Why do you hate corporations? What did they do to you?

Great Debates
21

Mischaracterization Number One
I never said I disliked corporations. As far as I can tell, what you were responding to so imaginatively was my characterization of the “government as paid henchman of the big corporations.” The government is for sale; I don’t much fault the corporations for agreeing to buy it. I happen to agree with many of the other participants in your thread that corporations are given a free hand where human beings are not, but I didn’t even go there. Apparently it was the mere mention of corporations by someone who is not entirely in agreement with your politics that set you all afroth. I never said that corporations are evil.

You responded to my throwaway mention of corporations by sarcastically, not–Mischaracterization Number Two–politely:

. . . sarcastically, as I said, suggesting that I was attacking corporations’ financial contributions, or at least reducing the entire argument to the single issue of the dollar, which was nowhere near what I had been talking about, for Mischaracterization Number Three.

I responded in kind (i.e., sarcastically) indicating that I was uninterested in debating such a vastly oversimplified mischaracterization of what I had written.

Your second time was even further afield than your first, and was in fact such a 180-degree hijack(Mischaracterization Number Four)–

–that it seemed, well, safer to ignore it; the debate seemed to be raging just fine within the confines of your mind, and I felt I would be intruding.

Yes, in the OP of this thread, which was a further amplification of your earlier mischaracterizations, so we won’t give it it’s own number. Oh, what the heck, since you used only my name in your OP you implied that I had “made scathing attacks on the “evils of corporate America,’” which is an out and out fabrication, so let’s make that Mischaracterization Number Five.

I called you simpleminded and denigrated your debating and comprehension skills because you refuse to consider, let alone respond to, anyone’s post in its entirety: you reduce it to a bumper sticker before you’ll agree to engage it.

And I “refused to support my position” because the “position” you ascribe to me is entirely a figment of your imagination, and is not related to anything I have ever said.

Well, we’re even then, because in all sincerity that is exactly how I would characterize your strategy here.

I can’t imagine a more insulting response than the dismissal you gave to all the thoughtful responses to your OP.

Thanks for the specifics, Mr.Z, but they’re not responses to anything anyone has said here: no one has suggested corporations don’t do those things. No one has said that corporations are all bad, despite your insistence that they have. You asked people to explain what they had against corporations. They’ve listed the bad things corporations do, you’ve listed the good things. They are not mutually exclusive, and your list of clichés does not address, let alone refute, any of the valid points people have made regarding the other side of the coin.

In asking people to share their beliefs with you, and then responding, in essence, “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Here’s what I believe,” you’ve shown a great deal of disrespect to the people who responded to your query in good faith.

That’s why I’ve only defended my past posts and am not interested in participating in your present troll.

22

Many people who hate corporations are just plain jealous of an entity they see as powerful. Mostly it is people who have no idea of how difficult it is for a corporation to succeed.

It is the same thing you see when you travel around the world and see how much hate there is against America. It is based on two things: Ignorance and jealousy.

You cannot reason with people like that. Corporations should not exist? So what would you do in their place. A Chinese-style cultural revolution where we each cultivate a small plot of land?

Corporations hire people? It means they exploit them! Corporations fire people? It means they deprive them of their salary! You can’t win.

One thing is for sure: The successful, the winners, will always be denigrated and hated by the losers. Just ask Bill Gates. But a culture that hates winners, that discourages the rewards that are necessary to encourage taking risks, is a culture doomed to failure.

Corporations are formed by people (investors, employees, etc) who voluntarily get together and contribute what they have with the hope of a reward. No one is forced to join and no one is forced to buy their products.

Yes, some corporation may have broken the law. Well, so do some people. That is what the courts are for.

