What is a Corporation?
A documentary that researches the corporation that has taken over our world.
The corporations bring on great wealth at the cost of the health of its workers and the environment.
The corporation is a group of people working together to accomplish a common goal. Create something that people can look up to, be inspired in, and believe in.
Truly, the corporation is an organism that wants to devour as much profit as possible at any cost.
Corporate is married to the word agenda. (Business community, Business, Company)
What is a Corporation?
A group of people working together to serve a variety of objectives, principally to make large returns and profit for the owner of the company.
Birth
The corporation was born out of the industrial age. Industrial age began in 1712.
Product of the last century are the purpose of the corporations today.
The corporations that existed in the early American history were very few, and had very distinct rules for how long they would exist for, what they would do, and that they could not own and control other corporations. They were working for the public interest.
Corporate lawyers helped to give corporations more power by removing some of the constraints.
14th amendment passed to give equal rights to black people (cannot deny life, liberty, or property without due process of the law).
The corporate lawyers claimed that the corporation is a person, so they cannot be denied these things either. The supreme court went along with this.
1890 and 1910, 288 cases were brought to the supreme court under the 14th amendment by corporations, only 19 were brought by African Americans (who the amendment was meant for in the first place).
A Legal "Person"
A group of people who work for a company are legally considered a person. They can buy and sell property. The corporation can sue and be sued. It is the way to run a business with limited liability.
Corporations were given the rights of a mortal person, but without morals. They could only be concerned for their stockholders, and not for their stake holders.
The problem with corporate citizens, is that they "have no soul to save, and no body to incarcerate".
The corporation only has the bottom line - how much profit they can make in one quarter. They do not have feelings, appearance, etc.
There are companies that do good for the community and the environment. The problem comes in the profit motivation. There is no such thing as enough.
All publically traded companies have been constructed through a series of legal decisions, to be required by law to put the financial interests of their owners above the good of anything else.
Externalities
Externality is the effect of a transaction between two people on a third party who is not consented to or play any role in that transaction. They give these problems caused by the transaction to other people. (i.e. we build the car, let someone else build the road)
The pressure is on the corporation to produce results now and leave the external costs for others to handle.
Case Histories
To determine the kind of personality that causes the corporation to behave like an externalizing machine, we can analyze it like a psychiatrist a patient. We can formulate a diagnosis by a case history of harms it has caused to other; such as worker layoffs, worker union busting, factory fires, sweatshops, etc.
Many products are produced in foreign places where the workers are paid a very little to produce it and then it is sold for a very inflated price. So a $100 jacket may have paid its maker $3. When going to a sweatshop in Honduras, a meeting was set up to talk to workers about their pay. However, the company sent in spies to make the meeting impossible. Instead, the women snuck their pay stubs and information to interviewers. They are making clothes for Kathy Lee Griffin, saying that a portion of the proceeds would go to feeding children. But the people working for them are the age of children, and not making enough to survive on (13 yrs old.)
Basically what is happening, is that countries with people starving to death are waving a flag, asking companies to come and hire them for 10 cents an hour; because that is enough to buy the rice they need not to starve to death. So when the companies come in, they are regarded as a godsend.
When picking through the garbage in Dominican Republic, they found documents of Nike that broke product production down into tenths of a second. Showing a product to take 6 minutes to produce, and costing the company 8 cents. So the cost of the product is 1/10 of 1% of retail price.
PERSONALITY DIAGNOSTIC CHECKLIST - World Health Organizations, Manual of Mental Disorders
- Callous Unconcern for the Feelings of Others: When the people become no longer desperate and the wages are too high, they will leave the area and employ another desperate people that they can pay incredibly low wages.
- Incapacity to Maintain Enduring Relationships: The de-nationalized countries have to make more and more incentives for these companies to come to them. Causing them to make less and less money, not even enough to feed their families.
Harm to Human Health: Dangerous Products, Toxic Waste, Pollution, Synthetic Chemicals.
In 1940, the era of synthesized chemicals emerged. Production of synthetic products was allowed to be produced for any purpose and a virtually no cost. That was DDT. As this era went on, warnings emerged as well. A body of data accumulated to the extent, that we know the synthetic products that have been put into our environments produce cancer and many other health defects.
- Reckless Disregard for the Safety of Others: What difference is there between shooting someone and exposing them to chemicals that will kill them over time? 1 out of every 2 men, and 1 out of every 3 women will get cancer at some point in their lives.
Harm to Animals: habitat destruction, factory farming, experimentation, rBGH/rBST/Posilac.
