AR-News: The lunatic you work for

[jim robertson]

This is interesting, in several letters on animal exploiters (hunters, 
trappers, hog farmers) I have pointed out that their lack of empathy, etc. 
fits the psychopathy profile and have even argued that as a species, 
espescially in relation to the other species on the planet, the human race 
is a collective psychopath. If ravens are known as tricksters to us, the 
human species would be known as the psychopaths of the animal world to the 
friendly aliens watching us.  Now, this documentary film compares the 
corporation to a psychopath. Does it go far enough?
Jim

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At one point, he and his wife greet protesters camped on the front lawn of 
their English cottage with offers of a cup of tea and apologies for the lack 
of soya milk for the vegans among them.


The lunatic you work for

May 6th 2004
>From The Economist print edition


If the corporation were a person, would that person be a psychopath?


TO THE anti-globalisers, the corporation is a devilish instrument of 
environmental destruction, class oppression and imperial conquest. But is it 
also pathologically insane? That is the provocative conclusion of an 
award-winning documentary film, called “The Corporation”, coming soon to a 
cinema near you. People on both sides of the globalisation debate should pay 
attention. Unlike much of the soggy thinking peddled by too many 
anti-globalisers, “The Corporation” is a surprisingly rational and coherent 
attack on capitalism's most important institution.

It begins with a potted history of the company's legal form in America, 
noting the key 19th-century legal innovation that led to treating companies 
as persons under law. By bestowing on them the rights and protections that 
people enjoy, this legal innovation gave the company the freedom to 
flourish. So if the corporation is a person, ask the film's three Canadian 
co-creators, Mark Achbar, Joel Bakan and Jennifer Abbott, what sort of 
person is it?

The answer, elicited over two-and-a-half hours of interviews with left-wing 
intellectuals, right-wing captains of industry, economists, psychologists 
and philosophers, is that the corporation is a psychopath. Like all 
psychopaths, the firm is singularly self-interested: its purpose is to 
create wealth for its shareholders. And, like all psychopaths, the firm is 
irresponsible, because it puts others at risk to satisfy its 
profit-maximising goal, harming employees and customers, and damaging the 
environment. The corporation manipulates everything. It is grandiose, always 
insisting that it is the best, or number one. It has no empathy, refuses to 
accept responsibility for its actions and feels no remorse. It relates to 
others only superficially, via make-believe versions of itself manufactured 
by public-relations consultants and marketing men. In short, if the metaphor 
of the firm as person is a valid one, then the corporation is clinically 
insane.

There is a tendency among anti-globalisers to demonise captains of industry. 
But according to “The Corporation”, the problem with companies does not lie 
with the people who run them. Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, a former boss of Shell, 
comes across in the film as a sympathetic and human character. At one point, 
he and his wife greet protesters camped on the front lawn of their English 
cottage with offers of a cup of tea and apologies for the lack of soya milk 
for the vegans among them.

full story:
http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2647328



"Just remember it's the birds that's supposed to suffer, not the hunter." 
—George W. Bush, advising quail hunter and New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici, 
Roswell, N.M., Jan. 22, 2004