secondo un modello più complesso, un modello 'umano' che ne permetta la sopravvivenza.
Per far ciò occorre trasformare la Corporation, limitarne gli istinti, restituire allo Stato (con la S maiuscola) quel ruolo di controllore e regolatore pian piano abdicato, manipolato in cattiva fede e vittima della natura stessa della Corporation. Non c'è progresso nel lavoro sfruttato, nella manipolazione delle menti, in una alimentazione malata, nello sfruttamento e morte del nostro pianeta, nella democrazia pesata col capitale, in un uomo che aspira solo ai suoi bisogni indotti. Il progresso è altro, occorrerà capirlo presto.
August 26, 2024
“The ideal citizen is a kind of insanely rapacious consumer driven by a kind of psychopathic version of self-interest. A century and a half after its birth, the modern business corporation, an artificial person made in the image of a human psychopath, now is seeking to remake real people in its image.”
“The Corporation” is one of those rare political/economics books in that it’s a short, sharp piece of work which manages to maintain its urgency and appeal throughout without dumbing down or trying to show off to fellow academics or scholars, and as a result it brings forth the best of both worlds, which is never as easy as it looks.
The invention of limited liability has to be one of the greatest scams ever pulled on society, a toxic, fundamentally flawed scheme which encourages and defends some of the worst traits of human nature, a law which forgives and rewards guilty, criminal acts by wealthy and powerful interests at the expense of those they have inflicted malice on, lied to or stolen from. Of course limited liability really means limited responsibility, something that corporations love to excel in more than anything else. It’s frankly astonishing that such a thing still exists today in so called civilized society.
He dials back to the origins of modern day hyper-capitalism by citing the ground zero of the Industrial Revolution with the invention of the first steam powered engine by Thomas Newcomen in 1712 – in the atmospheric engine. We touch on the early corporations such as the Hudson Bay and East India companies. We see that by the end of the 1800s those with commercial interests had successfully conspired with the lawmakers of the day to ensure that a corporation could now be recognised as a “person”.
“A corporation can do good only to help itself do well.”
He mentions the Dodge v Ford (1919) case which cemented in law that managers and directors of corporations have a duty to put shareholders interest above everything else and have no legal authority to serve any other interests. We hear about the now notorious case of General Motors and their severe cost cutting measures where they were happy to allow a certain number of people to suffer and die rather than recall faulty cars as it would save money, and of course this abhorrent, sociopathic behaviour continues today with one of the most recent, high profile cases concerning Boeing, whose cost benefit analysis resulted in the crashing of multiple planes and the avoidable death of hundreds of people.
“In devastation there is opportunity. It’s all about creating wealth.”
At one point he lists some of General Electric’s major legal breaches from 1990 – 2001 which runs well into double figures and amounts to billions of dollars in fines, their long-list of crimes ranges from polluting or contaminating soil, air, rivers and drinking water to deceptive advertising, illegally selling fighter jets to Israel, defrauding the US government, PCB clean-ups, asbestos clean-ups, overcharging for services, design flaws in nuclear fuel plants and improperly testing aircraft parts for the air force and navy to mention only some.
He also reminds us just how closely aligned the interests of fascism and corporations has been with the failed coup of 1934 to overthrow FDR after he proposed the New Deal, which aimed to help the poor rather than just more measures to increase the wealth of the already rich and powerful. We also learn about a world view where children are viewed as “evolving consumers” living more of their lives restricted to “brand enclosures”. Everyone and everything is always fair game when it comes to the corporate world, with the end (more profit) forever justifying the means. Compartmentalisation seems effortless to the people responsible, especially when it rewards them to such excessive degrees.
To think this was written before the global financial crisis, which took corporate avarice and criminality to new heightened, toxic levels which impacted across the world. And of course until corporations and the laws around them are challenged in meaningful and lasting ways then there’s no reason to think that any of this will just magically improve. Until sweeping reforms and regulations are put in place it’s just going to be a case of business as usual.
“The Corporation” is one of those rare political/economics books in that it’s a short, sharp piece of work which manages to maintain its urgency and appeal throughout without dumbing down or trying to show off to fellow academics or scholars, and as a result it brings forth the best of both worlds, which is never as easy as it looks.
The invention of limited liability has to be one of the greatest scams ever pulled on society, a toxic, fundamentally flawed scheme which encourages and defends some of the worst traits of human nature, a law which forgives and rewards guilty, criminal acts by wealthy and powerful interests at the expense of those they have inflicted malice on, lied to or stolen from. Of course limited liability really means limited responsibility, something that corporations love to excel in more than anything else. It’s frankly astonishing that such a thing still exists today in so called civilized society.
He dials back to the origins of modern day hyper-capitalism by citing the ground zero of the Industrial Revolution with the invention of the first steam powered engine by Thomas Newcomen in 1712 – in the atmospheric engine. We touch on the early corporations such as the Hudson Bay and East India companies. We see that by the end of the 1800s those with commercial interests had successfully conspired with the lawmakers of the day to ensure that a corporation could now be recognised as a “person”.
“A corporation can do good only to help itself do well.”
He mentions the Dodge v Ford (1919) case which cemented in law that managers and directors of corporations have a duty to put shareholders interest above everything else and have no legal authority to serve any other interests. We hear about the now notorious case of General Motors and their severe cost cutting measures where they were happy to allow a certain number of people to suffer and die rather than recall faulty cars as it would save money, and of course this abhorrent, sociopathic behaviour continues today with one of the most recent, high profile cases concerning Boeing, whose cost benefit analysis resulted in the crashing of multiple planes and the avoidable death of hundreds of people.
“In devastation there is opportunity. It’s all about creating wealth.”
At one point he lists some of General Electric’s major legal breaches from 1990 – 2001 which runs well into double figures and amounts to billions of dollars in fines, their long-list of crimes ranges from polluting or contaminating soil, air, rivers and drinking water to deceptive advertising, illegally selling fighter jets to Israel, defrauding the US government, PCB clean-ups, asbestos clean-ups, overcharging for services, design flaws in nuclear fuel plants and improperly testing aircraft parts for the air force and navy to mention only some.
He also reminds us just how closely aligned the interests of fascism and corporations has been with the failed coup of 1934 to overthrow FDR after he proposed the New Deal, which aimed to help the poor rather than just more measures to increase the wealth of the already rich and powerful. We also learn about a world view where children are viewed as “evolving consumers” living more of their lives restricted to “brand enclosures”. Everyone and everything is always fair game when it comes to the corporate world, with the end (more profit) forever justifying the means. Compartmentalisation seems effortless to the people responsible, especially when it rewards them to such excessive degrees.
To think this was written before the global financial crisis, which took corporate avarice and criminality to new heightened, toxic levels which impacted across the world. And of course until corporations and the laws around them are challenged in meaningful and lasting ways then there’s no reason to think that any of this will just magically improve. Until sweeping reforms and regulations are put in place it’s just going to be a case of business as usual.
June 4, 2010
Although this book (and corresponding documentary) was released back in 2004, it obviously is still massively relevant, given the credit crunch and banking collapses of Bear Sterns, Lehman Bros and RBS last year, caused by putting corporate profit before all else.
A corporation has only one goal – to make a profit for its shareholders. Corporations using shareholders money for any other reason is actually against the law. Companies who apparently are doing business for the benefit of others (the 3rd world, the environment) are only doing so because it makes the company a profit. It is a corporation’s LEGAL requirement to stop such activities when they start to become unprofitable. Think about that the next time you see an advert for Exxon-Mobile and their “algae”, or free drug donations by Pfizer to the 3rd world.
Legally, a corporation is treated as an individual, which came about when trying to protect the shareholders from liability. However, this affords high ranking members of corporation’s massive protection when it comes to legal disputes, as their decisions were taken with the profitability of the corporation in mind. And because a corporation’s only legal requirement is to make money, those members of the board had no choice! And who can be to blame when a company’s actions causes untold harm?
Corporations are massively under-regulated, and the beginnings of corporations running public utilities (such as water, gas, electricity) is a frightening turn to take given how little control governments have over them. It ironic that Corporations are legal a “person”, because according to psychological definitions, their behaviour (self centred, self obsessed, narcissistic and pathological) would be considered psychopathic
It’s a powerful, frightening book
A corporation has only one goal – to make a profit for its shareholders. Corporations using shareholders money for any other reason is actually against the law. Companies who apparently are doing business for the benefit of others (the 3rd world, the environment) are only doing so because it makes the company a profit. It is a corporation’s LEGAL requirement to stop such activities when they start to become unprofitable. Think about that the next time you see an advert for Exxon-Mobile and their “algae”, or free drug donations by Pfizer to the 3rd world.
