If a corporation is a person, what sort of person is it?
PART ONE (link) (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-684415688278839051&ei=6xxtSsb5NJLGrQKzouDVAQ&q=The+Corporation+Part+one+(Of+three)+&hl=en&client=firefox-a)
The epiphany by a CEO at the end of this installment is enough to bring a tear to one's eye. Can we continue for long with our destructive paradigm?

Will it ever be possible to wake enough people up from the toxic effect upon minds and society that corporations have?
PART TWO (link) (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7052046910074531527&ei=YQ5tSuy4AYzcrQKGlrmFBQ&q=The+Corporation+Part+two+(Of+three)+&hl=en&client=firefox-a)

Can corporations be socially responsible?
How possible is it to challenge the corporate ethic of our time?
PART THREE (link) (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7348963343777979199&ei=FR1tSvrXKqXSrQK5_8B2&q=The+Corporation+Part+three++(Of+three)+&hl=en&client=firefox-a)

"The rich man will sell you the rope to hang himself with if he thinks he can make a buck off it, well I'm the rope." ~ Micheal Moore

The Story of Stuff (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9153550196656656736&ei=YzJtSpn4JaXqrALFoI1N&q=The+story+of+stuff&hl=en&client=firefox-a)

In the Japanese society the Merchant was the lowest in social order. Below the Samurai. Below the peasant. Below the farmer. Actually the farmer was pretty high. Bowing and language allowed Japanese to understand where each person fit. Interesting isn't it? The Japanese must have realized that they needed merchants, but they also seemed to understand that social standing was important, as important, as being rich.

Well, yes, if you watch. . . hmm, I forget now which part it is, I think part three, you learn that in the very beginning, that corporations played a proper role in society. They state that culture is the primary institution, the backbone of society that plays a role in determining what is just, and what peoples roles are, NOT the profit motive.

The reason this is so, is because people have control over their culture, culture can be influenced by laws, opinion, tradition, and history. . . the profit motive? It is a monster that will eat it's own tail given half an opportunity. To call it an "ideal" motivating force because of the efficiency it produces seems sweeping in it's arc and naive its application.

The whole of the planetary belief system will change only as its individual members change until a critical mathematical quotient is reached. How long this takes will depend on the spread of the understanding throughout all the groups that are now on this planet. It is the responsibility of those who come into the understanding of this information to disseminate it. Then and only then will the future change.

You think that you're actually fighting or arguing against corporations, when you actually arguing against normal, natural, innate human greed and selfishness. If there were no such things as "corporations", those same humans would have found other ways to do what they did. The corporation did nothing ......the humans did it all.

Baron Max

You think that you're actually fighting or arguing against corporations, when you actually arguing against normal, natural, innate human greed and selfishness. If there were no such things as "corporations", those same humans would have found other ways to do what they did. The corporation did nothing ......the humans did it all.

Baron Max

In an effort to discourage other ignorant comments in this thread, perhaps I will just call this first comment out right here. You obviously didn't watch the three part series, and therefor cannot make an intelligent comment. I hold you up as a clear cut example of what was talked about toward the second half of the third installment.

For decades, we have been indoctrinated in corporate thought, and actually believe that this is "normal, natural, innate human greed and selfishness." Humans are the ones that makes the laws that regulate corporate activity, so, you couldn't be more wrong in your final analysis.

East Germany
http://www.coldwar.org/pictures/photos/hugh7.jpg

W. Germany
http://www.finkle.org/West%20Berlin%201969%20s.jpg

Greed is good.

You think that you're actually fighting or arguing against corporations, when you actually arguing against normal, natural, innate human greed and selfishness. If there were no such things as "corporations", those same humans would have found other ways to do what they did. The corporation did nothing ......the humans did it all.

Baron Max

The Difference is a Human does selfish things for at least themselves, probably their family and perhaps more people than that.

A corporation doesn't give a fuck for anything but more more more profit and share value. It doesn't really care about even one human.

It's a drama that has not completely played out yet. There will be no corporations at some point in the future. Or there will be no humans.

Greed is good.

Your assumptions are faulty Norsefire. The prosperity of one section of Germany compared to the other half has nothing to do with the existence and the unrestrained dominance of corporations.

It has to do with freedom, tyranny, and authoritarianism.

Laissez Faire is freedom.

Corporate rule is corporatism, not capitalism.

Laissez Faire is freedom.

Corporate rule is corporatism, not capitalism.
Don't participate in a discussion until you view the film.

The Difference is a Human does selfish things for at least themselves, probably their family and perhaps more people than that.

A corporation doesn't give a fuck for anything but more more more profit and share value. It doesn't really care about even one human.

I don't know where y'all get the idea that a corporation is some kind of special "creature" with low morals and worse ethics?? A corporation is not a creature, it's a legal entity made up of humans!! The humans make all of the decisions, not the corporate "creature". Human greed is as prominent in corporations as it is everywhere else in human interaction.

