Blog of Auzigog

Ecology, Equity, Economy

• Home
• Stream
• Code
• Photography
• UO Lectures
• Contact

1. Silas Snider 10.04.08 / 9pm
   1

   Question: What specifically is wrong with the concept of a corporation in your (or the movie’s) mind? Is it the fact that they have personhood? If so, why is this considered bad?

   Also, I’m wondering about the list of things to do — specifically, I’m wondering what you mean by ‘building economic democracy’, ‘jail corporate criminals’, ‘make trade fair’, and especially, ‘internalize externalities’. In the case of the first three, I’m wondering what you mean by those phrases — both what the concept behind it is, and why you think that these things are not currently being done. As for the last phrase, what do you actually mean by that, given that the plain meaning is impossible to accomplish in any economy.
2. Auzigog 10.04.08 / 11pm
   2

   The concept of a corporation isn’t a bad thing. Obviously there is much to be gained from organizing large numbers of people in a systematic way to do business. Our current incarnation of the corporation tends to have many flaws: personhood without moral fiber, exploitation of labor and resources, and legal obligation to increase shareholder value.

   By having the legal status of a person, corporations get all the constitutional rights of a person, but those rights weren’t written with consideration of how they could be used in that context. I think it would make more sense to give them the relevant rights in an “opt-in” manner. What I mean by that, is that courts could decide that corporations should be given the right to property and the right to privacy as it deemed necessary. Instead, we currently have an “opt-out” situation where corporations are given the full status of personhood, and courts slowly revoke certain aspects of that status as it deems necessary. I think the opt-out method allows for far too much exploitation.

   In regards to the four items you listed, I was just transcribing the list from the film — not all of the issues were directly discussed. “Building an economic democracy” was referring to the fact that employees are rarely offered much say in the practices of the company.

   “internalize externalities” (although an obvious contradiction) was referring to the idea that corporations usually try to force things into the category of an “externality” and therefore absolve themselves of any responsibility of it. This practice makes perfect sense if your only goal is short-term profit. If your goal is broader than that and includes well being of every species on the planet, you need to consider a lot of of aspects that fall under the category of negative externalities.

   My biggest issue with corporations is the fact that their campaign contributes count as free speech. This gives them undo influence on our political system and likely leads to corruption to one degree or another.

Powered by HemingwayEx flavored Wordpress.

Entries RSS Comments RSS Valid XHTML 1.0