Received documents of Monsanto files, with toxicological testing of cows. It was used in 1/4 of cows in the U.S. It was deemed safe for animals and for humans.
- Deceitfulness: Repeated Lying and Conning Others for Profit: Monsanto files showed a series of problems that came from the rBST drug. It was designed to increase milk production. We actually have farmers who are paid to not produce cow milk because we already have too much. During this time, Monsanto came out with rBST to increase milk production, claiming that every cow without the drug was a lost income profit. However the drug caused all kinds of problems for cows; including Mastitis, painful infection of the utters. When you milk the cows, the puss from the infection of the utters gets into the milk, and the bacteria count in the milk goes up.
We know that people are consuming antibiotics through their food, and that this is causing antibiotic resistant bacteria. There is clearly a problem when a person can go into a hospital with an infection, it cant be cured and they die.
Factory farm cows are not the only victims of Monsanto products, large areas of Vietnam were exposed to Agent Orange. This agent was said to be the cause of over 50,000 birth defects, as well as 100,000s of cancers and other diseases in Vietnam citizens and American soldiers in the area. These people were able to sue Monsanto for their health problems. Monsanto settled out of court, giving 80 million but never admitted guilt.
- Incapacity to Experience Guilt:
Harms to biosphere: clear-cut's, CO2 emissions, nuclear waste, corporate paradigm.
The information that we receive from corporations does not include any damages done to the environment.
One group, Multinational Monitor, has put together the top 100 criminal acts of corporations in the 1990s.
- Failure to Conform to Social Norms with Respect to Lawful Behaviors: whether you obey the law or not depends on if its cost effective or not. If it costs less to get caught and pay the fines than it does to follow the law, it is viewed simply as a business decision. With a thinking like this, our community is going to crash.
The Pathology of Commerce
To what extent could the corporation be considered psychopathic? If the corporation is viewed as a person, and we were to test it's actions against a personality disorder test, they would have all the characteristics of being diagnoses a psychopath. If a building can't have social responsibility, what does it mean if a corporation can? A corporation may be an artificial legal structure, but the employees, owners, executives all have moral responsibilities.
Monstrous Obligations
When you look at a corporation, like when you look at a slave owner, you have to distinguish between the institution and the individual. The actions of the institution, such as slavery, may be monstrous. However, the individual may be the nicest guy ever. The same is true of corporations. An individual CEO may really care about the environment and try to have some influence on it. But the actions of the entirety of the corporation may not have those similar interests.
Mindset
A corporation cannot think, the people who make up the corporation can. So for a corporation, it is legitimate for them to think that Terminator Seeds are ok. Seeds that are designed to grow once and then not reproduce seeds that farmers can save to create more harvests in later years. These seeds are counteracting evolution, but the profits from these seeds are so much more important in their minds.
Corporations are about competition. So much so that jobs exist that are corporate spies. Where people go in and pose as workers for a company in order to gain competitive information to give to another corporation.
Many of the CEO's are rich white men, who do not make up the majority of the world, and who do not realize the damage their companies can do to both the environment and society. One CEO of a carpet company, researched environmental ethics and realized that he was a plunderer of goods that were not his - that belonged to nature. He says that one day this must become illegal, and when that happens, people like him will end up in jail.
Trading on 9/11
When 9/11 happened, on a financial basis, it was a blessing in disguise to many traders. The prices of gold skyrocketed and peoples fortunes doubled! Many of these brokers become excited over tragedies - bombing and wars, because their profits go much higher.
Boundary Issues
In the medieval times, the land did not belong to the people - the people belonged to the land, and the land to God. The people had a connection with the land. But as time went on, the land and the oceans were divided up into sections that could then be owned by individuals or groups of people.
Public institutions have many benefits; such as not being in existance for profit, they can help maintain jobs in times of recession.
Basic Training
Marketing today is very different from the marketing of the yesteryears. Today it is very sophisticated and repetitive, essentially manipulating children into wanting the products. One company decided to do a study on marketing to children and the products they would "nag" their parents to get them called the Nag Factor. The parents had to record when, where, and why their children asked for products. The point of the study was not to help parents cope with the children's nagging, but to help them teach children to nag more effectively. They found that 20-40% of purchases occurred because children nagged their parents for the products.
Marketers are playing into children's developing mindsets. It is important to distinguish between those who make products that are developmentally appropriate for children and are using studies like Psychology to help make these toys, and those who use the studies to manipulate children into buying any products. Since children are the consumers of the future, you get them as children and have them as adults. They do not question the ethics of selling in this way, but instead just claim they are doing their jobs by simply moving products.