A "corporation" does NOT DO anything, ladies and gentlemen, the legal executives of the corporation do those things. When you rail against "corporations", it's no different to railing against ....air!

If you want to solve problems with corporations, then solve the human problems of greed, selfishness, egocentricism, etc.

Baron Max

Don't participate in a discussion until you view the film.

I did, I viewed like the first ten minutes before realizing it was a bunch of commie propaganda.

Commerce, a disease? Unless you want to live in a cave, commerce is unavoidable.

The corporation is an artifact created by governments, that's why corporations are often called "artificial persons" in legal language. There were two important reasons for creating this artifact:The massive projects of the Industrial Era, such as steel mills and transcontinental railroads, required concentrations of capital that were difficult to amass in either of the traditional ways. Hardly anyone had enough personal wealth to put up as collateral for a bank loan, and gathering enough partners to fund the project collectively would have resulted in an unwieldy management structure that could not operate effectively. The mechanism of stock ownership was the entrepreneurs' dream: In successful times stockholders have little power to override the entrepreneur's decisions, and in event of failure they cannot come after him for his house, car and other assets. As the feudal era gave way to democracy, the old social order of the aristocracy was vanishing. The antics of the nobility and gentry distracted the attention of the citizenry from the much more nefarious antics of the ruling class. Corporations serve the same purpose in modern society. The parallels are striking: You can't throw a corporation in jail, it's almost impossible to execute one, and if you levy a fine it merely passes the expense on to its vassals/customers.As I have noted before, I observe a shrinking role for the corporation in the post-industrial economy. Few of today's projects require such massive concentrations of capital. Third World countries are "constructing" telephone networks without cutting down forests and turning them into telephone poles, and without all the bulldozers and other expensive equipment that entails. I know a couple who did nothing more than liquidate their life savings, then emigrated to Estonia and founded what is now a highly profitable software house.

If you carefully examine the current behavior of corporations, you'll see that their position in the economic "ecosystem" as producers is fading, and more and more of them are acting as scavengers, gobbling up the corpses of their failed competitors. The ultimate result of this trend is obvious.

Certainly there are and always will be a few corporations who provide goods and services that are essential to the new decentralized, energy-conserving, information-intensive economy. Microsoft and FedEx come to mind.

But if I were you, I'd stop wringing my hands over the evil done by the corporation and start planning my speech for the artifact's funeral service. Instead I'd be looking ahead and trying to guess what new creation government will come up with to keep us distracted.

I don't know where y'all get the idea that a corporation is some kind of special "creature" with low morals and worse ethics?? A corporation is not a creature, it's a legal entity made up of humans!! Baron Max

Yes, but, this institution dictates the values of all of those in it. People will train themselves to fit into the ideology of this institution, thereby transforming themselves into it's appendages.


In Japan, perhaps the peasants were given higher class in order to keep them appeased. No one wants a peasant uprising.

Yes, but, this institution dictates the values of all of those in it. People will train themselves to fit into the ideology of this institution, thereby transforming themselves into it's appendages.

This "corporate monster" does all that to people? Without them knowing it? And takes away the people's free will to quit and find another job?

Wow, y'all have a really odd view of something that's nothing more than a collection of humans who think and feel alike! Not much different to a football team, is it? Don't the team members have to conform to what the management wants and expects?

Baron Max

This "corporate monster" does all that to people? Without them knowing it? And takes away the people's free will to quit and find another job?

Wow, y'all have a really odd view of something that's nothing more than a collection of humans who think and feel alike! Not much different to a football team, is it? Don't the team members have to conform to what the management wants and expects?

Baron Max

This thinking and feeling alike, its not just random coincidence. Its all orchestrated - the people want to fit into the corporation in order to have an easier, better life. This leads to their adoption of corporate values, much like moving to another country leads to the adoption of foreign customs.

I don't know where y'all get the idea that a corporation is some kind of special "creature" with low morals and worse ethics?? A corporation is not a creature, it's a legal entity made up of humans!! The humans make all of the decisions, not the corporate "creature". Human greed is as prominent in corporations as it is everywhere else in human interaction.

A "corporation" does NOT DO anything, ladies and gentlemen, the legal executives of the corporation do those things. When you rail against "corporations", it's no different to railing against ....air!

If you want to solve problems with corporations, then solve the human problems of greed, selfishness, egocentricism, etc.

Baron Max

You didn't watch the documentary Baron, you are speaking like an ignorant child. If you had, you would have seen the interviews of some of the world's top CEO's saying that even THEY have no control over their decisions. What did you think of the scene where the CEO of Shell sat down on his front lawn and had a friendly chat with the protesters that hung a banner on his house that read "MURDERER" and discussed the issues while his wife served them all tea?

I did, I viewed like the first ten minutes before realizing it was a bunch of commie propaganda.

Commerce, a disease? Unless you want to live in a cave, commerce is unavoidable.

See? You judged it before you viewed the whole thing. You are the typical case example exemplified in the third part. You would have recognized yourself as the person that has been conditioned to think as certain way.