Legally, a corporation is treated as an individual, which came about when trying to protect the shareholders from liability. However, this affords high ranking members of corporation’s massive protection when it comes to legal disputes, as their decisions were taken with the profitability of the corporation in mind. And because a corporation’s only legal requirement is to make money, those members of the board had no choice! And who can be to blame when a company’s actions causes untold harm?
Corporations are massively under-regulated, and the beginnings of corporations running public utilities (such as water, gas, electricity) is a frightening turn to take given how little control governments have over them. It ironic that Corporations are legal a “person”, because according to psychological definitions, their behaviour (self centred, self obsessed, narcissistic and pathological) would be considered psychopathic
It’s a powerful, frightening book
September 15, 2007
This book is one of my favorites. I've owned for it only a month, and yet it is notationed, and dog-earred and full of smudge prints from where I pointed to particular paragraphs and said, "Yes, just like that."
I'd like to buy a copy of this book for every friend, family member and neighbor who listens to our town council meetings on our one radio station when a foreign mining company comes to town to make assurances that they should ignore the risks of cyanide spill and increased barge traffic that could potentially destory a salmon run that has sustained a culture for thousands of years. Some of my favorite phrases were: "market fundamentalism and its facilitation of deregulation and privatization," "the expanding role of the state in protecting corporations from citizens," "socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor," "rationalized greed and mandated selfishness," and "the co-optation of government by business."
It's written to be read. And it reads quickly. I couldn't recommend it more.
I'd like to buy a copy of this book for every friend, family member and neighbor who listens to our town council meetings on our one radio station when a foreign mining company comes to town to make assurances that they should ignore the risks of cyanide spill and increased barge traffic that could potentially destory a salmon run that has sustained a culture for thousands of years. Some of my favorite phrases were: "market fundamentalism and its facilitation of deregulation and privatization," "the expanding role of the state in protecting corporations from citizens," "socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor," "rationalized greed and mandated selfishness," and "the co-optation of government by business."
It's written to be read. And it reads quickly. I couldn't recommend it more.
May 1, 2015
Corporations have psychopathic personalities. That part was hilarious and insightful at the same time. This is a brisk read and absolutely essential for understanding the motivations and weaknesses of the world's most powerful institution: the modern corporation.
February 2, 2013
A critical examination of the nature of the modern corporation
2 February 2013
I guess I discovered this book after watching the documentary movie of the same name, though I suspect that the book was based upon the movie (normally such movies tend to spawn books which explore the topics that the movie explores in greater detail). The corporation itself is a dichotomy, namely because despite what is wrong with these entities (Bakan proves that they have all of the characteristics of a psychopath), these entities are also responsible for our current lifestyle. To be honest, to remove the economic institutions we have today and return to the era of the cottage industry and the local store owner will drive up prices and undermine our luxurious lifestyles (which will also be the result of doing nothing).
That does not necessarily mean that it is good for us to live the luxurious lifestyles that we are living in the west, particularly since our lifestyles (as all in history who live such extravagant lives) are supported by slavery. While they may not be slaves in the literal sense, they are slaves in the economic sense, living on less than two dollars a day and working extra-ordinary hours in horrendous conditions. Despite the fact that many of the senior executives of these corporations (as well as the shareholders, which include any of us who have a pension fund) pretend that they don't know how these goods are being made, or the conditions that the workers are working in, in reality (as is demonstrated in The Big One where Michael Moore asks Phillip Knight of Nike to go with him to Indonesia to see the conditions of the factories that the shoes are produced in; an invitation which Phillip Knight politely declines) we all wish to remain wilfully blind to the reality of what is going on (namely because we don't actually want to give anything up, and the more that we have, the less we want to give up).
Granted, while I may not own a car, and resist the temptation to buy things that I do not need, I still live a rather luxurious life, and the fact that I can jump on a plane and fly to Europe and back, is a testament to that. There are people that I work with that to them such an adventure is little more than a pipe dream, and I am not even earning big bucks. This is because I have no dependants and little debt, I have a much higher disposable income than many other people that I work with, even those who hold higher positions than I do.
There are a few things that come out of this book (or I should say the movie, because that is what I am writing from – though I have read the book) that I wish to explore, and one of them is the corporation as the externalising machine. Externalisation is the art of making something somebody else's problem, despite the fact that you are the cause of that problem. For example, when a corporation dumps all of its toxic waste into the river, and lets the government and the community deal with it, then it is externalising waste management. When it is too expensive to actually deal with the waste properly, and the laws that prevent the corporation from dumping the wast are weak, or even non-existent, then the most cost effective way to deal with waste is to externalise it (that is dump it into the river and make it somebody else's problem).
Labour is another thing that is externalised, and one way to do that is to contract out certain areas so that the corporation can cut back on labour costs and not have to feel responsible for how products are used. In fact, where in the past a corporation was defined by what it made and in turn sold, this is pretty much disappearing as we speak. Nike do not make shoes, they contract that out to some sweatshop in Indonesia which is not even owned by them. Instead, they buy the shoes, and then sell the shoes, either direct to the consumer or through an intermediary. As such Nike is no longer a manufacturer of shoes, they are simply a brand that makes money by being a middle man. However, it is not even that by contracting labour to the sweatshops that the product becomes cheaper. The price of the product actually stays the same, it is just the profit that the corporation makes increases (and even then there is no guarantee that the shareholders will ever see any of that profit. Instead they will keep the profits, which no doubt will result in an increased share price, and even then the shareholder must know when to sell (which is nigh impossible) to maximise their investment).
What we need is not to get rid of the corporations, because at heart we need them to be able to maintain our extravagant lifestyles. However, what we need is a paradigm shift, within ourselves and within our society. We have to begin to learn to be content with less. The Socialists are right when they say that even if we live in a country like Australia, we must still remain vigilant less the freedoms and the laws that we have here are undermined by corporate greed. However, how many of us live in houses with electricity, and how many of us watch television? Can we go without our laptops or our mobile devices? It is because we desire these things that the corporations remain in control. Granted these devices make our lives easier, but at what cost? Even if climate change is not a man made phenomena, the pollution that is spewed into the air, and the toxins that are pumped into our water supply, are having a significant impact upon the world in which we live, and to be honest with you, it is unsustainable.
We may wonder if there has ever been a similar period in history like our own, and my answer is that on one hand there hasn't been one, but in another there has. The period I point to is that of the mid to later Roman Empire, where people were living such luxurious lives that they blinded themselves to the ecological destruction that they were causing. It is not simply that either, because inflation was running rampant, and while the rich were getting richer, the basic necessities of life were unreachable by the masses. Rome ended up collapsing, and with it creating a dark age of epic proportions, and that is something that we are even now also looking at.
2 February 2013
I guess I discovered this book after watching the documentary movie of the same name, though I suspect that the book was based upon the movie (normally such movies tend to spawn books which explore the topics that the movie explores in greater detail). The corporation itself is a dichotomy, namely because despite what is wrong with these entities (Bakan proves that they have all of the characteristics of a psychopath), these entities are also responsible for our current lifestyle. To be honest, to remove the economic institutions we have today and return to the era of the cottage industry and the local store owner will drive up prices and undermine our luxurious lifestyles (which will also be the result of doing nothing).
That does not necessarily mean that it is good for us to live the luxurious lifestyles that we are living in the west, particularly since our lifestyles (as all in history who live such extravagant lives) are supported by slavery. While they may not be slaves in the literal sense, they are slaves in the economic sense, living on less than two dollars a day and working extra-ordinary hours in horrendous conditions. Despite the fact that many of the senior executives of these corporations (as well as the shareholders, which include any of us who have a pension fund) pretend that they don't know how these goods are being made, or the conditions that the workers are working in, in reality (as is demonstrated in The Big One where Michael Moore asks Phillip Knight of Nike to go with him to Indonesia to see the conditions of the factories that the shoes are produced in; an invitation which Phillip Knight politely declines) we all wish to remain wilfully blind to the reality of what is going on (namely because we don't actually want to give anything up, and the more that we have, the less we want to give up).