Corporations have to create wants, especially wants of things they do not need; for both adults and for children.
Perception Management
When corporations advertise their products, they are advertising a certain way of life. This teaches us to live a certain way. When applied to the corporation, this way of thinking is made to make us think that the corporation was inevitable, indispensible, efficient, and needed to have a good way of life.
Like a Good Neighbour
They are selling their rule and creating an image of themselves as being the friendly neighborhood folks.
The corporations are taking some of the tax dollars they receive from tax payers and putting them to good use. However, they are also helping to lower their own taxes and those of the wealthy.
A Private Celebration
The most successful corporations do not create products, they create brand meanings; such as companies like Disney. Disney markets for family and creates their brand to mean family and magic. If they create a film or a product that is not based on family or magic, then they brand it Touchstone.
Triumph of the Shill
A lot of companies participate in what is called undercover marketing. These can be things such as having a bunch of boxes outside a hotel door by the door hop that make you believe it is good to send packages through a certain company, or a couple of people walking down the street talking about a new CD that came out and where to get it - making you remember and be curious about the product later. By the time you get to the end of your day, you will have probably encountered over 8 undercover messages.
Advancing the Front
If corporations are allowed to paten the genetic makeup for living things, then they can essentially paten life. The U.S. Paten Office had issued a one sentence decree - you can paten anything even alive, except for a full birth human being.
There is now a race going on. A race to find human genes - such as those for breast cancer and more.
Unsettling Accounts
Companies like Monsanto have incredible power to get their products on the market. They have to get everyone, including the federal government on board, and they have an incredibly easy time of doing it. When they had the FDA pass the growth hormone for cattle, the FDA did not look into the real results of the effects of the growth hormone.
Fox News wanted to do a story on the hormone. However, Monsanto threatened to sue them if they aired the show. Fox freaked and asked the writers to present the story how they wanted it to be written. When the writers refused, Fox threatened to fire them for insubordination. The writers then said they would report Fox for firing them because they refused to lie to the public. A week later, they were called and offered a bribe to hush up and never speak of the hormone again. Of course they did not agree. Instead they offered to let them compromise a script, but would never let them air it. Months later, they were told they were going to be fired for no reason. So they wrote a letter to their corporation's lawyer and went to court. Three years later, the case was thrown out. Turns out, telling news that is false is not against the law and so they did not have a case. Canada and the European Union have banned the use of the hormone, but the US still uses it regularly.
Expansion Plan
Bolivia was not given water as a commodity. Water became privately owned. When the citizens protested for water, an outbreak of violence occurred. Many were killed and many more were injured. The people didn't ask for bullets, they didn’t ask for tear gas, all they wanted was water.
Taking the Right Side
Its interesting how many of the corporations helped support the work of many Nazi movements in Germany in order to stay in business in Germany and the surrounding areas in Europe.
IBM was in charge of printing off the punch cards of concentration camp prisoners. The profits of which were collected after the end of the war.
Hostile Takeover
For a corporation to have a strong control over government, it no longer requires a coup. Governments have become powerless over corporations. Corporate CEOs have been given significant power, and can be considered the high priests of society.
Democracy LTD.
Does a measure of accountablity need to exist? Yes. But corporations believe that the accountability needs to be in the marketplace and with their shareholders. The ultimate goal is to be a corporation of choice.
Many people subscribe to social responsibility, but why? It is a big marketing ploy. A way to make themselves appear socially responsible, even if they don’t.
Psycho Therapies
We need to be able to admit that there are issues with the corporate model. We need to look at the legal basis of the corporations and decide who should be held accountable. Corporations should be held accountable to us.
In India, they believe that any law forbidding the saving of seeds is a law not worth following. Saving seeds is the way we contribute to nature.
What a company needs to be, is a group of people that work together for a purpose. And that purpose is to do no harm. A company that has severed the umbilical cord to the earth, so we do not rely on natural resources. To find a way to run a company sustainably. Interface (carpet company from earlier) is working to be completely sustainable by the year 2020.
Prognosis
If people can get up off the couch, they can do something to get the world out of the hands of corporations, and back into the hands of the people.
Exercise: Even though I have been taking time off of working out, I did get a bit of exercise in by taking a super long walk with Aaron and my dog Marty. We walked for about 5 hours around my town, to a playground and back home. It was so nice to get outside and get active!
Eat: Two more vegetables with big benefits are jicama and leeks. Jicama contains fiber and vitamin C. Leeks have vitamin A and manganese!
Relax: After making some dinner, Aaron and I were able to relax a bit and watch today's movie. I absolutely love documentary Friday's!
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