If you would have watched more than ten minutes, you would have seen that it had MANY points of view expressed, it had people from chambers of commerce, CEO's, advertising executives, and much more. To be of any value in a discussion, and to be of any use in solving a very serious problem that the world is now facing, we need to not approach this issue with bias, but look at all the facts and look at the issue with a sober and clear mind.

YOU apparently are unable to do that at this juncture. I have seen you on other threads. Throwing out very unhelpful comments like, "Marxism is a cult" What sort of brain washed, partisan, unintellectual gibberish is that? Have you ever taken a single basic philosophy or economics class? He was very revolutionary and has affected history in a great way. He recognized more human values than just "efficiency of production and distribution." Do you? Or are your only values, material values?

How about clean air? Clean water? Healthy food? These don't have a dollar values, so in your economic model, are they irrelevant? Watch the documentary, educate yourself. Or how about you read some Marx, learn about workers rights, eh? To you, "safe working conditions, and reasonable wages" might not have a lot of economic value, but the have ethical value. Propaganda huh? :bugeye:

But if I were you, I'd stop wringing my hands over the evil done by the corporation and start planning my speech for the artifact's funeral service. Instead I'd be looking ahead and trying to guess what new creation government will come up with to keep us distracted.

Oh but I wish that were true. Everything you said about the reason WHY they were established and the necessity for them is spot on. That being said? There power and influence is now more pervasive than ever.

The corporations are now more powerful than the governments. It is they that control the governments through their financing of it, and though their control of the media by determining which issues are covered, how they are covered, and who gets elected.

The largest corporations now have bigger budgets and more money than the smaller countries. Only the G8 nations have more money. I don't see how you expect them to just, go away and die. Everything you do, everywhere you look, your entire life is permeated by the corporation. You too have obviously not watched what I have posted. Your post is equally uninformed.

WHY can't anyone make an intelligent comment on this? Fraggle Rocker has come close in his analysis, if he hadn't actually added the thought that their power is weakening, rather than growing and instead hastening the destruction of the planet.

This thinking and feeling alike, its not just random coincidence. Its all orchestrated - the people want to fit into the corporation in order to have an easier, better life. This leads to their adoption of corporate values, much like moving to another country leads to the adoption of foreign customs.

Yeah, and doesn't that sound exactly like a sports team? Or a college fraternity? Or a political party? Or a church, for that matter?

It's just a bunch of like-minded individuals who come together to try to get something done. Y'all make it out to be a living, breathing, evil entity! It's no different to how a bunch of people get together to form "MADD", Mothers Against Drunk Driving". Or perhaps the Red Cross. All orchestrated, ain't it? All of it leading to the adoption of values unique to that organization.

Nope, y'all are just fear-mongering ...corporations are nothing but groups of like-minded humans. And while I'll admit that that's scary in and of itself, it's not any different with corporations than it is with any other group of humans.

Baron Max

Again Mad Max, you are being ignorant because you are unaware of the special powers that corporations have, the special allowances in the law that have been made for them. There are these nasty evil creatures called "corporate lawyers" who's whole lives work it is to manipulate the government and laws so that these organizations have special power in society that all those other organizations don't.

I'm done, you can't argue this issue intelligently. You have a bewildering lack of understanding of how monstrously out of control the nature of corporations are. To sit there and compare something like GE, SHELL, or DuPONT to, to, the likes the Red Cross or the Girls Scouts?!?! What are you, insane?

OH, ha ha, I get it, this is one of those times where you are purposely being ignorant just to piss people off, right? lol :bravo::roflmao::xctd:

Again Mad Max, you are being ignorant because you are unaware of the special powers that corporations have, the special allowances in the law that have been made for them. ...

So all corporations are bad and evil entities? All of them? All over the world?

Baron Max

WHY can't anyone make an intelligent comment on this? Fraggle Rocker has come close in his analysis, if he hadn't actually added the thought that their power is weakening, rather than growing and instead hastening the destruction of the planet.

I can't help but agree. People who want to comment on what the video is about in this thread should first watch the entire video. To comment on the subject matter without watching it makes no sense.

@Baron Max - Yes, people make a corporation; but the group dynamics influence the whole to make it unequal to the sum of its parts.. A person might be different at home; and different in the ethos of his or her corporation.
Secondly, and more importantly, humans aren't by nature.. what was it.. innately greedy and selfish. In our civilization, yes, they are. But that's because the way our civilization works. Throughout the 200000 years of human history, for about 190000 of them, humans lived harmoniously within their own societies.. in mutual codependence.. in strict, ecological accordance.

@Norsefire - Oh, humans can so definitely live with commerce... its just a very annoying and harmful meme in our society that money is a constant.. Look at societies that have been alive.. and more longer successfully so, than our society.. they have not had money. Even in the framework of our society, there is a Freeconomic movement gaining momentum.

Generally speaking, when power comes to the nicest peasant he becomes the meanest dictator.