Granted, while I may not own a car, and resist the temptation to buy things that I do not need, I still live a rather luxurious life, and the fact that I can jump on a plane and fly to Europe and back, is a testament to that. There are people that I work with that to them such an adventure is little more than a pipe dream, and I am not even earning big bucks. This is because I have no dependants and little debt, I have a much higher disposable income than many other people that I work with, even those who hold higher positions than I do.
There are a few things that come out of this book (or I should say the movie, because that is what I am writing from – though I have read the book) that I wish to explore, and one of them is the corporation as the externalising machine. Externalisation is the art of making something somebody else's problem, despite the fact that you are the cause of that problem. For example, when a corporation dumps all of its toxic waste into the river, and lets the government and the community deal with it, then it is externalising waste management. When it is too expensive to actually deal with the waste properly, and the laws that prevent the corporation from dumping the wast are weak, or even non-existent, then the most cost effective way to deal with waste is to externalise it (that is dump it into the river and make it somebody else's problem).
Labour is another thing that is externalised, and one way to do that is to contract out certain areas so that the corporation can cut back on labour costs and not have to feel responsible for how products are used. In fact, where in the past a corporation was defined by what it made and in turn sold, this is pretty much disappearing as we speak. Nike do not make shoes, they contract that out to some sweatshop in Indonesia which is not even owned by them. Instead, they buy the shoes, and then sell the shoes, either direct to the consumer or through an intermediary. As such Nike is no longer a manufacturer of shoes, they are simply a brand that makes money by being a middle man. However, it is not even that by contracting labour to the sweatshops that the product becomes cheaper. The price of the product actually stays the same, it is just the profit that the corporation makes increases (and even then there is no guarantee that the shareholders will ever see any of that profit. Instead they will keep the profits, which no doubt will result in an increased share price, and even then the shareholder must know when to sell (which is nigh impossible) to maximise their investment).
What we need is not to get rid of the corporations, because at heart we need them to be able to maintain our extravagant lifestyles. However, what we need is a paradigm shift, within ourselves and within our society. We have to begin to learn to be content with less. The Socialists are right when they say that even if we live in a country like Australia, we must still remain vigilant less the freedoms and the laws that we have here are undermined by corporate greed. However, how many of us live in houses with electricity, and how many of us watch television? Can we go without our laptops or our mobile devices? It is because we desire these things that the corporations remain in control. Granted these devices make our lives easier, but at what cost? Even if climate change is not a man made phenomena, the pollution that is spewed into the air, and the toxins that are pumped into our water supply, are having a significant impact upon the world in which we live, and to be honest with you, it is unsustainable.
We may wonder if there has ever been a similar period in history like our own, and my answer is that on one hand there hasn't been one, but in another there has. The period I point to is that of the mid to later Roman Empire, where people were living such luxurious lives that they blinded themselves to the ecological destruction that they were causing. It is not simply that either, because inflation was running rampant, and while the rich were getting richer, the basic necessities of life were unreachable by the masses. Rome ended up collapsing, and with it creating a dark age of epic proportions, and that is something that we are even now also looking at.
January 10, 2015
This is a book that would have made a good article. I knew what to expect from the very beginning: the word "pathological" in the subtitle indicates only one conclusion that this book is willing to consider.
I'm not an unsympathetic audience for this line of thinking: I'm a strong believer that your sympathy should lie with people before organizations. Corporations don't really deserve our sympathy, etc.
There is something simple and stark about a corporation though: you can trust it to do what it's going to do. That's something that you can't say about most things: people have conflicting desires, government has conflicting priorities and constituencies plus it changes direction so often. A corporation's motives are pure and clean: it will take as much money from you as it can, and then it will try to do it some more.
This book's putative page count is 230, but only 170 of that is text. After that comes the end notes, the bibliography, the acknowledgements, and the index. The whole thing is organized like a college paper, and it reads like one too. Complaint one: reading through the end notes, you see as many as five "ibids" in a row. I feel like this shows a fair amount of laziness on the author's part, and a lack of synthetic thinking. Complaint two: no consideration of contradictory evidence. Apart from an acknowledgement early on regarding the limited liability and capital-leverage features of a corporation (viewed as a negative), there is no recognition that the corporate form has unleashed some pretty amazing results on the world. I like airplanes. I like electronics. These things didn't just fall from the sky; in many cases there are government research, infrastructure, and security to thank for the basics. But the corporate structure can refine raw intellectual ingredients into finished, commercially viable products and then drive the cost lower and lower.
So enough about how awesome corporations are--back to the book. Complaint three: the book is structured as a series of anecdotes about bad corporate behavior. That is fine, but it's only the tip of the iceberg. The follow-through to a bigger picture and better world is sorely lacking. How can we keep better eyes on the corporations that impact our society? Are there resources, or newsletters, or reports? The book doesn't provide any tools about how to do our own homework.
How can we make the world different? There are nine suggestions in the last chapter, but I personally don't believe that any of them are practical at an individual level. For example, "Government regulation should be reconceived, and relegitimated, as the principal means for bringing corporations under democratic control and ensuring that they respect the interests of citizens, communities, and the environment." I don't really know how to do this, or even what "relegitimated" means. The book doesn't specifically state this, but the thought process is clear: the author conceives of history as a straight line, where current trends continue unabated into the future. I don't believe this at all, at least for what society tolerates. I'm more of a pendulum swinger: current trends continue until unsustainable, and then reverse for decades until the new trend is unsustainable, and the pendulum reverses again. I believe this is what it will take for the position of corporations to change in our society: a situation so bad and untenable that only total reform will be acceptable to society at large. If you look back at the Progressive/Muckraker era and the Depression/New Deal era, that is the magnitude of popular fury required to modify corporate behavior. Even after the Great Recession, we aren't there yet.
Finally, something that is not really a complaint, but more an observation: this book was published in 2004. Enron still looms large in this book's psyche. The author returns to it again and again as an example of a corporation run amok. It almost seems quaint, considering what happened in 2008-09, to be so indignant about what happened earlier in the decade.
Overall, there are some good warnings in the book, especially about corporations' influence over children, both at school and in the larger world. The overall tenor of the book, though, is unlikely to win many converts or to result in any measurable change in the world. As a result, I would deem this book a failure in its goals of raising awareness and advocating for change.
I'm not an unsympathetic audience for this line of thinking: I'm a strong believer that your sympathy should lie with people before organizations. Corporations don't really deserve our sympathy, etc.
There is something simple and stark about a corporation though: you can trust it to do what it's going to do. That's something that you can't say about most things: people have conflicting desires, government has conflicting priorities and constituencies plus it changes direction so often. A corporation's motives are pure and clean: it will take as much money from you as it can, and then it will try to do it some more.
This book's putative page count is 230, but only 170 of that is text. After that comes the end notes, the bibliography, the acknowledgements, and the index. The whole thing is organized like a college paper, and it reads like one too. Complaint one: reading through the end notes, you see as many as five "ibids" in a row. I feel like this shows a fair amount of laziness on the author's part, and a lack of synthetic thinking. Complaint two: no consideration of contradictory evidence. Apart from an acknowledgement early on regarding the limited liability and capital-leverage features of a corporation (viewed as a negative), there is no recognition that the corporate form has unleashed some pretty amazing results on the world. I like airplanes. I like electronics. These things didn't just fall from the sky; in many cases there are government research, infrastructure, and security to thank for the basics. But the corporate structure can refine raw intellectual ingredients into finished, commercially viable products and then drive the cost lower and lower.
So enough about how awesome corporations are--back to the book. Complaint three: the book is structured as a series of anecdotes about bad corporate behavior. That is fine, but it's only the tip of the iceberg. The follow-through to a bigger picture and better world is sorely lacking. How can we keep better eyes on the corporations that impact our society? Are there resources, or newsletters, or reports? The book doesn't provide any tools about how to do our own homework.
How can we make the world different? There are nine suggestions in the last chapter, but I personally don't believe that any of them are practical at an individual level. For example, "Government regulation should be reconceived, and relegitimated, as the principal means for bringing corporations under democratic control and ensuring that they respect the interests of citizens, communities, and the environment." I don't really know how to do this, or even what "relegitimated" means. The book doesn't specifically state this, but the thought process is clear: the author conceives of history as a straight line, where current trends continue unabated into the future. I don't believe this at all, at least for what society tolerates. I'm more of a pendulum swinger: current trends continue until unsustainable, and then reverse for decades until the new trend is unsustainable, and the pendulum reverses again. I believe this is what it will take for the position of corporations to change in our society: a situation so bad and untenable that only total reform will be acceptable to society at large. If you look back at the Progressive/Muckraker era and the Depression/New Deal era, that is the magnitude of popular fury required to modify corporate behavior. Even after the Great Recession, we aren't there yet.
