Corporation

Book and video about the corporation as a dysfunctional format of governance.

Book

Book: Joel Bakan. The Corporation.

Review

By Dave Pollard:

"Joel Bakan's book The Corporation argues that, in their single-minded pursuit of short-term profit at any cost, corporations now behave pathologically (see graphic above), and against the public interest. Is the corporation, as a model, a hopeless case, or can it be reformed or reinvented?

There are many who believe corporate charters can and should be rewritten to require the pursuit and balancing of a so-called "triple bottom line" -- social and environmental as well as financial performance. Many others think this is naive (there are no established or easy measures or benchmarks of social or environmental performance) and unreasonable when the three bottom lines are in irreconcilable conflict -- the company that chooses to emphasize profit over the other two will, in our 'free' market, outgrow and hence dominate and even eliminate its more balanced competitors.

Even those who argue that the three bottom lines should, in the long run, coincide, have to concede that in the short term -- the horizon of most corporate shareholders and managers -- profits always trump social and environmental responsibility.

Corporations were originally invented to allow people to raise money for large ventures. Without the opportunity for substantial return, and limited liability, investors would not advance funds where there was considerable risk. But soon, ownership of 'shares' was confused with ownership of the business. Then, thanks to an incompetent legal error, corporations were granted the rights of 'persons' -- the right to sue, to lobby, and to otherwise use the collective wealth of the company to influence legal, political, economic and social affairs far beyond protecting the security of the original investment. At this point, the sole objective of the corporation became to satisfy the shareholders insatiable demand for higher returns and lower risk on their investment, at any cost to the real 'owners' of the enterprise -- the employees and the community who granted the corporation the privilege of existence.

The end result -- pathological behaviour, a Frankenstein monster out of control of its master. So what can be done? Is the corporation salvageable? If not, how can we revoke corporate charters without precipitating economic chaos?

Bakan proposes stronger regulation and enforcement, greater legal liability for officer and directors, public education, and regulated use of the precautionary principle to govern corporate behaviour. Other corporate reform advocates have proposed, in addition to the above, the elimination of 'personhood' rights, moving public well-being activities back from the private to the public sphere, standard global corporate codes of conduct (with severe penalties for breaching them), putting "triple bottom line" objectives into corporate charters, prohibiting dishonest corporate advertising, ending subsidies for large corporations, scrapping or redrafting 'free' trade and other corporatist and anti-democratic regulations, and taxing pollution, speculation and other 'bads'. I've personally advocated not allowing corporations to own other corporations, restricting the number of corporations any one person can beneficially control to one, and putting a size cap on corporations." (http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2007/10/16.html#a2009)

Video

Strongly recommended video documentary: " The Corporation "

YouTube playlist version available at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3969792790081230711

extract from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation:

"The Corporation is a 2003 Canadian documentary film critical of the modern-day corporation , considering it as a class of person and evaluating its behaviour towards society and the world at large as a psychologist might evaluate an ordinary person. This is explored through specific examples."

More Information

1. Marjorie Kelly. The Divine Right of Capital
2. David Korten. When Corporations Rule the World ; The Post-Corporate World