I was going to start this a few days ago, but now I'm glad I waited until now.

We always hear the phrases "corporate whore", "corporate lackey", hell, even "corporations rule the day." I bet if you were give a poll to people asking them whether they had a positive or negative view of corporations, the latter would win by a landslide.

I have a simple question--why?

I've never felt that corporations are inherently bad. Sure, you have your Enrons and such that have done bad things, but you have your bad apples in any group.

I'm interested in what your feelings are on the subject at hand.

I always think back to the days of Rockefeller and Carnagie, the big business types who controlled government for their own means.

There are certainly good corporations, but you only have to look at the lastest corporate tax bill to see the massive corruption present in both corporations and government.

Fair enough. I definitely see that as a corruption of government, though I think it goes far beyond just corporations. The tax code is definitely a nightmare.

I agree with this entirely. Though perhaps I'd go a step further and say Enron is pretty much the tip of the iceberg.

There's nothing in corporate activity that's inherently bad. In fact I think if equity and fixed income markets would reward ethical behaviour more, we'd go a long way to making corporations even more positive to the global economy. End hunger and stuff.

How big do think the iceberg is? We've also had others like WorldCom, Global Crossings, Adelphia, etc.



That's true. The tricky way is to finding the most efficient and effective way to do so, and that's a responsibility of many different entities.

I think that what it really boils down to is the more people you have involved with something, anything, the more chance you have to get morons in your company. This has been proved time and time again. So when you get a dumbass in a high place making decisions that affect people you end up with these horrible cooperations like we have running around these days. Bring back family businesses...

Well, you could say that of any large entity. The largest of all is perhaps the U.S. Federal Government.

Right. And we've had HIH, OneTel in Australia, Parmalat in Europe, etc etc.

It depends how you want to define the iceberg. If we're talking about severe creative accounting, and executive leeching of corporate funds etc, then perhaps the problem is more limited.

But if we're talking about broader issues, including things like using child labour, or severe predatory pricing or unfair use of market power, stealing/misusing copyrights, prompt retrenchment of large portions of employees without retraining, influencing governments on policy, reckless destruction of the environment etc etc etc... then the iceberg is one big mutha

"Ethics", are clearly a subjective phenomenon. What's ethical to me, might be highly unethical to you. I do think however that a more informed market, and more concerned investor sentiment would find some kind of "market standard" ethical bar. So for example if Coca Cola were to sack 20% of their factory workers because of cost (which to me is a legitimate aim), and in doing so retrained these people over a six month period to find other employment in a chosen area, and the stock market decided that though this retrenchment is costing money, Coca Cola is a responsible employer and will attract the best employees in future, and so the stock price is supported: you'd see this sort of "ethical" behaviour become more widespread.

Trouble is, how do you convince inverstors of such thinking? And that's the point you're making here:



Maybe if the likes of CalPERS, or even an IB like Goldman to say: "this is what we're looking for from now on" - then things would move faster in this direction. To some extent, things are already moving in that direction.

I've worked for corporations for about 20 years (damn that's the first time I've sat down and really thought about that!). They've ranged from small operations that I had a lot of fun working for to huge national organizations where I was sure I was nothing but a number. I think what I feel the most anger about is how much corporations seem to have changed for the worse as time has progressed.
I won't go so far as to say that the things I'm listing below don't exist anymore but I will definitely state that companies that offer these qualities are far and few between: job security is nearly an anachronism anymore, no other way to state it. I've seen people who've worked for one company for their entire career and be laid off 4 months short of a pension simply to help the company cut costs; working hard and getting recognition for your accomplishments based only on merit, very hard indeed these days. More often than not companies encourage their employees to compete, play dirty, back stab, and step on the little guy to get ahead. It's not spoken of in those terms, it's usually couched in whatever the latest buzz words are for the day, but that's what it boils down to.
Competative wages... I don't know, maybe this is based more and more on level of education, but honestly, there is a wealth of people out there who offer tons of intelligent and enlightened ways of handling things within a company who don't have a specialized degree, yet have a lot of professional job experience that a person with a specific degree can't begin to compete with, yet the person with that degree looks better on a company bio, and is given a position (and wage) that far outweighs their ability to do the job.
There's other things, and I'll try to balance my statements with the fact that I was laid off a few months ago from my last job, but these opinions aren't new for me, and it's not a case of sour grapes. I think it has more to do with the corporations desire to always go bigger, faster, stronger, more, more, more.
Progress is a great thing, but progress for the sake of nothing other than progress in a business, to me, seems to begins to turn into nothing more than a somewhat psychotic need to eat the world alive. Corporations don't even want to be corporations anymore, they want to become all powerful entities that determine which direction the world turns in...

and what would that be?

I don't blame corporations for the way they behave, I blame Congress, mayors, local councils and various other government entities for allowing corporations to fuck them in the ass to the point of no return.

The word corporation in itself breeds negativity because by definition...it's a large business.

Insititutions are necessary for states to exist....but the problem is...the larger the institution, the greater the propensity for corruption.

I think a balance has to be struck between the free market and "the public interest"...I would argue that we, in the U.S. and in Western Europe, are closer to this balance than to either extreme.

Corporations work on the influence and gain of a few and the exploitation of the many

A corporation is a legal entity (distinct from a natural person) that often has similar rights in law to those of a natural person. Civil law systems may refer to corporations as "moral persons;" they may also go by the name "SA" (anonymous society) or something similar, depending on language (see below).

The word "corporation" derives from the Latin corpus (body), representing a "body of people", i.e.: a group of people authorised to act as an individual (Oxford English Dictionary). The word universitas also used to refer to a group of people but now refers specifically to a group of scholars (see University). However, in colloquial usage "corporation" usually refers to a commercial entity set up in accordance with a governmental framework.

Churches, interest-groups (both can form as not-for-profit corporations or can exist as voluntary associations), cities and townships (often chartered as public corporations), among others, may also have historically lengthy corporate identities.

Going corporate is the quickest way to build a business and build it large. Now, if the business is ethical... great. But 9 times out of 10, that business isn't ethical and at least 2 times out of 10, that business is downright satanic. So... we are better off without them.

See, it's things like that that bug me. How on earth are 90% of corporations "unethical"? (and 20% "satanic" for that matter.)

I was kidding when I said satanic. I don't believe in Satan.

Basically, like others have already said, corporations will generally be unethical because concentrated power and wealth leads to abuse. Its the same reason I'm against centralized government.

If we had diversified community-based stake-holder capitalism, democratically decided liberties and limitations, we'd be rocking.

Alright, I think me may be closer to reaching a common ground.

Could you explain a bit what you mean by some of the concepts you listed in that second paragraph?

Here's my take on being employee of either a large business or small business:

Large Business:

Better pay
Better benefits (including retirement or pension)
More paid holidays
More likely to be fired or lose position in hard times


Small Business:

Less likely to be fired or lose position in hard times
More freedom to express individuality, ideas, etc.
Pay more for less benefits (especially if it is a really small company and you can forget any mention about a pension)


For as many people that hate corporations, I would really like to see what you would propose to take their place.

zutmon,

we shouldn't live in a society where people get more holidays and better benefits simply because of where they work.

the amount you are paid should be in accordance to how hard you work, but some things should be equally granted, and not just for the priviledged and more fortunate.