23

my, my lissener. You are sounding a bit like Krispy Cream here with the troll attacks. For those of you who missed it, liessener, posted this OP

Which was admittedly tongue in cheek, but the premise was that only rightists are nuts and leftists are sane. I suppose that this doesn’t pass your troll test lissener?

then, hijaking the thread a bit, posited this

Which is not a bumper sticker slogan, I suppose? I responded

Which was irrational how? …and finally lissener responded with

Which is clearly a slight insult and a complete dodge of the question.

Lissener, you made the first assertion about the power of government (hijacking your own thread). I asked you to back it up, which is pretty reasonable in Great debates. You refused. Then you got a little insulting. Then you decided to avoid any discussion of the OP and instead are trying to start a flame war. Now who is the troll?

Yes, I do want to debate this issue. I have responded to specific assertions of other posters. This is not General Questions nor is it MPSIMS, it is Great Debates, meaning that one can rebut the assertions of others. If someone makes a broad statement that can be proven wrong, or I think should be challenged, it is within the rules for me to debate that statement.

I read over the thread again. THe only person I have been testy with is you. Trust me, if there is some one sided debate raging somewhere, it is in your liberal noggin’.

but you have successfully re-oriented the argument to what you wish to debate i.e. Zambezi is an irrational, disrespectful conservative who is incapable of grasping concepts. My hat is off to you, sir (or madam) for your talented rhetorical skills from any meaningfull debate of the OP to a chance to level accusations, insults and slights.

Sorry for the long post all.

24

To be fair, Mr.Zambezi, you’re right of course: I have been more than testy. But I was bewildered and a bit peeved that you exploded a minor aside of mine into a representation of everything you’re against, then insisted that I defend this position that you falsely ascribed to me. And yes, I thought the best course of action was to ignore you. (I’ve learned to try to avoid debates that begin “I never said . . .”)

But then I was incensed that you invoked my name in a further, ridiculously exaggerated and oversimplified caricature of the position that had been falsely ascribed to me in the first place. Furthermore, by calling me out by name you offered me no other position than the defensive. I was not interested in your terms.

Then when I saw you be so rudely dismissive of people you had invited into the discussion, I let loose a little flicker of flame. (But only, of course, in the interest of illumination.;))

You have since begun more respectfully to address some of those posts, but of course I feel I must take some credit for shaming you into doing so. (If that’s not the case, then please accept my apologies.)

Personally, I’m still not interested in debating this topic with you, and I hope you don’t think your use of my name in the OP obliges me to do so.

Apologies and regards,

25

Mr. Z.: *I think corporations are good for the economy and should be given broad rights because:

They provide jobs (which support people, children and the economy)
they provide essential goods and services
they provide healthcare coverage
they support charity
they support things like sporting events and television and radio
they provide unemployment insurance
they provide workers’ compensation insurance
they give people paid time off
they fuel the economy
The salaries they pay fund a large part of the tax base
They increase our quality of life with great products
they support social security. *

Well, all these good things are generally true of employers as a whole, not just corporations. (And many of them are required by law, and employers would be unlikely to provide them if they weren’t, because they’re expensive. That doesn’t make employers evil, of course, but it doesn’t make them adorably altruistic, either.) You didn’t ask in the OP whether or why people call employers in general “evil”, and I don’t think anybody really does. (Hope I’m not slandering oldscratch here by suggesting he’d be soft on any of the oppressive capitalist bosses! ;))

It seems to me that most of us who replied thought that you were asking about the faults and virtues of corporations in particular. So we gave some answers about aspects of the structure of the modern corporation that we thought made it prone to prioritizing short-term profit above the long-term benefit of the company, the workers, the economy, and/or the environment. This is by no means to say that all corporations make business decisions that are harmful to those around them, just that they often have strong financial incentives to do so, and few or no disincentives. Hence, many people who are outraged by the supremacy of the profit motive, even at a high social cost, demonize all corporations as being actively “evil.”

It seems as though you kind of passed over all those analyses in favor of saying “but here are some good things that businesses do.” Fine, great, we never said they didn’t. Now, do you wanna talk about inherent flaws and strengths in the structure of the modern corporation specifically, or not?

