My latest reading list epiphany is from Drutman and Cray's "The People's Business." Some related thoughts:
Corporations are being awarded more and more rights and privileges traditionally reserved for individual citizens. These privileges were originally established to protect you and I from the powerful. Everyone knows of someone whose house has been taken for "justifiable use" whether they wanted to sell it or not, but how inappropriate current corporate law is might be better highlighted by comparison to the psyche of one very scary type of individual: the psychopath.
According to Dr. Robert Hare, a renown expert on psychopathy, a corporation fits the following checklist for an individual who is psychopathic:
1. Irresponsible: In an attempt to satisfy the corporate goal, everybody else is put at risk.
2. Manipulative: They try to manipulate everything, including public opinion.
3. Grandiose: Every company insists they are the best, number one, above their competitors.
4. Lack of Empathy and
5. Asocial Tendencies: Corporations' behavior indicates they don't identify with or care about their victims.
6. Refusal to accept responsibility for their actions: If caught breaking the law, they pay big fines and continue doing just what they did before.
7. Unable to feel remorse: Rarely does behavior change after settling a lawsuit due to wrongs perpetrated on innocents.
8. Superficial: The corporations' goal is to have an appealing public image but that often does not represent what the corporation and its operations are really like.
So what do we do with psychopaths in society, danger that they are? Apparently, we have decided to let them control everything, from our schoolyards to our politics to our homes.
But what should we do with psychopathic corporations? Get them into reform school, at the very least. And that does mean shutting down sales during the rehabilitation period - which most corporations refuse to do even while in court. The thought process behind that: Why lose profits during long-winded litigation, even if a company's means be ruled responsible for harming the public?
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