Power corrupts... but not always. Only great determination and meditation can resist the corruption of power. That's human instinct for you.

http://wimp.com/thegovernment/

... Throughout the 200000 years of human history, for about 190000 of them, humans lived harmoniously within their own societies.. in mutual codependence.. in strict, ecological accordance.

May I ask how you know that? I mean, I don't think they had YouTube back 200,000 years, did they? Or CNN News? But seriously, how can you possible make that statement without any solid evidence to back it up?

Baron Max

In the Japanese society the Merchant was the lowest in social order. Below the Samurai. Below the peasant. Below the farmer. Actually the farmer was pretty high. Bowing and language allowed Japanese to understand where each person fit. Interesting isn't it? The Japanese must have realized that they needed merchants, but they also seemed to understand that social standing was important, as important, as being rich.

on the other foot
in the book "shogun" it tells of an incident of the gardener after Anjinsun had received a pheasant from a hunting party he went on and it had been forgotten about and had been hanging up for a few days.
the smell was unbelievably offensive to the japanese and was bringing dishonor on the house and the lord through this.
soo the gardener took it down breaking the command of anjinsun which was "no body to touch it).
suffice to say the gardener sacrificed himself in the task of removing it and the head of the house guard chopped his head off after he had taken the bird away and buried it in the garden.
supposedly he was not really too upset about being executed because he was suffering from bad arthritis and had been living in pain for years.

that said...
the peasants were of no real value and the soldiers would simply kill them if they got annoyed or in the way.
prisoners were tortured for fun.
and... the more brutally they treated people the more they were feared and consequently respected as far as control is concerned.
another incident was a messenger was sent and they hamstrung him and set dogs onto him when he had given them the message.

while some aspects of honour and respect do bring a great deal of order and respect we have barely crawled out of the caves as a species and this level of independant functioning is hard (for the average person)to nurture without using the age old fear guilt and shame(the religious template).

hence domestic violence, rape(in all its forms) and general violence and why parents do not want to give up the right to assault their own children as and when they see fit.

parents want to be able to legally assault their children

why on earth would we make laws to prevent company's from assaulting the parents ?

It is sad that politicians & Ivory tower academics have made corporations & entrepreneurs into evil bogeymen responsible for all the ills of our culture.

The first corporations were formed to finance ships which went to the New World & perhaps to India & China. they wre a net benefit to What became the Western technologial countries.


Early capitalism replaced the feudal system & cultures in which the wealthy opppressed the commona man & did nothing for him. Prior to capitalism, the agricutural econimies & fedualism were essentailly what a mathematician would call zero sum games. What the weathly & powerful took was a loss to the poorer & weaker.

Under capitalism, the actions of the entreprener & the financier benefited many of the poorer & less powerful. Under capitalism, people had jobs & were given purchasing power. Compare the average worker of the late 19th century with the feudal serf of the 12th to 16th centuries.

A very good approximation to Laissez Faire capitalism existed for perhaps 100 to 150 years. Its decline started sometime between 1890 & 1920. In the laissez Faire capitalist era, the standard of living & freedom of action of the average person grew by leaps & bounds. The momentum of that era lasted well into the 20th century.

All of my Ivory tower academic professors talked about low wages & terrible working conditions prior to the advent of labor unions & government social legislation to protect the worker.

They never consider the productivity of the early capitalistic era with the productivity of the 20th century worker. Many products prior to the late 19th century were made by men working with hammer, tongs, & open dies. They used muscle power to create steel products & could produce 10 to 20 items per day. In the 20th century, a man using an upset forging machine (& similar devices) could produce a steel item every minute.

If the robbber baraon of the 18th & 19th centuries ran his business as a non-profit organization, he could perhaps pay workers $1.10 per day intead of $1.00 per day.

BTW: How many here know that henry Ford paid his worker $5.00 per day when the going rate was $3.00 per day? He wanted the best & the brightest to work for him. He also had a dream of manufacturinhg & selling one million cars in a year. He said that when he started his business, there were not one million people wealthy enough to buy a car when he started. Hence, he had to produce cars cheap enough for the average worker to be able to buy one.

How much of the increase in wages do you think was due to increased productivity & how much was due to labor unions & govnement legislation? My Ivory Tower history, sociology, & economics professors did not know what an upset forging machine was & had zilch understanding of the effects of increased productivity due to the organizational powers of corporations & entrepreneurs. They extolled communism when it was fahsionable & later called their views liberaliam.

A very good approximation to Laissez Faire capitalism existed for perhaps 100 to 150 years. Its decline started sometime between 1890 & 1920. In the laissez Faire capitalist era, the standard of living & freedom of action of the average person grew by leaps & bounds. The momentum of that era lasted well into the 20th century.

:xctd:

i blame the current lack of wealth for all on all the trade unions and the never ending whining from the lazy society that think factories staffed by children is somehow unfair or something.

if children will work for $1.00 per day then what is wrong with employing them ?

May I ask how you know that? I mean, I don't think they had YouTube back 200,000 years, did they? Or CNN News? But seriously, how can you possible make that statement without any solid evidence to back it up?