Assuming for the moment that you do, I’ll respond to some of your other points:

Amorality is not necessarily bad. The real moral of the example you gave seems to be that an amoral person may be more likely to obey the law, instead of ignoring the law in favor of one’s own personal moral standards. This is true, but it means that the laws have to do a good job of embodying the morality that society chooses. In other words, corporate behavior needs to be well regulated by law, because corporations, being amoral, are unlikely to regulate themselves unless it’s profitable to do so, which it seldom is.

*Of all the fat corporations, I think the US gov’t takes the cake. * Sigh. Why do you call the US government a corporation? Surely it doesn’t meet any of the serious definitions of a corporation that we’ve been talking about. Why change the subject to criticizing the government if we are talking about the advantages and disadvantages of corporations?

[Tominator:] “they’re immortal (a heck of an advantage).” really? no corp has ever gone out of business, been crushed by the competition, bankrupted by a lawsuit? “Corporate immortality” refers to a corporation’s lack of any particular natural lifespan, not to perfect invulnerability. It’s like a Tolkien Elf, you see: it can be killed but it won’t die otherwise. This is what Tom was talking about, and I think it is indeed an advantage.

*But I also recall that at the start of our current economic boom, everyone was upset about corporate layoff. And here, a few years later, there is a lack of employees. I can’t prove the tie between the two, but it just may be that the people running the companyies know better how to run them than you, I or Congress does. * Well, if we can’t prove the tie between the two, then we can’t count this as evidence that massive corporate downsizing is really a beneficial thing. We can have our private opinions about it, but we haven’t settled anything.

I would add that workers do not have to go to work for a corporation. In many cases that’s true; however, one of the advantages that we’ve been talking about in corporations’ potential for unlimited wealth and size is that often they can control or dominate a local economy so that workers don’t have a choice. Again, consider all those overseas sweatshop scandals, which involved corporations being able to exploit workers precisely because they had few choices in the matter and very little legal regulation or oversight.

*If they don’t like it, they can go farm, or dig ditches, or become a doctor, or whatever they want. If corporations are so exploitive, why do people work for them? * As I said, sometimes they don’t have a viable alternative. And when that’s the case, corporations have little practical incentive to do anything for workers except get as much work as possible out of them for as little money as possible. When workers do have alternatives, and/or when legal regulation is strong, corporations have a reason to treat them well, to ensure their own economic survival. In that case, it’s often advantageous for workers to work for corporations.

I’m not sure why you seem to be taking this issue kind of personally. Certainly nobody who criticizes corporations here means it as an insult to you, as far as I can tell. If you want to carry on with a debate about what factors lead people to view corporations as “evil”, and what corporations do or don’t do to justify that image, and how we should change things to modify the behavior that gives rise to that image, I’m very interested. If it’s just going to be a gripefest that dismisses serious and thoughtful criticisms with the attitude that “people who don’t like corporations are just dumb and jealous and ignorant”, then I think I’ll pass. I wouldn’t be interested in a thread where everyone just mindlessly griped about how evil corporations are, and I’m not interested in one where people just mindlessly gripe about how evil people who criticize corporations are either.

26

“Just ask Bill Gates.”

I just want to know exactly how anyone could think that Bill Gates hasen’t been violating the law? Of course anyone actually prosecuting public figures for violating the law is just mean and petty.

27

Kimstu, Thank you for that well thought out, well reasoned post. That is exactly what I was hoping to generate in this thread. Which was why I got a little bit too peeved (and peevish) at lissener. I should try to keep my temper down a bit. But I am so used to the adeptness of posters such as you, scratch, pldennison and others that I assume that you will weather the storm and make some salient points. But I am not entirely innocent here.

Sorry lissener. I should not have thrown your name in the OP but I got a little miffed at your simple dismissal of my question. In all fairness, I was trying to draw you out. I would welcome your views should you choose to join in, but I do not want to make you my straw man. Sorry if I did.