Finally, something that is not really a complaint, but more an observation: this book was published in 2004. Enron still looms large in this book's psyche. The author returns to it again and again as an example of a corporation run amok. It almost seems quaint, considering what happened in 2008-09, to be so indignant about what happened earlier in the decade.
Overall, there are some good warnings in the book, especially about corporations' influence over children, both at school and in the larger world. The overall tenor of the book, though, is unlikely to win many converts or to result in any measurable change in the world. As a result, I would deem this book a failure in its goals of raising awareness and advocating for change.
September 16, 2017
Watched the documentary years ago during college, but never got around to reading the book. The book was a bit drier and less emotionally tugging than the documentary; it also read like a college research paper (which could be good or bad depending on the reader).
Bakan explains in depth (with a lot of data to prove his point/s), about the creation of the corporation & the legal implications of the corporation as an entity. What I really liked about it was that he offered practical solutions that could check corporate power and get corporations back on the right path (i.e., regulation by the people, not the other way around).
Sounds really good in theory, but I’m not sure this is practical. It’s already been 12 years since this book has been published, and yet corporate power and globalization is on the rise. I think Bakan was spot-on when he maintained that lobbying and corporate influence should stay out of the public sphere/ politics. But, who wouldn’t disagree with this? *Now* it all feels like old news, but in 2005 – it was shocking to the masses. I can see why.
Bakan also focuses A LOT on the legal aspects of corporate power – how the law enables the corporate form to abuse its’ power, how there is only one corporate duty: serve the shareholder’s best interest, i.e., profit, profit, profit. There’s a lot of history and data to support this statement. While this is true, Bakan focuses too much on trying to convince the reader that this problem exists, rather than explaining the social implications and providing an alternative model for corporations.
I don’t know. I personally believe capitalism is the lesser of two evils, but ONLY because democracy calls for power from the people (to a certain extent), and provides more avenues for people to earn their wealth (compared to communism). However, both ultimately fail because people are corrupt. It’s not the system (ideologically, communism sounds wonderful - IMO, but practically – it has never, and could never work, because people are corrupt and will abuse their power), rather our culture and people that must change.
Even if gov’t interferes here, I’m not sure we will be able to fix the crux of the problem: greed and corruption; and the wealthy doing whatever it takes to retain their wealth. It’s going to take more than “the law” to fix this.
Still, there are so many important questions raised and answered in this book! Highly recommended (along with the documentary).
Bakan explains in depth (with a lot of data to prove his point/s), about the creation of the corporation & the legal implications of the corporation as an entity. What I really liked about it was that he offered practical solutions that could check corporate power and get corporations back on the right path (i.e., regulation by the people, not the other way around).
Sounds really good in theory, but I’m not sure this is practical. It’s already been 12 years since this book has been published, and yet corporate power and globalization is on the rise. I think Bakan was spot-on when he maintained that lobbying and corporate influence should stay out of the public sphere/ politics. But, who wouldn’t disagree with this? *Now* it all feels like old news, but in 2005 – it was shocking to the masses. I can see why.
Bakan also focuses A LOT on the legal aspects of corporate power – how the law enables the corporate form to abuse its’ power, how there is only one corporate duty: serve the shareholder’s best interest, i.e., profit, profit, profit. There’s a lot of history and data to support this statement. While this is true, Bakan focuses too much on trying to convince the reader that this problem exists, rather than explaining the social implications and providing an alternative model for corporations.
I don’t know. I personally believe capitalism is the lesser of two evils, but ONLY because democracy calls for power from the people (to a certain extent), and provides more avenues for people to earn their wealth (compared to communism). However, both ultimately fail because people are corrupt. It’s not the system (ideologically, communism sounds wonderful - IMO, but practically – it has never, and could never work, because people are corrupt and will abuse their power), rather our culture and people that must change.
Even if gov’t interferes here, I’m not sure we will be able to fix the crux of the problem: greed and corruption; and the wealthy doing whatever it takes to retain their wealth. It’s going to take more than “the law” to fix this.
Still, there are so many important questions raised and answered in this book! Highly recommended (along with the documentary).
October 21, 2020
Here's a fascinating book, making a powerful case, yet trying so hard to be fair that, personally, I think it doesn't go far enough and so misses the point in the (rough) solutions it proposes. What is it about?
Well, written in the shadow of Enron's collapse, the point made by the author is that Corporates, these massive institutions driving our economies and shaping our lives whether we like or not, are, at their core, pathological. They are pathological because their only purposes is to make profit for their owners (read: shareholders) and this drive for profits leaves them completely oblivious to the consequences this can have upon us all (let alone the environment, if you're ecologically inclined). Put it bluntly: Corporates, as institutions, are psychopaths let loose within our capitalistic system.
Now, of course, it's the goal of every company/ businesses to make profits! But corporates, by their very nature, are not your normal business indeed. Institutions owned by shareholders so numerous it dilutes personal responsibility, and entrusted to the hands of directors/ managers whose role is solely to make it profitable for its shareholders, you would be dumb to don't see in it not only the seeds for corruption, but, also, the potential and disastrous impact such Frankenstein can unleash if left without control. This is actually so obvious that, classical liberalism warned against them (poor Adam Smith! He must be spinning into his grave looking at what psycho-yuppies, who clearly never read him, have made of his 'invisible hand'...). This is actually so obvious that, believe it not, there were once even Parliamentary laws making them illegal (e.g. the Bubble Act in the UK, passed in 1720 following the collapse of the South Sea Company...). This is actually so obvious that, every sensible governments who had to pick up their mess, from the English Parliament back in the 18th century to Roosevelt and his New Deal in the 20th century, knew full-well that such monsters had to be tamed for the sake of us all. It's so obvious, and yet...
And yet, over the past five decades or so corporate capitalism came to triumph and dominate our world! How come?
'A fledging institution that could be banned with the stroke of a legislative pen in 1720, the corporation now dominates society and government.'
Joel Bakan, here, does a brilliant and educational job in retracing their fascinating history, showing not only how they came to be so powerful in today's world, but, also, how, in the process, they gained an identity of their own where profits is the sole drive, shareholders the priority (despite potentially being vulnerable to be fooled themselves), and responsibility so diluted they came to have no responsibility whatsoever apart for making money. Of course, then as now here are recipes for disasters! To their credit, corporates these days love to bash us all ad nauseam about their so-called 'social responsibility' -some indeed are responsible, and take their social role very seriously. But the author is not, rightfully, concerned with case by case corporate nor case by case individuals running them. He is concerned with their structure, history, and, so, as a result, their pathological functioning. Deregulations synonyms with attacks upon workers rights and human rights, threat to civil society and the social contracts that bind us all (corporatism was a feature of fascism, after all...), no care whatsoever for the environment, reducing us all to only units of production or consumers to the point of even targeting children in their race for money ('within the psychopathic world of the corporation, vulnerability is an invitation to exploit, not a reason to protect') the author shows indeed that without regulations for corporate to internalize the costs they have upon society, 'corporate social responsibility' will remain an oxymoron. The lesson was learnt in 18th century England, and it was learnt in the wake of the 1929's crisis. When Enron and such collapsed, we therefore had no excuse to don't know better:
'the underlying reasons for its collapse can be traced to characteristics common to all corporations: obsession with profit and share prices, greed, lack of concerns for others, and a penchant for breaking legal rules.'
So, I love the core argument. Yet, I disagree with how timid the author is.
His solutions are weak. For instance, he calls for regulations in order to tame such powerful Behemoth. Personally, I don't. I don't, not because I am a looney who believes in anarcho-capitalism. On that score, I actually fully agree with one of Balkan's most powerful statement in this book against the system we currently live in, that is:
'No one would seriously suggest that individuals should regulate themselves, that laws against murder, assault, and theft are unnecessary because people are socially responsible. Yet oddly, we are asked to believe that corporate persons -institutional psychopaths who lack any sense of moral conviction and who have the power and motivation to cause harm and devastation in the world- should be left free to govern themselves.'
No, I don't believe in regulations, simply because there already are regulations. More red tape is not going to solve the problem. The willingness of our leaders to actually have such regulations be respected, and whose failing to abide punished, should be enough to solve the problem. They don't, because our system is one of crony capitalism whereas politicians depend on corporates to sustain their career, from financing of political parties and campaigns to lobbying, and revolving doors between politics and the business and financial world etc. If the author has one solution worth looking into, it's indeed a rethink of our whole political system:
'Elections should be publicly financed, corporate financial donations phased out, and tighter restrictions imposed on lobbying and the "revolving door" flow of personnel between government and business.'