Baron Max

By actually having evidence..

Let's begin with the Paleolithic period, when earlier members of the genus Homo fully evolved into the modern human.
At this time, according to wikipedia,
Some sources claim that like the societies of our closest existent relative, the Bonobo,[54] most Middle and Upper Paleolithic societies were possibly fundamentally egalitarian[6][11][19][20][49][49] and may have rarely or never engaged in organized violence between groups (i.e. war).[11][55][56][57] Some Upper Paleolithic societies in resource-rich environments (such as societies in Sungir, in what is now Russia) may have had more complex and hierarchical organization (such as tribes with a pronounced hierarchy and a somewhat formal division of labor) and may have engaged in endemic warfare.[11][58] There was no formal leadership during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic. Like contemporary egalitarian hunter-gatherers such as the Mbuti pygmies, societies probably made decisions by communal consensus decision making rather than by appointing permanent rulers such as chiefs and monarchs.[20][59] Nor was there a formal division of labor during the Paleolithic. Each member of the group was skilled at all tasks essential to survival, regardless of individual abilities.
Possibly there was approximate parity between men and women during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic, and that period may have been the most gender-equal time in human history.[20][50][55][65][66][67] Archeological evidence from art and funerary rituals indicates that a number of individual women enjoyed seemingly high status in their communities,[66] and it is likely that both sexes participated in decision making.[50] The earliest known Paleolithic shaman (c. 30 000 BP) was female.[68] Jared Diamond suggests that the status of women declined with the adoption of agriculture because women in farming societies typically have more pregnancies and are expected to do more demanding work than women in hunter-gatherer societies.[69]

Throughout this period, as with the Mesolithic, societies did live in peace.. This isn't to say that there weren't wars; that there were absolutely no occurrences which would now be regarded as social evils, but they were definitely on a smaller scale. Modern humans appeared sometime around the middle paleolithic, about 200,000 years ago. Until the Neolithic revolution roughly about 10,000 years ago, humans showed no signs of consuming resources beyond their means, and were getting along pretty well. But let's see what happened next:
During most of the Neolithic people lived in small tribes of 150–2000 members that were composed of multiple bands or lineages.[18] There is little scientific evidence of developed social stratification in most Neolithic societies; social stratification is more associated with the later Bronze Age.[19] Although some late Neolithic societies formed complex stratified chiefdoms similar to Polynesian societies such as the Ancient Hawaiians, most Neolithic societies were relatively simple and egalitarian.[20] However, Neolithic societies were noticeably more hierarchical than the Paleolithic cultures that preceded them and Hunter-gatherer cultures in general[21][22] The domestication of animals (c. 8000 BC) resulted in a dramatic increase in social inequality. Possession of livestock allowed competition between households and resulted in inherited inequalities of wealth. Neolithic pastoralists who controlled large herds gradually acquired more livestock, and this made economic inequalities more pronounced.
Control of labour and inter-group conflict is characteristic of corporate-level or 'tribal' groups, headed by a charismatic individual; whether a 'big man', a proto-chief or a matriarch, functioning as a lineage-group head. Whether a non-hierarchical system of organization existed is debatable and there is no evidence that explicitly suggests that Neolithic societies functioned under any dominating class or individual, as was the case in the chiefdoms of the European Early Bronze Age.[29] Theories to explain the apparent egalitarianism of Neolithic (and Paleolithic) societies have arisen, notably the Marxist concept of primitive communism.
Nevertheless, as seen, something seems to be going awry here.
Now enter the agricultural revolution:
...the Neolithic Revolution involved far more than the adoption of a limited set of food-producing techniques. During the next millennia it would transform the small, mobile and fairly egalitarian groups of hunter-gatherers that had hitherto dominated human history, into sedentary societies based in built-up villages and towns, which radically modified their natural environment by means of specialized cultivation and storage technologies (e.g. irrigation) that allowed extensive surplus production. These developments provided the basis for high population densities, complex labor diversification, trading economies, the development of non-portable art, architecture, and culture, centralized administrations and political structures, hiearchical ideologies and depersonalized systems of knowledge (e.g. property regimes and writing).
Okay, a lot of it seems pretty cool.. but let's get to the meat of the issue:
It is often argued that agriculture gave humans more control over their food supply, but this has been disputed by the finding that nutritional standards of Neolithic populations were generally inferior to that of hunter gatherers, and life expectancy may in fact have been shorter, in part due to diseases.[citation needed] Average height, for example, went down from 5' 10" for men and 5' 6" for women to 5' 3" and 5' 1", respectively and it took until the twentieth century for average human height to come back to the pre-Neolithic Revolution levels.[19] Actually, by reducing the necessity for the carrying of children, Neolithic societies had a major impact upon the spacing of children (carrying more than one child at a time is impossible for hunter-gatherers, which leads to children being spaced four or more years apart). This increase in the birth rate was required to offset increases in death rates and required settled occupation of territory and encouraged larger social groups.[citation needed] These sedentary groups were able to reproduce at a faster rate due to the possibilities of sharing the raising of children in such societies. The children accounted for a denser population, and encouraged the introduction of specialization by providing diverse forms of new labor. The development of larger societies seemed to have led to the development of different means of decision making and to governmental organization. Food surpluses made possible the development of a social elite who were not otherwise engaged in agriculture, industry or commerce, but dominated their communities by other means and monopolized decision-making.
Ah, a social elite.. corporations and governments of today.. so that's where it started, yeah.. not only started, but spread like wildfire. This agricultural revolution took place originally just in the fertile crescent, but once that much land wasn't enough, the elite over there, now with small armies of their own, extended it to neighboring lands, which had no choice but to yield. The whole civilization we see today is the result of a long chain reaction.
And guess what, it just happened in the last 10,000 years. Before that, no one was selfish; selfish in the sense today's corporations are. That's because they knew if they are, they just won't continue to exist. The idea of a ruling few dominating over the mass; the idea of food under lock-and-key; the idea that these actually unworkable ideas would actually work were watershed events in human history. When they did happen, it wasn't so easy to tell the consequences. After all, the whole world was out there waiting to be leveled. But when it was seen that maybe something's not right, it was too late.. People were already too stubbornly involved in that system; even if they weren't profiting through it, to leave it.