Kimstu said

that is exacly what I would like. Simple generalizations do not add too much to a debate. I would like to explore exactly this.

I don’t think I called anyone an idiot. I am not trying to give that impression. But I will refute assertions that are general and unsupported. I think that you demonstarated well how to debate this topic. And I agree with some of what you said. In the intrests of keeping this post to a reasonable length, I will adjourn for the evening and go tie some flies for tomorrow.

One more thing: I did not give the list of good things that corps do to refute prior posts. That would have been a useless excercise, as you pointed out Kim. I did it to show lissener what I was looking for. I said at the beginning that I wanted specifics. Statements like “corporations exploit the mases and destroy equality” don’t do us much good. Saying that they are immoral is a good start, but does no good until expanded upon such as you did.

I too will try to keep my pension for hyperbole under control.

28

Maybe you could get your hyperbole a good 401k plan to replace its pension.

29

Coming in late here, but want to add my bit.

I very much agree with Kimstu. The difficulty with corporations is, legally they are people, but morally and socially they are not. Corporations have a legal obligation to do whatever they can to make profits for their owners.

It’s a very effective economic tool and legal fiction. Corporations can be fabulous profit creating machines. I think it’s the lack of moral imperative which disturbs people. An ethical choice which would be difficult for a human being, can be quite simple for a corporation.

For instance, a human might feel pangs of regret at laying off other humans who had enabled the corporation to make profits in the past. But, if it’s clear that the layoffs will lead to higher profits for the owners, the choice is simple (if not obligatory) for the corporation.

I have no problem with corporations making their decisions based solely on the profit motive. The people who buy corporate shares (stock) have a right to expect corporations will act this way.

I do expect the people who run the corporations to have morals, though. They do have to answer for their actions. I don’t think it’s an adequate excuse for a person who runs a corporation to rely on the profit motive.

When faced with a situation which would require a corporation to act immorally, a human who is a CEO does have a choice. Allow the corporation to act immorally or resign (or come up with some other profitable solution). Corporations do what they have to do, but individual humans are not required to participate (or direct the action.)

I don’t think corporations are evil. That’s like saying computers are evil. They’re just tools. Corporations are supposed to make decisions based upon one guideline – how can I legally maximize profits for my investors.

I do think corporate officers can be evil. They are occasionally required to choose between making the proper corporate decision and making the proper moral decision. They don’t always make the correct choice.

Take the Ford Pinto. Correct corporate choice, lousy moral choice.

This is why it’s important to have stringent legal guidelines for corporations. Things like products liability, anti-trust and environmental protection laws are designed to turn moral questions into economic questions so corporations are required to be cognizant of the issues. So, I’m not a big fan of “tort reform” or some forms of deregulation, because some moral issues must be imposed on corporations as well as individuals.

Sorry about the long post.

30

as Kimstu so aptly responded to much of Mr. Z’s commentary, the only side light I’d like to add is a response to the “accountability” line.
you say

First of all, the 145 billion is still being appealed, so to say that the smokers “got” that is a prediction, not a reality. what they DID ‘get’ is cancer, etc.

Secondly, OSHA will investigate an issue, and issue compliance orders, fines, etc, and RARELY shuts something down pending compliance. they tend to do this when there’s serious health and safety risks. and, in doing this, are they not acting in a similar nature to having to post bail pending trial? Similar, but not exactly, since the corp was, in your case, still able to function to some degree. In Michigan, we’ve had a couple of plants that had OSHA shut down portions - one was a bumper stamping plant where a press had malfunctioned, crushing two employees to death. Now, had an “Individual” committed that crime the person would still be in prison. Instead the corp paid a fine and had to “beef up” thier safety codes. Doesn’t seem to be the same degree of accountability now, does it?

