Greg: Corporations

[Edward Britton <fremin@geocities.com>]

Greg:

>  If we look at it in the abstract, I don't see corporations any 
>differently than government or any other large, powerful entity controlled 
>by humans. They all exhibit the same characteristics. 

This may be so, but what, in this context, would be the advantage of one
system of government or the other? What is the practical difference between
America today and the ultimate fruition of economic totalitarianism? And
please pardon, but of what value is the abstract in discerning the very
real influence of the corporate phenomenon on a social macrosystem such as
the global community.

>I don't think one could sustain the claim from any factual evidence that
>corporations have enslaved more people or resulted in more wars or deaths
than, >say, totalitarian or fascist regimes.

That depends on how one defines slavery. Inasmuch as I see being in debt as
the functional equivalent of slavery--and inasmuch as our economy is based
on debt--I could provide a convincing argument in favor of my contention to
say the least. 

As for deaths, here we would have to tally the number of lives lost to
accidents related directly (e.g. work-related casualties) and indirectly
(e.g. chemical accidents) to the production of corporate goods and
services: it could go either way.

>If you combine just four: Stalin, Hitler, 
>Pol Pot and Idi Amin, you've got a pretty good number of enslaved people 
>and dead bodies. Indeed, I don't see that corporations at their very worst 
>are responsible for that kind of enslavement and carnage.

It's hard to argue without numbers (and yes, I'm checking :-)), but at
least your syllogism is aptly constructed: corporations are to despots as
despots are to corporations.<G>

>  Nor do I think the argument can be factually sustained that claims that 
>corporations achieve their wealth at the expense of their workers.

Why not? Employees of public corporations receive compensation in the form
of wages unless they own stocks or participate in "profit sharing."
Shareholders, on the other hand, receive dividends from the total profit of
the corporation without any coherent labor other than the purchase and
manipulation of stock.

>Within the context of the 
>corporation, the efforts of workers are organized (in modern corporations, 
>often largely organized by the workers themselves) in such a way that they 
>create products or services that are of value to customers. When they stop 
>doing that, they go into decline, and if they persist in their failure to 
>produce products at a price that customers are ultimately willing to pay, 
>they will go out of business.

And, of course, the other side of this polemic is that employees are
"down-sized" in order to boost profits regardless of the relative
efficiency of production.

>  It seems to me that we can point to a host of examples of very large, 
>publicly traded corporations, that no longer exist. They were not able to 
>stay in business by force, by coercion, by subterfuge. When they failed to 
>produce products for which the market would trade, they crumbled and fell. 
>I suggest that the evidence indicates that large corporations are actually 
>far more vulnerable to attack from competitors than most people realize. 

True. Eventually, anything large enough will fall under its own weight. I
suppose this is why evolution tends to favor the relatively compact.

>  What I would be interested in knowing is, if we were to ban public 
>corporations, just what would happen? What would keep us from sliding into 
>decay and becoming another third world country? What would keep us from 
>reverting to man's "natural" state of hunger, disease and poverty?

There is an alternative: ban common stock in favor of cooperatives which,
apart from their stated ownership by employees, could be every bit as large
and profitable as modern corporations. The biggest difference is locus of
responsibility. While I am not a historian, I do recall that most of the
megalithic enterprises of the early twentieth century were privately owned,
and that, as we know them now, corporations were once illegal in this country.

Edward   ><>
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"From the rage of today's downtrodden comes the revenge of tomorrow's
               revolutionary force." Edward Britton   ><>
         http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5285/connector1.html
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