Humans aren't intrinsically selfish; the very idea of 'selfish' is a construct. There's just a lifestyle which works, and that which doesn't. Its our system that is selfish; it'll wreck humans and the planet, but if it doesn't wreck us first, it'll have to be wrecked. Which it doesn't want. So here we are, still blinded by that system, put to sleep and dreaming that it'll keep on working forever... That same system The Esotericist started to argue against in this thread.

Anyway, if you aren't convinced by me, I strongly suggest you read Daniel Quinn's books, especially Ishmael. The evidence given there is a lot more coherent.

By actually having evidence.....

The speculations of even the best scientists is not "evidence". All of that you copied in your post, was just some people, even if they were scientists and archeologists, etc, who speculated on what it was like those tens of thousands of years ago. Speculation ...even if based on some meager physical evidence, is still speculation.

Baron Max

It is sad that politicians & Ivory tower academics have made corporations & entrepreneurs into evil bogeymen responsible for all the ills of our culture. ....

Yeah, I agree!

But most people in modern society are now atheists and don't have the Devil to blame for their ills ....they must find something or someone else. And surely you wouldn't expect them to ....oh, the horror... to blame themselves?!

Baron Max

Power corrupts those who are not determined enough to resist corruption.

Who has been deleting my posts?

I posted legitimately into this thread a day or so ago, now its gone???

Power corrupts those who are not determined enough to resist corruption.

The speculations of even the best scientists is not "evidence". All of that you copied in your post, was just some people, even if they were scientists and archeologists, etc, who speculated on what it was like those tens of thousands of years ago. Speculation ...even if based on some meager physical evidence, is still speculation.

Baron Max

Well, going by that, all knowledge we have about humanity in the past is speculation. You could even go to the extent of saying that even historical records are just speculations; I could argue that Tamerlane was actually a very benevolent conqueror, and the scribes of that era misunderstood him.

Anyway, do you have evidence to prove that humans actually have always been innately selfish? You can also only speculate, going by what you say..

Who has been deleting my posts? I posted legitimately into this thread a day or so ago, now its gone?* * * * NOTE FROM A MODERATOR * * * *

This is not my board, but we all have the permissions to see the actions of all the Moderators on all the boards.

There are no Moderator messages in this thread identifying deleted posts. You must have posted on a different thread.

Do a Search on your screen ID over the entire forum and you'll find them.

--F.R.

It's a drama that has not completely played out yet. There will be no corporations at some point in the future. Or there will be no humans.

Hahaha :D
I cant help but agree.

“Originally Posted by nietzschefan It's a drama that has not completely played out yet. There will be no corporations at some point in the future. Or there will be no humans.”

Hahaha :D
I cant help but agree.


corporations are the psychopathic vehicle that societal predators may exercise their will through.
until corporations are forced by law to act in the same conscience as a human then this will continue to be a festering putrid bed of sadomasochistic breeding for those who would quite willingly commit genocide for a pass time.

corporations are the psychopathic vehicle that societal predators may exercise their will through.
until corporations are forced by law to act in the same conscience as a human

Then there would be no need to have a corporation if suddenly individuals are accountable for what "the corporation" did.

Then there would be no need to have a corporation if suddenly individuals are accountable for what "the corporation" did.

Why do you think they are not? Have you already forgotten Enron? And the Ebbers guy with World-something-or-other? And, oh, so recently, Bernie Madoff?

Just as the handguns don't kill people, corporations don't do harm people either! And yet people seem to continually attribute both to some magically form of "evil life".

