
Issue No 89		23 March 2001

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Economics

Corporations: Different Than You and Me

By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman - Extracted from Z-Mag

Corporations are fundamentally different than you and me. That's a simple truth that Big Business leaders desperately hope the public will not perceive.

It helps companies immeasurably that the law in the United States and in many other countries confers upon them the same rights as human beings.

In the United States, this personhood treatment, established most importantly in a throwaway line in an 1886 Supreme Court decision, protects the corporate right to advertise (including the tobacco companies' right to market their deadly wares), corporations' ability to contribute monetarily to political campaigns, and interferes with regulators' facility inspection rights (via corporate rights against unreasonable search and seizure).

But even more important than the legal protections gained by faux personhood status are the political, social and cultural benefits.

Companies aggressively portray themselves as part of the community (every community), a friendly neighbor. If they succeed in that effort at self-characterization, they know what follows: a dramatically diminished likelihood of external constraints on their operations. If a corporation is part of the community, then it is entitled to the same freedoms available to others, and the same presumption of non-interference that society

appropriately affords real people.

Especially because corporations work so aggressively and intentionally to obscure the point, it is crucial to draw attention to the corporation as an institution with unique powers, motivations and attributes, and to point to the basic differences between human beings and the socially constituted and authorized institutions called corporations.

Here are 10 differences between corporations and real people:

1. Corporations have perpetual life.

2. Corporations can be in two or more places at the same time.

3. Corporations cannot be jailed.

4. Corporations have no conscience or sense of shame.

5. Corporations have no sense of altruism, nor willingness to adjust their behavior to protect future generations.

6. Corporations pursue a single-minded goal, profit, and are typically legally prohibited from seeking other ends.

7. There are no limits, natural or otherwise, to corporations' potential size.

8. Because of their political power, they are able to define or at very least substantially affect, the civil and criminal regulations that define the boundaries of permissible behavior. Virtually no individual criminal has such abilities.

9. Corporations can combine with each other, into bigger and more powerful entities.

10. Corporations can divide themselves, shedding subsidiaries or affiliates that are controversial, have brought them negative publicity or pose liability threats.

These unique attributes give corporations extraordinary power, and makes the challenge of checking their power all the more difficult. The institutions are much more powerful than individuals, which makes all the more frightening their single-minded profit maximizing efforts.

Corporations have no conscience, or has been famously said, no soul. As a result, they exercise little self-restraint. Exacerbating the problem, because they have no conscience, many of the sanctions we impose on individuals - not just imprisonment, but the more important social norms of shame and community disapproval - have limited relevance to or impact on corporations.

The fact that corporations are not like us, their very unique characteristics, makes crucially important the development of an array of controls on corporations. These include: precise limits on corporate behaviors (such as actively enforced environmental, consumer, worker safety regulations); limits on corporate size and power (through vigorous antitrust and pro-competition policy, including limits on the scope of intellectual property protections); restrictions and prohibitions on corporate political activity (including through comprehensive campaign finance reform); carefully tailored civil and criminal sanctions responsive to the particular traits of corporations including denying wrongdoing companies the ability to bid for government contracts; equity fines - fines paid in stock, not dollars; creative probation, with a court-appointed ombudsman given authority to order specific changes in corporate activities; and restrictions on corporations' ability to close or move facilities.

There is also the permanent challenge of building countervailing centers of people power to balance concentrated corporate power: unions above all, plus consumer, environmental, indigenous rights and other civic groups, organized in conventional and novel formations.

And there is the imperative of directly confronting the corporate claim to personhood and community neighbor status - both in the law and in the broader culture.

This is the beginning of a sketch of an ambitious agenda, but there is no alternative, if democracy is to be rescued from the corporate hijackers who masquerade as everyday citizens.

Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor. They are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1999)

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  Issue 89 contents

Interview: Paddy Takes the Helm
Irish, internationalist, republican, socialist & seafarer - Paddy Crumlin intends taking the old traditions of the labour left into the 21st century, the community and cyberspace.

Unions: Breaking the Mould
Mark Hearn looks at how women union delegates are helping to change the culture in the traditionally male bastion of glassworking.

Legal: Washing Their Hands
Mark Morey outlines how Liberal neglect of the working visa system has led to exploitation of guest workers.

International: Violence Betrays Shangri-La
Shangri-La hotel union members carrying a coffin marked Robert Kuok have been assaulted and beaten by police in Jakarta.

Economics: Corporations: Different Than You and Me
Corporations are fundamentally different than you and me. That's a simple truth that Big Business leaders desperately hope the public will not perceive.

History: The Steel Octopus
Be prepared for a flood of Nostalgia from the media about the �Big Australian�, as it prepares to flee our shores and finally internationalise its digging operations. Workers won�t forget BHP�s less than worker friendly past and present (and no doubt it�s future).

Review: Mean Nation
John Allen charts the fall and fall of philanthropy in Australian society.

Satire: Ryan 'A Big Wake-Up Call For Me': Beazley
The narrow victory to Labor in the Ryan by-election has delivered a big slap in the face to Leader of the Opposition Kim Beazley.

» Abbott and �Drinking Buddy� Under Microscope

» Working Visas: Ruddock Sells Dump to Abbott

» Tourist Guides Bussed In

» Fair Wear Holds Breath as Carr Celebrates

» Labor to Restore Public Sector�s Dignity

» Its Time for Carr to Act on Safey on Building Sites

» Bread Maker Slices Workforce

» Workers Show Grace Under Pressure

» Engineers Win BHP Redundancy Case

» Transport Drug Pushers Not Charged

» Training Body Needs $150 Million to Cope with Growth

» HIH Urged To Safeguard Employee Entitlements

» Carr Proposal For Public Schools Flawed

» Human Smirk Returns to Spiritual Home

» McGauchie Appointment Draws MUA Fire

» Bove Loses McDonald's Raid Appeal

» James Hardie Called to Account

» Australasian Union Organising Conference

» Activist Notebook