I’ve known of even small corps that failed to follow manufacturers’ specs on machines ('cause it was too expensive) and it resulted in a woman I know losing two fingers on her right hand. yea, she got worker’s comp, but tell ya, she’d rather have her fingers, thank you.

If a person commits a crime, they are subject to monetary fines and repercussions, but also jail time. you might be able to imprison a CEO (but it’s really rare), but in general, the only repercussions are monetary (which partially explains why folks on juries might really like to hit them very hard in the ONE area they can be touched.)

31

Godfucking damn it. I wrote out the whole response, then accidentally hit some strange key combination. All my comment got erased. I’m going to redo it. If any of my arguments don’t seem fully formed, I apologize, but I ate having to retype everything. :mad:

**

Lately I’ve been on a feudal kick. Not sure why, just have. So I’m going to compare your arguments to some that were made in a historical period not to long ago. Under feudal and absolute monarchies most people were jealous of an entity they saw as powerfull. They also didn’t think about how hard the king’s job really was. Of course that didn’t keep them from doing well once they chopped off his head.

**

Well I would say it’s more based on the actions of our government. You know the little things, like; sending missles into a country on flimsy charges of terrorism (Sudan anyone?), bombing countries back to the stone age, blowing up embassies and offering lousy excuses for why it was done, imposing sanctions on a country thereby condemning millions of it’s people to death, and other assorted fun. Of course there is some ignorance and jealousy out there too, I’ll give you that. It’s just in a minority.

**

Well I would agrue replace them with socialism. Of course there’s already that debate going on in a few other threads, so I won’t push it here.

Again the same argument was made under feudal lords. They provide shelter and food to people. What would you do? Well, people replaced them with companies and corporations. All in all a good thing.

I may have missed it, but I haven’t seen anyone yet argue for te abolition of corporations. Simply more rules. There is a difference between critiquing something, because it can be improved, and simply calling for it’s destruction.

[quote]
**
Corporations hire people? It means they exploit them! Corporations fire people? It means they deprive them of their salary! You can’t win.
[/quotee]
**

Nope. Same with the feudal lords. They took the food to feed themselves, they were considered slothfull and parasitic.

**

Yes you are. If I want to be able to have a good paying job and compete in todays environment I need a computer. Need to buy that from a corp, need to uy te OS from a corp, need to buy the software from a corp. And this stetches into every aspect of life.

32

You hate the Corps?

Must be one of them mewling little pantywaist Air Force sissies. Semper Fi.

sorry.

33

(taking careful aim with a rubber band at tomndebb and black455)

:snap!:

34

Hey! Some of these debates could use a little levity. (It was as little as I could come up with.)

35

And the corporate interest her being? Keep in mind that most of these actions were taken by Clinton, someone rare to identify with Mr. Zotti.

Let us break this down piece by piece.

Sudan, bin Laden, et al, etc. So where is the corporate interest?

Sanctions: Corporations HATE new markets.

Has it ever occurred to anyone that perhaps corporations like other people should be permitted to support canidates that support their views. You will notice that single corporations typically donate heavily to a single party. Case and point: Microsoft, they donate more heavily to Republicans than Democrats because Republicans are less likely to support half baked efforts to destroy the worlds largest software company. If anything, the DOJ was being influenced by the campaign contributions made by Sun, Netscape, et al.

The key difference here being: You are not forced into assosciation or trade with corporations, i.e. you will not be sorely missing your head for refusing to buy a product ala the Feudal System. You cannot change your lord with the same levity that you can change your job, house, or cereal brand. You are stuck with it and there is not competition. Talk about predatory tactics.

You can buy a computer from a local shop, get some open source Linux, and get some more open source software such as StarOffice.

So actually it does not.

Do not refute this argument by claiming that the local computer is over priced, the the Linux unsupported, or the software sucky, they are all available to you instead of corporate software and hardware (Dell+Microsoft). If you want any of these features, go to one of those corporations working hard to create specific products for different users. This is the advantage of a corporation.