Don't y'all get it? Honestly, don't you really get it? ...... That humans do all of that evil to other humans and to animals as well, not some evil "thing" called "corporations" or "companies" or "video games" or "poverty" or "child abuse" or..... All thos things are just excuses!!

Humans harm things, and they've been harming things since they stood upright on the African plains. I'm becoming more and more convinced that the very reason that humans stood upright is because they discovered that they could harm MORE things if their hands and arms were free of having to walk!!!

Baron Max

Then there would be no need to have a corporation if suddenly individuals are accountable for what "the corporation" did.

Precisely which is why corporations need to be made accountable as a person would be.
otherwise there is no difference between a company being accountable for the death of a person or an individual killing someone.

drunk driving etc...
things like that where a company is accountable for the death is seen as a perpetratorless accident.

where as if a driver is drunk and has an accident the person is held accountable by default, but not a company.

it is the type of hypocrisy that validates civilian targets for terrorists.

the problem is most peoples values are soo twisted and have such low processing ability they cant formulate past about 2 equation levels.

what happens if a dog kills a child ?
what happens if a person kills a child ?
what happens if a drunk driver kills a child ?
what happens is a company kills a child ?

Precisely which is why corporations need to be made accountable as a person would be.

Where are they NOT accountable?

And be sure to read my post above before you respnd to this post.

Baron Max

Where are they NOT accountable?

And be sure to read my post above before you respnd to this post.

Baron Max

you tell me to read something not addressed to the question you ask me as if it requires some type of themed qualifier is a little silly, as i am not going to read it just out of fact on that alone as it indicates a clear hypocrisy in your opinions.(and that's without even reading what your telling me to before i answer a question you did not pose before making your postpartum qualifier)

anywho...

you cant put a corporation in prison and you cant kill a corporation.

but the reality is you know all that and you just want me to be a little more precise so you can nit pick and try and play with semantics as you try and steer the discussion away from these questions i asked

SOO...
in light of your obvious discomfort in attempting to avoid having to answer questions you know will prove a point you wish to cover up here they are again.

what happens if a dog kills a child ?
what happens if a person kills a child ?
what happens if a drunk driver kills a child ?
what happens is a company kills a child ?

by all means answer them and resurrect a little bit of your credibility that you have completely lost with me.

anywho... you cant put a corporation in prison and you cant kill a corporation.

Check on the "Enron Corporation" and the executives that went to jail.
And how about Bernie Madoff and his investment corporation?
And Bernie Ebbers of "WorldCom" corporation who went to jail?
And there are numerious examples of corporate executives that have gone to jail for wrong-doing.

You say I'm playing a semantics game? No, it's you ...you seem to want "the corporation" to go to jail, not the executives or the people. Is that right? ..LOL! Talk about a semantics game! ...LOL!


what happens if a dog kills a child ?
what happens if a person kills a child ?
what happens if a drunk driver kills a child ?
what happens is a company kills a child ?

So you want "the company" to go to jail? ...not the company executives? You want to see a legal document to go to jail instead of the corporate executives? :D

Baron Max

what happens if a dog kills a child ?
what happens if a person kills a child ?
what happens if a drunk driver kills a child ?
what happens is a company kills a child ?

The difference here is that there is usually a redeemable quality to some of the company's other actions, while the first three are straightforward manslaughter.

And how about Bernie Madoff and his investment corporation?

Bernie Madoff, red herring of the economic recession. A man who kills a child? Manslaughter. A man who kills a dollar? Public enemy.

what happens if a dog kills a child ?
what happens if a person kills a child ?
what happens if a drunk driver kills a child ?
what happens is a company kills a child ?

It all depends on the circumstance. All I can say for sure is that the dog, despite definitely being the one having done it without spite, will face the worst punishment.
And the company, in many cases, even after being sued, will get the case tossed here and there for years until they can conveniently show that whatever they did was within the letter of the law.

The difference here is that there is usually a redeemable quality to some of the company's other actions, while the first three are straightforward manslaughter.

Bernie Madoff, red herring of the economic recession. A man who kills a child? Manslaughter. A man who kills a dollar? Public enemy.

Ha! You did a cut n' paste of my post to make it out that I said something that I didn't say in response to something completely different?????

I'd say, sir, that that action was highly dishonest. Not only that, it wasn't very nice of you.

And yet, from you actions and dishonesty, we should all be able to see the whys and hows of corporate executives actions in the world. ...dishonesty for your own purposes!

Baron Max

It all depends on the circumstance. All I can say for sure is that the dog, despite definitely being the one having done it without spite, will face the worst punishment.
And the company, in many cases, even after being sued, will get the case tossed here and there for years until they can conveniently show that whatever they did was within the letter of the law.

crikey we have some intelligent life form here...
sit still while i prod you to check im not daydreaming :xctd:

if a company commits a crime that is punishable by a prison term then the company should have to close for the same amount of time that a person would be put in jail.
force them to pay wages for all their workers while that is happening too.

the days of a company being considered like a run away car, careening though a group of children on the foot path as if it is an act of god is over.
PEOPLE run companys/corporations so the corporation does what it is told or designed to do.

if i build a man-trap on my property and say it was not intended to kill someone it does not make any difference.
i did not control the actions of the person who trespassed and fell down it and died so why should i be held accountable ?

the law is clearly designed to allow corporations to commit heinous crimes against people and continue with no true loss.

