Subduing the Corporations: Part I – Infernal Machines

(Checking in from beautiful south of France and bon soire… couldn’t help but notice this essay so had to promote… – promoted by pfiore8)

This has been a long time coming, and it is here now. — Cormack McCarthy, “The Road”

Powerful corporations now dominate the governments of the world. Their global empires extend across all continents and supersede all nominal forms of government. Although most people believe them to be marvelous cornucopia of enticing goods and services, there is a growing understanding among informed individuals that something has gone badly wrong. The collective activity of the multinational corporations is not bringing us an earthly paradise. Instead, it is bringing us environmental devastation, growing inequality, endless war, and the curtailment of freedoms.

This essay explains the necessity of subduing the corporations and returning them to a politically subservient role in which their efficiencies can be harnessed to the public good rather than pernicious institutional aggrandizement. In my view, the struggle between the networked people of the world and ruthless, malignant corporations will be the defining conflict of this century. Part I of the essay states the case for action.

Why shouldn’t corporations run the world? After all, businesses excel in the management of resources in countless industries, and they have avoided many of the pitfalls of despotic and inefficient governments. Privatization and Globalization are at the height of their worldwide popularity. Why not give more political power to these ostensibly successful institutions. Here is why:

1. Corporations have no morals. Corporations have neither the interest nor the ability to order the affairs of mankind according to ethical principles. Their primary motivation is to maximize economic returns, and they will do this by any means that provides the highest risk-adjusted net present value, even if this involves the construction of slave ships, crematoria, or cluster munitions. They will bribe government officials, blackmail critics, punish whistle-blowers, and poison their customers, if those are necessary paths toward attaining their goals. They are cold-blooded, remorseless profit machines, yet their extraordinary mastery of modern propaganda enables them to project a beneficent image that belies these ugly traits.

2. Corporations externalize costs. Because the accounting measures for profitability of a corporation are narrow in scope and short-term in time span, corporations have powerful incentives to shift costs from themselves to society. Dumping toxic wastes, polluting the air, pumping out CO2, injuring workers, and endangering customers are all costs that corporations may choose to export to the people of the World.

3. Corporations cannot manage conflicts. Although corporations often compete keenly within their own industries, they have no means of resolving political conflicts among segments of society. With growth and profitability as their only metrics of success, they have no mechanisms for addressing disputes pertaining to justice, liberty, or environmental sustainability. Indeed the concept of the “common good” is entirely beyond the charter of a corporation.

4. Corporations reward destructive character traits. Most corporations are authoritarian hierarchies that award power to individuals that bring an obsessive-compulsive mission focus and energy to their jobs. In any other social context, this degree of OCD behavior would be considered pathological, but in the modern corporation, it is considered exemplary. The ideal corporate “workaholic” will sacrifice everything to complete his assignment: family, friends, health, and ethics. Indeed, a key criterion for promotion of managers in most corporations is discreet confirmation of the candidate’s willingness to sacrifice to achieve corporate goals. An institution that rewards sociopathic behavior develops a sociopathic character, and this has been dramatically displayed in the conduct of corporations like Enron and Halliburton.

5. Corporations have tunnel vision. The narrow focus and obsessive concentration of the corporation’s “mission” blinds it to broader concerns. Moreover, ferocious dedication to achieving a profit goal often leads to deliberate disregard of more important principles. The arms industry, for example, benefits directly from promoting aggressive and militaristic behavior among governments.

6. Corporations have succession problems. Like most authoritarian institutions, corporations often stumble when a competent leader is replaced by a less capable successor. The unprincipled and jungle-like internal politics of most corporations favors the emergence of leaders who win power by any means necessary, and these individuals are not always the most skillful managers. They are often simply the survivors of bitter and ruthless political struggles. When such ruthless people assume control, they typically aggravate the malignant tendencies of the corporation.

Malignant global corporations are enormous infernal machines, institutional time bombs concealing the deadly potential for societal disruption, war, and environmental ruin. Yet these institutions have been increasingly successful in immunizing themselves from governmental and societal constraints. The evils of unchecked corporate dominance of World society are increasingly evident with each new revelation of their misconduct. How much more damage must the people of the World withstand before we confront this growing danger? The next part of this essay describes how a growing revolt against malignant corporations is taking shape on the Internet, and how this Netrevolt can disarm and reprogram these infernal machines.