I also found him timid when trying to excuse away the behaviours of the individuals in charge, by insisting most are actually decent human beings just caught in the cogs of a pathological system. Ethically, I found him here rolling down a slippery slope and so missing the point.
He is right: the ability of the people concerned to compartmentalise (his word) their life that is, disassociating their private life from their jobs, is a sure evidence that they are not psychopaths in the strictly psychiatric definition of the term. Yet, does that mean they are decent people? The author claims so -again, to him they are as victim of a dysfunctional system as we all are. This might be the case for some, whose running corporates taking their social responsibility seriously. As a whole, though, I strongly disagree. And now brace yourself, because my point will shock many (I don't care):
The bureaucrats members of the Nazi party and serving the regime were wonderful people too by this logic. Many were amazing husbands, loving fathers, good neighbours... Or were they? Of course not! These people might have been remarkable in their private lives, nevertheless, the choices they made to participate and collaborate in an enterprise they knew criminal made them criminals. They deserve our disdain and our repulsion, not our sympathy for having been caught up in the cogs of Nazism, a truly evil regime. I believe it is the same with the CEOs running modern day corporates. They might be remarkable people in private, but the willing choices they make in the course of their jobs, fully knowing the terrible consequences such choices have upon the rest of us, doesn't make them decent. It makes them worthy of our disdain and our condemnation. Of course, it's not easy! Of course, we're all trapped somehow into the corporate system plaguing us. As consumer, of course, we too participate and collaborate to the evil being done in the name of profits. It would be hypocrite to deny it, and so feel free to accuse me of hypocrisy. But, we are not making a living of it. Given the opportunity, moral people would not engage in the criminal or at least unethical activities entailed by running Corporates the way they are run. Decent people don't take pride in earning astronomical salaries and making massive profits at the expense of the vulnerable and the unfortunate, excusing it all in the name of a system which remains legal. Slave owners were doing so; slave owners were not decent people either, no matter how great partners, parents, neighbours, even philanthropist. But if we, as consumers, surely are trapped too, we nevertheless try and make choices, e.g. not consuming products/ services from unethical companies, or even campaigning for a better world against a morale prostituted to the making of money for the sole benefit of making money. Many will be aghast at my comparison between modern corporate CEO exploiting their way to the top and the bureaucratic Nazi mindset, yet… They all fit in a system they never question as long as it profits them, they follow orders, are strangely obsessed with numbers and statistics over people, have learnt to be oblivious to others and blunt any sense of empathy so as to perform their jobs successfully (it's not personal, it's business) and, when faced with taking responsibilities for their deeds, be it having crashed a corporate bank/caused an ecological disaster/run sweatshops in developing countries or engaging in a murderous endeavour (though financiers have blood on their hands too -how many suicides and shattered lives after the failure of their selfish gambling?...) the 'banality of their evil' is all but strikingly similar -they just fitted a system, supposedly not their faults. 'It's my job, not me'. Well... No.
A job reflects who you are. My stance here is harsh, but I long for the day indeed when the people amassing billions (not millions anymore, for we have stepped up a level into our race for greed) or simply making a living within such opaque institutions, whose benefits to society as a whole remains to be proven, will stop being adulated as successful individuals to be look up to, but, instead, pointed at for who they are: greedy, selfish, amoral pigs.
All in all, this is a wonderful book truly exposing the institution that came to embody the free-market ideology for what it is-greed mercilessly stamping down empathy and, beyond, slowly eroding civil society. Corporations are indeed psychopaths let loose, and it should concern us all; not least because we're all -yes, all- complicit. Sadly, the author let himself down by fooling himself into believing the self interested amoral pricks running them, by buying into their pitiful excuses of supposedly being trapped within a system, or, worse, that leaving them unregulated is for the best. They are not. It's not. As history has proven time and time again, there is nothing preventing us to tame the monsters. It has been done before, it can be done again. Yet do they want to? No. No, and that says it all about their so-called concern about social responsibility and supposedly genuine will to change the system. Should we care, though? Corporations might be so big they escape the control of citizens, but there remains something we can control: besides the choices we try to navigate as responsible consumers (yes, we have a part to play, no matter how challenging!) we, citizens, can still reclaim the political sphere. Isn't it time we fight to end crony capitalism?
Well, written in the shadow of Enron's collapse, the point made by the author is that Corporates, these massive institutions driving our economies and shaping our lives whether we like or not, are, at their core, pathological. They are pathological because their only purposes is to make profit for their owners (read: shareholders) and this drive for profits leaves them completely oblivious to the consequences this can have upon us all (let alone the environment, if you're ecologically inclined). Put it bluntly: Corporates, as institutions, are psychopaths let loose within our capitalistic system.
Now, of course, it's the goal of every company/ businesses to make profits! But corporates, by their very nature, are not your normal business indeed. Institutions owned by shareholders so numerous it dilutes personal responsibility, and entrusted to the hands of directors/ managers whose role is solely to make it profitable for its shareholders, you would be dumb to don't see in it not only the seeds for corruption, but, also, the potential and disastrous impact such Frankenstein can unleash if left without control. This is actually so obvious that, classical liberalism warned against them (poor Adam Smith! He must be spinning into his grave looking at what psycho-yuppies, who clearly never read him, have made of his 'invisible hand'...). This is actually so obvious that, believe it not, there were once even Parliamentary laws making them illegal (e.g. the Bubble Act in the UK, passed in 1720 following the collapse of the South Sea Company...). This is actually so obvious that, every sensible governments who had to pick up their mess, from the English Parliament back in the 18th century to Roosevelt and his New Deal in the 20th century, knew full-well that such monsters had to be tamed for the sake of us all. It's so obvious, and yet...
And yet, over the past five decades or so corporate capitalism came to triumph and dominate our world! How come?
'A fledging institution that could be banned with the stroke of a legislative pen in 1720, the corporation now dominates society and government.'
Joel Bakan, here, does a brilliant and educational job in retracing their fascinating history, showing not only how they came to be so powerful in today's world, but, also, how, in the process, they gained an identity of their own where profits is the sole drive, shareholders the priority (despite potentially being vulnerable to be fooled themselves), and responsibility so diluted they came to have no responsibility whatsoever apart for making money. Of course, then as now here are recipes for disasters! To their credit, corporates these days love to bash us all ad nauseam about their so-called 'social responsibility' -some indeed are responsible, and take their social role very seriously. But the author is not, rightfully, concerned with case by case corporate nor case by case individuals running them. He is concerned with their structure, history, and, so, as a result, their pathological functioning. Deregulations synonyms with attacks upon workers rights and human rights, threat to civil society and the social contracts that bind us all (corporatism was a feature of fascism, after all...), no care whatsoever for the environment, reducing us all to only units of production or consumers to the point of even targeting children in their race for money ('within the psychopathic world of the corporation, vulnerability is an invitation to exploit, not a reason to protect') the author shows indeed that without regulations for corporate to internalize the costs they have upon society, 'corporate social responsibility' will remain an oxymoron. The lesson was learnt in 18th century England, and it was learnt in the wake of the 1929's crisis. When Enron and such collapsed, we therefore had no excuse to don't know better:
'the underlying reasons for its collapse can be traced to characteristics common to all corporations: obsession with profit and share prices, greed, lack of concerns for others, and a penchant for breaking legal rules.'
So, I love the core argument. Yet, I disagree with how timid the author is.
His solutions are weak. For instance, he calls for regulations in order to tame such powerful Behemoth. Personally, I don't. I don't, not because I am a looney who believes in anarcho-capitalism. On that score, I actually fully agree with one of Balkan's most powerful statement in this book against the system we currently live in, that is:
'No one would seriously suggest that individuals should regulate themselves, that laws against murder, assault, and theft are unnecessary because people are socially responsible. Yet oddly, we are asked to believe that corporate persons -institutional psychopaths who lack any sense of moral conviction and who have the power and motivation to cause harm and devastation in the world- should be left free to govern themselves.'
