The Corporation

[anartist]

I know I am late to this conversation, but I want to highlight some comments made about the psychopathology of corporations.
The makers of The Corporation use the metaphor of the 'legal person' definition to explore the mental health of such a 'person'.
Now it is apparent to me from the context, and the corporations they highlight, that they are talking about transnational corporations, not ALL corporations.
Corporations listed on a stock exchange have a financial responsibility to make a profit for its shareholders(dividends). That is an example of a pathological pressure that all corporations are subject to. Pathological in the sense that it skews perspective, perceptions, and consequent actions. For instance it is extremely difficult to take a long term view (100 years) of developing a company/product in our present culture, as profit taking has increasingly become the major reason for supporting a board of directors or CEO (a intensification of which may be due to the approaching wave?)
In the film, a checklist is used to point out the more disturbing/negative traits of many corporations, which add up a 'diagnosis' of psychopathology.
If Robert Hare is saying that he was taken out of context I have no doubt he was. Perhaps when he was thinking about corporations he was thinking about all corporations, not just transnational corporations, I don't know, and it is not important because what he says about psychopathology is very applicable to the large transnationals.
My main interest here is to point out, as many have, that contact with psychopaths by individuals can be very traumatizing.
And so I want to make the point that these large transnational corporations employ millions of people, some of whom daily have to study, research, plan and action decisions that have horrific outcomes which they as individuals would never consider doing (the head of Shell in the film is a case in point) What affect do these activities have on these employees? Is it repressed? are they 'just doing their jobs"? Are they just following orders? How does it affect their relationships at work, at home, in their community? I especially think of lawyers who work for corporations such as Monsanto for example, defending Monsantos 'right' to patent seeds, or life for that matter. I feel compassion for anyone caught in this web, of seeing but not 'seeing'.
These corporations (maybe I will call them corpse-rations) have had and are having a damaging affect on society, and us- the people who make up our society, well beyond the damage any 'individual' psychopath could have. Of course this is greatly magnified by psychopaths who do gain positions of power in corporations, and possibly join the revolving door of government 'service' to corporate 'service' back to government 'service'
This is a very valuable message, underlying though it is, of the film The Corporation. and I think it was sort of missed in the comments I read in this thread.

 

[Meager1]

Seems that the USA is nothing but a corporation and that by agreeing to play the game, that is, by consent or "contract" we become obligated to live by it`s rules.

But if there is no consent, or "contract" ( by signature) then we are pretty much free of those laws and rules.


http://www.scribd.com/doc/146936919/Arizona-Sovereigns-Right-to-Travel-Proof

 

[anartist]

Interesting take on The Corporation vis-a-vis the USA. Are you referring to the concept that the USA actually IS a corporation?
http://www.serendipity.li/jsmill/us_corporation.htm
If true, and it seems to be, and it is controlled by psychopaths and their damaged minions, as it seems to be, then that might
go a ways in explaining the world of hurt we are in. but we are still people, and we can still choose.

 

[mcb]

Interesting take on The Corporation vis-a-vis the USA. Are you referring to the concept that the USA actually IS a corporation?
http://www.serendipity.li/jsmill/us_corporation.htm
If true, and it seems to be, and it is controlled by psychopaths and their damaged minions, as it seems to be, then that might
go a ways in explaining the world of hurt we are in. but we are still people, and we can still choose.

I was recently reading about Jamestown, where some of my early ancestors first settled. Most of what you read is sanitized, as is this quote, but you can begin to see what was up, especially if you are familiar with what the Spanish did earlier in South America.

In June of 1606, King James I granted a charter to a group of London entrepreneurs, the Virginia Company, to establish a satellite English settlement in the Chesapeake region of North America. By December, 104 settlers sailed from London instructed to settle Virginia, find gold, and seek a water route to the Orient. Some traditional scholars of early Jamestown history believe that those pioneers could not have been more ill-suited for the task. Because Captain John Smith identified about half of the group as "gentlemen," it was logical, indeed, for historians to assume that these gentry knew nothing of or thought it beneath their station to tame a wilderness. Recent historical and archaeological research at the site of Jamestown suggest that at least some of the gentlemen, and certainly many of the artisans, craftsmen, and laborers who accompanied them, all made every effort to make the colony succeed.

These people were not miners. They were there to steal from the indigenous populations as the Spanish had done, under the supervision of the Virginia Company -- a corporation. They failed in that endeavor because gold was not to be "found" in such quantities in this hemisphere. The comment about the pioneers being "gentlemen" is very interesting in the context of what else "worked" for the Spanish. What I have read is that the Spanish enslaved the native populations and put THEM to work for their own purposes, and that the plan in the north had been to do the same. That didn't work either. But continuing,

The first representative assembly in the New World convened in the Jamestown church on July 30, 1619. The General Assembly met in response to orders from the Virginia Company "to establish one equal and uniform government over all Virginia" which would provide "just laws for the happy guiding and governing of the people there inhabiting." The other crucial event that would play a role in the development of America was the arrival of Africans to Jamestown. A Dutch slave trader exchanged his cargo of Africans for food in 1619. The Africans became indentured servants, similar in legal position to many poor Englishmen who traded several years of labor in exchange for passage to America. The popular conception of a race-based slave system did not fully develop until the 1680s.