A note on tobacco: So I suppose that you suggest thetransfer of tobacco raising responsibilities from big evil corporations to your friendly neighborhood tobacoinist that is moral and caring, just like your corporation free friendly neighborhood crack dealer.

P.S. I can trust my crack dealer to not only hook me up with the shit, but to be a trusted advisor, source of support, source of inspiration, and an overal great person. Like an old, trusted friend. Cute, huh?

36

Uh, threemae, in mentioning the feudal system and the misfeasances of the United States, he wasn’t mentioning them to refer to the evils of corporations; he was mentioning them to respond to the idea that people only hate corporations because they’re big and powerful, by referring to the reasons why people hate other things that happen to be big and powerful. He’s not conflating them with corporations. You are.

37

Thanks matt. Also, threemae suggested that those who hate corporations think small business is somehow better. I do not attribute any kind of progressive stance to small business.

Also I’m not sure I understand threemae’s point about corporations being allowed to contribute. You make the case that a DOJ investigation was influenced by corporate contributions. If you really believe that justice is influenced by corporate contributions, do you really want them controlling our justice department?

38

Have you noticed the degree of class warfare that has been touted through the last few years? In most of the action movies the heavy for ages has been the large multinational corporation or one the top officers. In the remainder, its one of the officers of the federal government, which by the definition of some would also qualify as a “corportion”.

I also thought the call to class warfare exhibited at the recent political extravaganzas to be interesting as well. One of the first concerns in any political struggle is to create the enemy against which to rally the troups (Hitler did a fine job malaigning the Jews). The liberal left points at the filthy (how being sucessful equates dirty? I wonder!) rich and the polluting (sucessful companies are dirty too by definition it seems) corporations who have it all while the rest of you have squatt! The conservative right points at the excessiveness and ineffeciency of the federal government while telling us the bureaucrats (nameless, faceless gooks on the pulic payroll) have their hands in our pockets so deep we are lucky to get a portion of what we earned to give to our families (that seems to have some truth, LOL).

The government and the corporations are simply very large and, to some extent due to indiscretions in the past, very vulnerable to exploitation and criticism. Both can and do fullfill very valuable and needed functions. Is either evil? I think not. There may be misguided individuals who put other principles before the public good, but it won’t happen forever…

39

I am familiar with Roger and Me and the views of Meyers. It has kind of been a foregone conclusion that they are very often done merely to either create short term profits or to bolster the value of the CEO’s stock options.I have been through one major layoff, and am about to instigate a small departmental one.

When I was the subject of the layoff, I was pretty pissed. Of course, I was a peon who had no understanding of finance, corporate profit nor operating expense. My view was simply “people are losing their jobs and that is bad.” And it is surely a more popular to be for more jobs than to be for firing people.

But in a highly competetive market, high operation expense translates to failure. IF Corp A can do it as well and cheaper, not only will they get more investment due to higher rates on teh ROE, they will get a much bigger market share. IT is necesary to stay lean.

it seems to me that any attempt to legislate this is turning a dangerous portion of corporate control to the feds. I don’t believe that teh government can possibly run any company as wel as that companies Executives can.

It comes down to the age old question: how much government control is too much. Many of you may be unaware of it, but OSHA is planning to institute a new Ergonomics Law. IT would pay workers with musculoskeletal injuries up to 100% of their pre-injury wag (tax free) and require massive investments by companies. It usurps the states’ rights to control workers compensation and would cost corporations billions. If it passes it will require major layoffs ans a scale back of benefits for our employees.

Sometimes when we try to make things more fair some of the innocent have to pay with their jobs.

40

In response to Mr. Z and the ergonomics law. And no one thought of asking the corporations to pay their CEO’s less or to do with slightly less profits? Of course it’s the “peons” who will be layed off. Sometimes to perserve gross levels of profit the innocent have to pay with their jobs. And you wonder why people dislike corporations. :rolleyes: