Now, we've all been there, and as a piece of theatre, it's supremely effective. But does anyone really think that throwing a tantrum at a car and bashing it with a stick will make it run better?

It's important to remember that corporations aren't people and don't have interests on their own. The people who own corporations, the people who are employed by them, and the people who may be affected by their activities (either as consumers or as victims of pollution) all have interests - sometimes similar, sometimes competing. But not corporations per se.

And trying to psychoanalyse corporations is just silly.

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Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:
Too often, CEOs and other management officials are able to arrange things such that they cash in at the expense of investors.

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Corporations have legal standing to commence lawsuits or be sued themselves; they can be charged with regulatory offences and fined. They can be convicted of criminal offences. They can enter into contractual relationships and assume legal obligations and responsibilities. They can have recourse to the protection of the Charter of Rights.

And Stephen says that corporations have no interests on their own? Poppycock.

[ 09 July 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

The first part is correct. The second is false.

ETA: And BTW the idea of corporate taxes as punishment for corporate misdeeds makes about as much sense as the idea of criminal punishment for those same misdeeds - i.e. a great deal of sense.

[ 09 July 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

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Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:
This may seem like splitting hairs, but think about (for example) corporate income taxes. Many progressives instinctively favour them, and cite a lengthy list of bad things done by corporations as justification for raising corporate taxes, or for at least not cutting them. But this idea of corporate taxes as punishment for corporate misdeeds makes about as much sense as administering a beating to a car that won't start. It might make you feel better, but it won't actually make it work the way you'd like it to.

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[ 09 July 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

Oh well.

My question is how far up the Ivory Tower do you have to be in order to finally get word of this film, some five years after it was released, when it specifically addresses the area of your expertise, after it has one 28 international awards for film?

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Originally posted by Cueball:
He's barraged you with points, you could respond to any of them at your leisure. At the end there is seems your refusal to respond to any of his points precipitated a drying up of the flow of new points, and he simply gave up the effort.

Oh well.

My question is how far up the Ivory Tower do you have to be in order to finally get word of this film, some five years after it was released, when it specifically addresses the area of your expertise, after it has one 28 international awards for film?

My guess is pretty far.

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Oh, I'd heard of the film before. And I'm guessing that the people who thought that it was prize-worthy hadn't a freaking clue about the issues it raised.

But hey - all the cool people thought it was totally awesome!!!!

What the hell difference does it make if it was based on a completely stupid premise? It millions of $$$!!!

[ 09 July 2008: Message edited by: Stephen Gordon ]

This film is a cult classic, verging on a mainstream documentary smash, at the level of "Roger and Me," focussed specifically on your major area of interest, and in fact your job, and you are so out of touch with anything that you don't get it up to go see it, or rent it, until many years later, after the fact.

I think it says a whole lot, about your theoretical approach, your methodolgy and its social value.

[ 09 July 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

In other words, the point is that the anthropomorphization of corporations is ridiculous, and this first started with implimentaion of a very stupid non-sensical legal principle that anthropomophized corporations in law. That is the point.

The filmmakers agree, anthropomorphization of corporation is obscenely stupid, they have no motives, no emotions, no morals, just as you have asserted, that is why corporations should never have been deemed "persons" under the law. If they have no motives, no emotions, no morals, in fact they conform to the exact psychological definition of sociopaths, if we analyze them as "persons".

Sorry you missed it on the first run, both in the theater, and when viewing.

[ 09 July 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

Most of us can't open up a new car industry and start competing with GM or Ford because we lack access to capital and industry expertise. So GM pours money into insurance and divests into financial sector over the years to hide profits from taxation and avoid actually being a car company responsive to free market forces.

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It's important to remember that corporations aren't people and don't have interests on their own.

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Would you argue states don't have interests? You could argue that, but you would be quickly dismissed by any serious thinker.

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Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:
I'm willing to make a distinction between what US corporate law calls a 'person' and the real thing.

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
Would you argue states don't have interests? You could argue that, but you would be quickly dismissed by any serious thinker.

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Are your interests represented by the Canadian State?

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The very fact that corporations spend billions in lobbying, supporting election campaigns, and in marketing image and opinion is ...

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Are your interests represented by the Canadian State?

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As an example, the Government of Canada, representing the nation, not you or I, has decided it is in the nation's interests to engage in war in Afghanistan. I would argue the decision serves neither your interest nor my interest, or the interests of Canadians broadly, but it does serve the national interest of maintaining a positive national relationship, that includes military cooperation, with the United States and its empire to which Canada is a junior partner.

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evidence that there are people willing to sign off on the expenses.

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I think we both know that while, ultimately, corporations are serving the interests of specific humans or groups of humans, I think we both also know that in pursuing those interests corporations act independently. And in so doing, often pursue interests ultimately at odds with even those individuals whose interests they are supposedly created to serve.

A good example is Exxon which has spent vast sums of money in the corporate, rather than shareholder interest, of funding climate change deniers.

The shareholders of Exxon will not be immune from climate change and the effects of greater environmental decline resulting from activities undertaken by Exxon, and other corporations, in the pursuit of profits.

How can one corporation know what I want and need unless it can make use of a database of my personal info, like the government has?

I know, why don't we just elect corporate heads to Ottawa and let's us pay THEM taxes to be transparent and accountable, and intervene against themselves on our behooves whenever they do more harm than good?

When a corporation does something illegal or destructive, it is usually because individuals made conscious decisions to act in a certain way. But those individuals are rarely personally punished or suffer any personal consequence, instead the responsibility is absolved onto the group.

People are much more likely to behave unscrupulously and unethically when they feel like they are part of a group and they know that they will not suffer any personal repercussions for their actions.

And that's why Canada's now famous MD of doctors without borders,James Orbinski, author of An Imperfect Offering, says market solutions are all about "humanity's capacity for evil".

Let the corporation do it. And the effect on distant, out of sight, out of mind people is quite real.

[ 13 July 2008: Message edited by: George Victor ]

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Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:
Actually, I think that a lot of the problems we've seen with corporations is that they are not doing what they are supposed to do, namely, represent the interests of their shareholders. Too often, CEOs and other management officials are able to arrange things such that they cash in at the expense of investors.

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Agreed. The concern with corporations is not their legal function but the perverted function (in collusion with inbred government enablers) to utilise them as a vehicle to privatise profit and socialise risk.

The top echelon of corporate bankers and government financial functionaries are interchangeable and party to the collusion of monetary policy to defraud the populace for the benefit of the banks.

Corporations are utilised as proxy psychopaths, enabling the colluders to deny responsibility and hide behind a myriad of self-serving unenforceable (or merely unenforced by their cohorts)regulatory bumph.

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While some stragglers are believed to have successfully crossed into Mexico, Cushing said the bulk of the CEOnistas have holed themselves up at the Alamo.

"No, not the fort, the car rental place at the airport," she said. "They're rotating all the tires on the minivans and accounting for each change as a sale."

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