(I must have hit "post" instead of "preview". I will continue in another post, but it will be a while.)

 

[mcb]

So we see the corporate concern for the "happiness" of the settlers. Not so much for the slaves or the natives. If you step away and look at it from the right angle, it isn't so different today.

Here is some material from Wikipedia that is more blunt, although maybe not quite as blunt as it could be.

Wealthy merchants, eager to find investment opportunities, established a number of companies set up to trade in various parts of the world. Each company, made up of individuals who purchased shares of company stock, was given by the Crown a monopoly to explore, trade or settle a particular region of the world. Profits were shared among the investors according to the amount of stock they owned. Between 1585 and 1630, more than 6,300 Englishmen and women invested in joint stock companies trading with Russia, Turkey, Africa, the East Indies, the Mediterranean and America.

Investors in the Virginia Company hoped to profit from the wealth of the New World. In 1606 King James I granted the Company organizers exclusive rights to settle in Virginia. A charter granted land to two branches of the Company—the London branch was to settle a colony near the Chesapeake Bay, while the Plymouth branch was granted land in the New England area. The Company paid all the costs of establishing each colony, and in return controlled all land and resources there and required everyone to work for the Company. The first leader of the Virginia Company in England was its treasurer, Sir Thomas Smythe. Investors, called “adventurers,” purchased shares of stock to help finance the costs of establishing overseas settlements. Money from the sale of stock was used to pay for ships and supplies and to recruit and outfit laborers. A single share of stock in the Virginia Company costed 12 pounds 10 shillings, the equivalent of over six month’s wages for an ordinary working man.

In an extensive publicity campaign, the Company founders among whom were Edward Maria Wingfield, Bartholomew Gosnold and few others circulated pamphlets, plays, sermons and broadsides throughout England to raise interest in New World investments. Shareholders could buy stock individually or in groups. Almost 1700 people purchased shares, including men of different occupations and classes, wealthy women, and representatives of institutions such as trade guilds, towns and cities.

The largest single investor was Thomas West, Lord de la Warre, who served as the first governor of Virginia between 1610 and 1618.

The business of the company was the settlement of the Virginia colony using, as the labor force, voluntary transportees under the customary indenture system whereby in exchange for seven years of labor for the company, the company provided passage, food, protection and land ownership.

The same kind of "better life" promises that I have heard in my generation drove these people.

...In addition to survival, the early colonists had another pressing mission: to make a profit for the owners of the Virginia Company. Although the settlers were disappointed that gold did not wash up on the beach and gems did not grow in the trees, they realized there was great potential for wealth of other kinds in their new home. Early industries, such as glass manufacture, pitch and tar production and beer and wine making took advantage of natural resources and the land's fertility. From the outset it was thought that the abundance of timber would be the primary leg of the economy, as Britain's forests had long been felled. The seemingly inexhaustible supply of cheap American timber was to be the primary enabler of England's (and then Britain's) rise to maritime (merchant and naval) supremacy. However, the settlers could not devote as much time as the Virginia Company would have liked to their financial responsibilities. They were too busy trying to survive.

So they set about deforesting the new land as they had done from whence they came. And destroying wetlands and watersheds, and mining, and farming and destroying topsoil. Not so much these early colonies, but the established settlers once they began to multiply like rabbits. In any event, it was all founded in corporate greed.

...Increasingly bad publicity, political infighting and financial woes led the Virginia Company to organize a massive advertising campaign. The Company plastered street corners with tempting broadsheets, published persuasive articles, and even convinced the clergy to preach of the virtues of supporting colonization. Before the Company was dissolved, it would publish twenty-seven books and pamphlets promoting the Virginia venture.

To make shares more marketable, the Virginia Company changed its sales pitch. Instead of promising instant returns and vast profits for investors, the Company exploited patriotic sentiment and national pride. A stockholder was assured that his purchase of shares would help build the might of England, to make her the power she deserved to be. The heathen natives would be converted to the proper form of Christianity, the Church of England. People out of work could find employment in the New World. The standard of living would increase across the nation. How could any good, patriotic Englishman resist?

Does any of this sound vaguely familiar? Of course there may be a bit of WikiBias in this account, but I don't think it is far from the truth.

Anyway, the early US was a corporate endeavor by a number of corporations, with all the psychopathic trappings you could ask for.