No, I don't believe in regulations, simply because there already are regulations. More red tape is not going to solve the problem. The willingness of our leaders to actually have such regulations be respected, and whose failing to abide punished, should be enough to solve the problem. They don't, because our system is one of crony capitalism whereas politicians depend on corporates to sustain their career, from financing of political parties and campaigns to lobbying, and revolving doors between politics and the business and financial world etc. If the author has one solution worth looking into, it's indeed a rethink of our whole political system:
'Elections should be publicly financed, corporate financial donations phased out, and tighter restrictions imposed on lobbying and the "revolving door" flow of personnel between government and business.'
I also found him timid when trying to excuse away the behaviours of the individuals in charge, by insisting most are actually decent human beings just caught in the cogs of a pathological system. Ethically, I found him here rolling down a slippery slope and so missing the point.
He is right: the ability of the people concerned to compartmentalise (his word) their life that is, disassociating their private life from their jobs, is a sure evidence that they are not psychopaths in the strictly psychiatric definition of the term. Yet, does that mean they are decent people? The author claims so -again, to him they are as victim of a dysfunctional system as we all are. This might be the case for some, whose running corporates taking their social responsibility seriously. As a whole, though, I strongly disagree. And now brace yourself, because my point will shock many (I don't care):
The bureaucrats members of the Nazi party and serving the regime were wonderful people too by this logic. Many were amazing husbands, loving fathers, good neighbours... Or were they? Of course not! These people might have been remarkable in their private lives, nevertheless, the choices they made to participate and collaborate in an enterprise they knew criminal made them criminals. They deserve our disdain and our repulsion, not our sympathy for having been caught up in the cogs of Nazism, a truly evil regime. I believe it is the same with the CEOs running modern day corporates. They might be remarkable people in private, but the willing choices they make in the course of their jobs, fully knowing the terrible consequences such choices have upon the rest of us, doesn't make them decent. It makes them worthy of our disdain and our condemnation. Of course, it's not easy! Of course, we're all trapped somehow into the corporate system plaguing us. As consumer, of course, we too participate and collaborate to the evil being done in the name of profits. It would be hypocrite to deny it, and so feel free to accuse me of hypocrisy. But, we are not making a living of it. Given the opportunity, moral people would not engage in the criminal or at least unethical activities entailed by running Corporates the way they are run. Decent people don't take pride in earning astronomical salaries and making massive profits at the expense of the vulnerable and the unfortunate, excusing it all in the name of a system which remains legal. Slave owners were doing so; slave owners were not decent people either, no matter how great partners, parents, neighbours, even philanthropist. But if we, as consumers, surely are trapped too, we nevertheless try and make choices, e.g. not consuming products/ services from unethical companies, or even campaigning for a better world against a morale prostituted to the making of money for the sole benefit of making money. Many will be aghast at my comparison between modern corporate CEO exploiting their way to the top and the bureaucratic Nazi mindset, yet… They all fit in a system they never question as long as it profits them, they follow orders, are strangely obsessed with numbers and statistics over people, have learnt to be oblivious to others and blunt any sense of empathy so as to perform their jobs successfully (it's not personal, it's business) and, when faced with taking responsibilities for their deeds, be it having crashed a corporate bank/caused an ecological disaster/run sweatshops in developing countries or engaging in a murderous endeavour (though financiers have blood on their hands too -how many suicides and shattered lives after the failure of their selfish gambling?...) the 'banality of their evil' is all but strikingly similar -they just fitted a system, supposedly not their faults. 'It's my job, not me'. Well... No.
A job reflects who you are. My stance here is harsh, but I long for the day indeed when the people amassing billions (not millions anymore, for we have stepped up a level into our race for greed) or simply making a living within such opaque institutions, whose benefits to society as a whole remains to be proven, will stop being adulated as successful individuals to be look up to, but, instead, pointed at for who they are: greedy, selfish, amoral pigs.
All in all, this is a wonderful book truly exposing the institution that came to embody the free-market ideology for what it is-greed mercilessly stamping down empathy and, beyond, slowly eroding civil society. Corporations are indeed psychopaths let loose, and it should concern us all; not least because we're all -yes, all- complicit. Sadly, the author let himself down by fooling himself into believing the self interested amoral pricks running them, by buying into their pitiful excuses of supposedly being trapped within a system, or, worse, that leaving them unregulated is for the best. They are not. It's not. As history has proven time and time again, there is nothing preventing us to tame the monsters. It has been done before, it can be done again. Yet do they want to? No. No, and that says it all about their so-called concern about social responsibility and supposedly genuine will to change the system. Should we care, though? Corporations might be so big they escape the control of citizens, but there remains something we can control: besides the choices we try to navigate as responsible consumers (yes, we have a part to play, no matter how challenging!) we, citizens, can still reclaim the political sphere. Isn't it time we fight to end crony capitalism?
July 4, 2012
I'm a few years late finding this book, but some of my other reading lead me to it, as well as a general frustration after working for national retailers for years. I questioned why retail corporations are so disconnected from their employees and customers and how the structures outside the store level operate and make decisions. As a side note, the TV show Undercover Boss also shows the complete surprise most CEO's face when working the front lines of their businesses...which is appalling enough. This book doesn't correspond directly with my retail related concerns as corporations entail a broad range of businesses, but I still marked a dozen sections to reread, and read lots of portions that enraged and frustrated me even more than I expected. The tentacles of corporations are so far reaching, I'm not sure how the country goes about extracting itself from the death grip we've gotten ourselves wrapped up in. Not that I believe corporations have to be evil! But I do believe Bakan is correct in his presentation of how unlikely philanthropy, loyalty (to country, to employees, to customers) or a pursuit of quality are to be adapted into the current business models. We live in a culture that believes in "more" rather than "enough", so it's to be expected...we create our gods in our own image, and as Barbara Ehrenreich points out in Bright-Sided, corporations and religions have a lot in common these days. So did we pick up our bad habits of overspending, accepting debt, taking risks and gambles in finances, looking only at the bottom line, etc from businesses and governments or did they get it from us? They don't really cover the sociological issues that popped into my head, in this book., though that would also make for an interesting read! Though the book does discuss the nature of a corporation as an individual, and a potentially psychopathic one.
The appeal of buying from corporations rather than locals and saving that couple extra bucks is compounded by corporations allowing us to distance ourselves from the bad stuff...would we be willing to pay so little for our mass produced crap if we had to directly face the underpaid sweatshop workers and tell them it's all the item is worth? I for one wouldn't buy some food products if faced with the working conditions someone else is dealing with to provide me that luxury. I am again looking at the retail side of it... It's hard to even wrap my brain around what the financial institutions are doing. And for the people working these places, that are doing 'bad things' or creating bad results as corollaries to their goals, it's easy to say 'just doing what I'm told, it's just my job' all the way up and down the chain...like never knowing who in a firing squad dealt the killing shot. Employees can blame the bosses, bosses blame boards or stockholders, stockholders blame the customers who support the company with their purchases, customers blame the employees. Every gets to think of themselves as the good guy and point the finger elsewhere. Harder to do that if you are buying from Joe down the street who runs his own business. Then you are directly supporting his practices and products. Which is why the ideas presented at the end of the book are great in the abstract, but it's the reality of changing anything that's hard to envision. And of course, having been out for a while, the book may have made a splash at it's release, but clearly didn't change much. For most readers, it's preaching to the choir. So it's a good read to respark your outrage or to pass along to those with similar beliefs, but it's going to be a hard sell to those who believe in the less regulation, ' it will all work out if you leave it alone', type of theories. I would recommend it and in fact encourage people to read it to help see a bigger picture of our everyday consumerism, where it's taken us so far, and whether or not we're still up for this ride.
The appeal of buying from corporations rather than locals and saving that couple extra bucks is compounded by corporations allowing us to distance ourselves from the bad stuff...would we be willing to pay so little for our mass produced crap if we had to directly face the underpaid sweatshop workers and tell them it's all the item is worth? I for one wouldn't buy some food products if faced with the working conditions someone else is dealing with to provide me that luxury. I am again looking at the retail side of it... It's hard to even wrap my brain around what the financial institutions are doing. And for the people working these places, that are doing 'bad things' or creating bad results as corollaries to their goals, it's easy to say 'just doing what I'm told, it's just my job' all the way up and down the chain...like never knowing who in a firing squad dealt the killing shot. Employees can blame the bosses, bosses blame boards or stockholders, stockholders blame the customers who support the company with their purchases, customers blame the employees. Every gets to think of themselves as the good guy and point the finger elsewhere. Harder to do that if you are buying from Joe down the street who runs his own business. Then you are directly supporting his practices and products. Which is why the ideas presented at the end of the book are great in the abstract, but it's the reality of changing anything that's hard to envision. And of course, having been out for a while, the book may have made a splash at it's release, but clearly didn't change much. For most readers, it's preaching to the choir. So it's a good read to respark your outrage or to pass along to those with similar beliefs, but it's going to be a hard sell to those who believe in the less regulation, ' it will all work out if you leave it alone', type of theories. I would recommend it and in fact encourage people to read it to help see a bigger picture of our everyday consumerism, where it's taken us so far, and whether or not we're still up for this ride.
January 17, 2016
Here's what I gained from reading this book:
1) Corporations have been given the legal status and rights afforded an individual but they have limited liability. The existence of the corporation is to secure and increase profits. After the Supreme Court in 1886 granted the same rights and protections that were meant for slaves rebounding from the Civil War as established in the 14th Amendment to corporations, these corporations have had a special status protected within our legal system. Further, anyone who hints that the corporation might have an ounce of social responsibility does not know that the corporation answers to the shareholders who want a return on their investment.
2) In fact, corporate social responsibility is illegal. Dodge v. Ford in 1916 secured that it was the legal obligation for the workers and management in a corporation to work for the shareholders only.
3) As corporations behave, characterisitically, they act as psychopaths: deception, megalomania, lacking conscience, manipulation, lack of empathy, grandiosity, refuse to accept responsibility, unable to feel remorse, and irresponsibility identify them to be comparable to most behind bars.
4) Externalities define the rapacious myopia that corporations exhibit. In fact, they are proud of the fact that others would and should pay for their waste, greed, pollution, and harmful by-products.
5) The only way that the rise of corporations can be resisted is if government is willing to regulate and legislate to keep the boundaries firm against corporations; and next, if we individuals, acting with conscience, resist the allure of corporations one-by-one.
This is what I gained from reading this short book. I recommend it as an antidote for anyone fed up with consumerism, media, and conspicuous consumption.
1) Corporations have been given the legal status and rights afforded an individual but they have limited liability. The existence of the corporation is to secure and increase profits. After the Supreme Court in 1886 granted the same rights and protections that were meant for slaves rebounding from the Civil War as established in the 14th Amendment to corporations, these corporations have had a special status protected within our legal system. Further, anyone who hints that the corporation might have an ounce of social responsibility does not know that the corporation answers to the shareholders who want a return on their investment.
2) In fact, corporate social responsibility is illegal. Dodge v. Ford in 1916 secured that it was the legal obligation for the workers and management in a corporation to work for the shareholders only.
3) As corporations behave, characterisitically, they act as psychopaths: deception, megalomania, lacking conscience, manipulation, lack of empathy, grandiosity, refuse to accept responsibility, unable to feel remorse, and irresponsibility identify them to be comparable to most behind bars.
4) Externalities define the rapacious myopia that corporations exhibit. In fact, they are proud of the fact that others would and should pay for their waste, greed, pollution, and harmful by-products.
5) The only way that the rise of corporations can be resisted is if government is willing to regulate and legislate to keep the boundaries firm against corporations; and next, if we individuals, acting with conscience, resist the allure of corporations one-by-one.
This is what I gained from reading this short book. I recommend it as an antidote for anyone fed up with consumerism, media, and conspicuous consumption.
May 17, 2012
It's a well studied phenomenon that we tend to seek out material that re-affirms our existing beliefs. For that reason, I have to be somewhat skeptical about how I approach the Corporation. It's possible that I am too willing to accept some data here or an opinion there without bringing the skepticism that is really necessary in a non-fiction work.
That being said, the framework of the Corporation in the psychopathic model is illuminating. It makes me wonder how many This American Life and Planet Money spots that similarly frame the corporate breakdowns of the "noughts" were inspired by this piece. I found myself, while reading, wishing that the book had been written four, five years later, so that The Great Recession could further contribute to the argument that corporations cannot be the primary developmental institutions of a nation. The book essentially asks for a New New Deal, but what we got instead are bailouts with no social responsibility attached.
If I had read this book five years ago, I would be giving it five stars for opening my eyes. Today, I'm giving it five stars because it is a succinct summary of what I know and believe about the institution of corporation, and because it is presented and backed up fantastically. Years before the Occupy movement would clumsily make a demand here or there, Joel Bakan presents them in The Corporation. I really recommend reading as a warning as to the direction lassez-faire capitalism represents. Though the suggestions in the book may not take every contingency into account, they could be a real first step, if people only realize that short term pain of change will be a long term gain.
That being said, the framework of the Corporation in the psychopathic model is illuminating. It makes me wonder how many This American Life and Planet Money spots that similarly frame the corporate breakdowns of the "noughts" were inspired by this piece. I found myself, while reading, wishing that the book had been written four, five years later, so that The Great Recession could further contribute to the argument that corporations cannot be the primary developmental institutions of a nation. The book essentially asks for a New New Deal, but what we got instead are bailouts with no social responsibility attached.
If I had read this book five years ago, I would be giving it five stars for opening my eyes. Today, I'm giving it five stars because it is a succinct summary of what I know and believe about the institution of corporation, and because it is presented and backed up fantastically. Years before the Occupy movement would clumsily make a demand here or there, Joel Bakan presents them in The Corporation. I really recommend reading as a warning as to the direction lassez-faire capitalism represents. Though the suggestions in the book may not take every contingency into account, they could be a real first step, if people only realize that short term pain of change will be a long term gain.
March 5, 2014
An effective introductory text for anyone interested in the rise of [hyper]capitalism. Bakan offers a convincing argument that, because the corporation's singular objective is to maximize profit at all costs, it is inherently exploitative. Given that corporations enjoy legal classification as people, one might call their pursuit of profit-at-all-costs psychopathic. To illustrate this point, Bakan provides numerous examples (most notably Enron, as well as a long list of General Electric's misdeeds) of companies that, when left to their own devices, commit gross human rights violations and- through legislative loopholes, aggressive lobbying and flat-out bribery- escape liability. Bakan argues that the very concept of cost-benefit analysis (often used to determine if the cost of reducing a product's potential to harm is more costly than just paying a few lawsuits if some people are injured/maimed/killed) reflects the psychopathic inclinations of the corporation. He offers an example of a family injured in a car explosion because of a faulty fuel tank design from General Motors: "The cost to GM of ensuring that fuel tanks did not explode in crashes, estimated by the company to be $8.59 per automobile, meant the company could save $6.19 ($8.59 minus $2.40) per automobile if it allowed people to die in fuel-fed fires rather than alter the design of vehicles to avoid such fires." This example is particularly reflective of the corporation's commitment to advancing its own economic self-interest at all costs.
Definitely worth the read.
Definitely worth the read.
July 10, 2019
I enjoyed the read, though it felt a little light compared to other works on politics and economics I've read. Then again, the author does preface it saying he wants anyone to be able to pick up and read this. To that end, it's great.
The book basically talks about the rise of corporations and how they've become these entities that play a significant role in every aspect of our life. The specific examples cited in the book of how the corporation puts shareholder maximization over everything else, manages to drive home the point the author is going for. I especially liked his comparison of a corporation to a human with overtly psychopathic tendencies with no shred of empathy or benevolence.
I would readily recommend this one, and would urge the reader to spend time going through the notes section where the author tends to go a bit more in depth with his views compared to the main chapters themselves.
The book basically talks about the rise of corporations and how they've become these entities that play a significant role in every aspect of our life. The specific examples cited in the book of how the corporation puts shareholder maximization over everything else, manages to drive home the point the author is going for. I especially liked his comparison of a corporation to a human with overtly psychopathic tendencies with no shred of empathy or benevolence.
I would readily recommend this one, and would urge the reader to spend time going through the notes section where the author tends to go a bit more in depth with his views compared to the main chapters themselves.
October 15, 2014
The book, on the whole, is worth reading. It goes into considerable depth about the inherent problems of the ubiquitous corporation. There is certainly no shortage of examples, either. Unfortunately, however, the book, in large part, suffered from a superficiality on an academic level. There was a severe and noticeable lack of theory, and, as the title suggests (but is now misleading in hindsight), no mention of the psychological theory behind the corporation. I don't mean to denigrate the book though, as I enjoyed it overall. There is an obvious case of bias too; the author does not, as far as I discerned, mention or allude to opposing theories or arguments in favour of the corporation. The fact the profit motive has brought about pivotal innovation? How competition, too, brings about innovation?
October 13, 2010
Reading this opens the minds of consumers and the general public. I find it extremely tragic how this world has come to such corruption and cruelty. Corporations control the world we know, and they have but one purpose, to achieve profit for the stock holders. There is alot more to this story I wish I could put into simple words but for now it will have to suffice that I recomend everyone who wants to be aware of the world we live in reads this book.
January 17, 2016
Brilliantly shows that if a corporation is a person, the person is a psychopath. Other excellent works on economics:
https://www.worldcat.org/profiles/Tom...
https://www.worldcat.org/profiles/Tom...
August 20, 2023
This book dissects the inherently pathological nature of the modern corporation. It begins with a brief history of the corporation as an entity and describes how it’s different from other forms of business in the past. It argues that at the heart of all corporations, regardless of how they market themselves, is the unremitting pursuit of profit and power above all else.
In the corporate world’s ideology, there is a moral imperative to make as much money as possible— or a highest responsibility to grow their shareholders’ investments (in their language). And all the negative consequences of their business, such as harms to the health of the society or environments they’re in are labeled as “externalities”— literally external to the business, or not their problem— so they are not factored into their calculations for profit. To balance any public opposition to their image, they’ve developed “Corporate Social Responsibility”. This is a way for companies to act like they’re helping society when really it’s just an alternative way to brand themselves and their products to attract buyers who want to feel good about themselves. But any costs from CSR never actually cut down their bottom line profits, and on the aggregate, the direct harms of their business to CSR “causes” or other “externalities” still outweigh any “charity” they give them.
These ways of thinking are used to justify all sorts of otherwise immoral behaviors that make this world so difficult to live in. The book explores many examples of these in lurid detail, featuring powerful corporate executives and PR marketers themselves in interviews candidly admitting (and even bragging about) it all. The interviews are the best part of the book as they expose just how morally bankrupt these industries truly are, out from their own mouths. They know the evil of what they’re doing and they’re proud of how good they are at it.
Where the book falls short is that it lacks an analysis of multinational corporations and their especially disastrous impact on the developing world. It is also a bit dated as it was published in 2003, and so corporations have only further deepened their hold on us in the social media influencer age.
In the corporate world’s ideology, there is a moral imperative to make as much money as possible— or a highest responsibility to grow their shareholders’ investments (in their language). And all the negative consequences of their business, such as harms to the health of the society or environments they’re in are labeled as “externalities”— literally external to the business, or not their problem— so they are not factored into their calculations for profit. To balance any public opposition to their image, they’ve developed “Corporate Social Responsibility”. This is a way for companies to act like they’re helping society when really it’s just an alternative way to brand themselves and their products to attract buyers who want to feel good about themselves. But any costs from CSR never actually cut down their bottom line profits, and on the aggregate, the direct harms of their business to CSR “causes” or other “externalities” still outweigh any “charity” they give them.
These ways of thinking are used to justify all sorts of otherwise immoral behaviors that make this world so difficult to live in. The book explores many examples of these in lurid detail, featuring powerful corporate executives and PR marketers themselves in interviews candidly admitting (and even bragging about) it all. The interviews are the best part of the book as they expose just how morally bankrupt these industries truly are, out from their own mouths. They know the evil of what they’re doing and they’re proud of how good they are at it.
Where the book falls short is that it lacks an analysis of multinational corporations and their especially disastrous impact on the developing world. It is also a bit dated as it was published in 2003, and so corporations have only further deepened their hold on us in the social media influencer age.
July 16, 2019
4.5 Stars.
This is one of those books that you read and you sit back and think about all the wrong purchases that you made in your life that fed the corporations. This book is published in 2004 but trust me, it is extremely relevant today. In fact, it may even be more relevant today than it was in 2004 and you need to read it if you're interested in the history of corporations and their psychopathic personality.
The authors does a brilliant job in defining the personality of corporations. He also clearly explains his reasons with great and straight-forward examples. In addition, he provides a timeline of how corporations came into being and how they became such a strong force in our society. It is really scary how corporations manipulate the public and the government. We're all consumers and we are all guilty in making the corporation larger and stronger.
There is a whole chapter on sweatshops that will blow your mind away and it is frightening. I cannot believe that these corporations get away with so much even after violating human rights on daily basis. We talk about terrorism and third world countries and how people are being mistreated, but we forget to look at what is happening in our country and how the corporations are mistreating the world for centuries and we are silent about it.
This book was an eye-opening and overall good read. I recommend it to everyone.
This is one of those books that you read and you sit back and think about all the wrong purchases that you made in your life that fed the corporations. This book is published in 2004 but trust me, it is extremely relevant today. In fact, it may even be more relevant today than it was in 2004 and you need to read it if you're interested in the history of corporations and their psychopathic personality.
The authors does a brilliant job in defining the personality of corporations. He also clearly explains his reasons with great and straight-forward examples. In addition, he provides a timeline of how corporations came into being and how they became such a strong force in our society. It is really scary how corporations manipulate the public and the government. We're all consumers and we are all guilty in making the corporation larger and stronger.
There is a whole chapter on sweatshops that will blow your mind away and it is frightening. I cannot believe that these corporations get away with so much even after violating human rights on daily basis. We talk about terrorism and third world countries and how people are being mistreated, but we forget to look at what is happening in our country and how the corporations are mistreating the world for centuries and we are silent about it.
This book was an eye-opening and overall good read. I recommend it to everyone.
September 14, 2021
A haunting delve into the omnipotence of corporations and how they came to be the dominant institution within our society, far so more than our governments and religious organisations. The book has stood the test of time and remains applicable, if not even more so in the current climate. Would love to read a revisit and analysis in the wake of a myriad of corporate scandals that have occurred since, whether that be the GFC or the likes of Theranos.
It really hammers home a corporations existence to drive profits and brings into question the pursuit of initiatives of corporate social responsibility or the perpetuation of a family-like environment at corporations as a subtle tactic in the ultimate pursuit of self-interest and thus, profit. Reading the book definitely exacerbated a sense of cynicism and powerlessness I felt, especially when it honed into the tangible impact on people's livelihoods. The book drives home a fear I feel for the future generations and as a future parent, where dissemination of the corporate's aims start at such early ages.
It really hammers home a corporations existence to drive profits and brings into question the pursuit of initiatives of corporate social responsibility or the perpetuation of a family-like environment at corporations as a subtle tactic in the ultimate pursuit of self-interest and thus, profit. Reading the book definitely exacerbated a sense of cynicism and powerlessness I felt, especially when it honed into the tangible impact on people's livelihoods. The book drives home a fear I feel for the future generations and as a future parent, where dissemination of the corporate's aims start at such early ages.
September 5, 2017
I saw the movie for The Corporation back in 2003. It was the first time I had ever heard of Monsanto, and while I was not completely politically unaware at the time, the movie caused kind of a jump forward in awareness. I had always meant to read the associated book; it just took me a while.
Having done so, I have to say that it is still well-written, still timely, and still pretty horrifying. I wish there were better answers, but we have often shown that we are not willing to put people before profits, and that is what a lot of it comes down to.
I still recommend the book for some valuable historical information, and also for the help it gives in cutting through the crap of what various companies might say about corporate responsibility and things like that.
Having done so, I have to say that it is still well-written, still timely, and still pretty horrifying. I wish there were better answers, but we have often shown that we are not willing to put people before profits, and that is what a lot of it comes down to.
I still recommend the book for some valuable historical information, and also for the help it gives in cutting through the crap of what various companies might say about corporate responsibility and things like that.
September 25, 2020
Very insightful, a thoughtful counter to the idea that businesses can handle everything better than government. Felt like it stretched a couple points that I know weren't totally true (corporate sponsorship is everywhere, but I HIGHLY doubt that I have ten interactions every day with undercover marketers), which makes me wonder if anything I don't have a high understanding of was stretched as well. But it is very persuasive.
February 2, 2024
"To suggest that the corporation defined as a ‘person’ in law can be analyzed as a person in psychiatric terms takes us beyond an analysis of what the corporation really is—namely, a form of collective or socialized capital—and therefore misses the nature of corporate control and capitalism. Instead, we are treated to a simplistic analysis by analogy to a psychiatric disorder rather than a political and economic analysis of the elemental institutional form of capitalism."
--gary teeple
--gary teeple
February 1, 2022
Good analysis of a corporation, but, ultimately, the end was a little bit of a let down as he is very focused on "what we can do now" and how to limit the corporations power. And fails to take seriously the idea of no corporations existing at all.
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