...if a company commits a crime that is punishable by a prison term then the company should have to close for the same amount of time that a person would be put in jail.

So you're collectively punishing the workers and all of the other executives who had nothing to do with the crime? Even paying their wages, you're still punishing them for a crime they didn't commit.

...the law is clearly designed to allow corporations to commit heinous crimes against people and continue with no true loss.

I don't understand you??!! Hundreds of corp executives have been tried and convicted for crimes and it's been that way for decades!

You're out of touch with reality, and simply have some kind of hard-on for corporations or companies.

Baron Max

So you're collectively punishing the workers and all of the other executives who had nothing to do with the crime? Even paying their wages, you're still punishing them for a crime they didn't commit.

soo you think a paid holiday is punishment ?
how odd !
are you human ?



I don't understand you??!! Hundreds of corp executives have been tried and convicted for crimes and it's been that way for decades!

precisely ! one single person has been picked out and locked up while the company continues along with no damage cost and all the people who enabled and stood by and watched and even helped go on to continue the same company/corporation mentality and culture that lead to that crime in the first place.




You're out of touch with reality, and simply have some kind of hard-on for corporations or companies.Baron Max

the reality is your ability to comprehend complex equational relationships is very limited.
but that's ok because that makes you a normal sheeple people person.

soo you think a paid holiday is punishment ?
how odd!

It's not the time on the vacation that's important ...it's the time after the vacation is over. That span of his life is gone, what will those people do when the punishment phase is over? Just go get another job? ...when jobs might be damned scarce if there are any at all? And who wants a person who has been convicted of some horrendous crime against society?

... one single person has been picked out and locked up while the company continues along with no damage cost and all the people who enabled and stood by and watched and even helped go on to continue the same company/corporation mentality and culture that lead to that crime in the first place.

Let's take another look at your ideals. A teenager, living at home, goes out and commits a horrible crime of some kind. In your idealism, the parents would also have to be punished and sent to prison ....for what that one little bastard kid did. And you think that's fair??

And once again .....a corporation is nothing but a legal document! You can't punish a legal document. All you're doing is engaging in collective punishment ....punishing lots of innocent people for the actions of only a few or only one. Surely you can't consider that fair???

The corporation didn't do anything, the people running the corporation did.

Baron Max

It's not the time on the vacation that's important ...it's the time after the vacation is over. That span of his life is gone, what will those people do when the punishment phase is over? Just go get another job? ...when jobs might be damned scarce if there are any at all? And who wants a person who has been convicted of some horrendous crime against society?



Let's take another look at your ideals. A teenager, living at home, goes out and commits a horrible crime of some kind. In your idealism, the parents would also have to be punished and sent to prison ....for what that one little bastard kid did. And you think that's fair??

And once again .....a corporation is nothing but a legal document! You can't punish a legal document. All you're doing is engaging in collective punishment ....punishing lots of innocent people for the actions of only a few or only one. Surely you can't consider that fair???

The corporation didn't do anything, the people running the corporation did.

Baron Max

sorry but i could only just make it through your first sentence
your ranting now and the little 6 year old lying manipulator in you has come out.
i wont converse with your damaged inner child thanks all the same.

Once you have fixed that side of your personality come back and i will be happy to discus grown up things with you.

It's not the time on the vacation that's important ...it's the time after the vacation is over. That span of his life is gone, what will those people do when the punishment phase is over? Just go get another job? ...when jobs might be damned scarce if there are any at all? And who wants a person who has been convicted of some horrendous crime against society?



Let's take another look at your ideals. A teenager, living at home, goes out and commits a horrible crime of some kind. In your idealism, the parents would also have to be punished and sent to prison ....for what that one little bastard kid did. And you think that's fair??

And once again .....a corporation is nothing but a legal document! You can't punish a legal document. All you're doing is engaging in collective punishment ....punishing lots of innocent people for the actions of only a few or only one. Surely you can't consider that fair???

The corporation didn't do anything, the people running the corporation did.

Baron Max

No, but I read through it..
After the punishment phase is over, the company will restore functioning. Thus so will those people who once worked in it. They won't have to get another job, as they are already holding one. If, in the course of the punishment, the company incurs losses, and lays employees off for cost-cutting, I doubt any prospective employer will hold the lay-off against the person, since (s)he will have heard of the misdemeanors of the company, for which the company was accountable; the person wasn't responsible, atleast if (s)he wasn't a high-posted executive, or actually in the midst of the crime, in which case there will have been some charges against that person in the first place.

No, even with this sort of idealism, call it whatever you like, the teenager will be punished, as the teenager committed the crime. Just as the company should be punished, as the company committed the crime. Sheesh.