Corporations - are they ' cancerous'?

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

It has been a long week, but while I was away, I read a blog where someone made the remark that
"Although corporations are efficient, they are answerable to shareholders mostly , or even entirely. they are therefore like cancer cells, which efficiently reproduce themselves, but do nothing for the organism in which they live".

Oh , wow! I wish i could put something that succinctly !

But , is this a fair take on corporations? I mean , yes, I think this is quite true, but I am horribly biased, and would like to give people on the other side of the Aisle the opportunity to respond to the criticism.

if it isn't to much to ask, i would also like to question the American idea of giving corporations ' person hood'.

I mean , how does this impact anything , for good or bad? My instincts say that if corporations want it, they must be up to something that is bad for society as a whole, and we ought to say no.
But again , lets open it up to the floor. Should the UK follow the US lead or not - and why ?

Comments

[redheadrat.livejournal.com]

Management can be tried and jailed for the actions they make on behalf of corporation. Also government can impose all kinds of restrictions on corporation's existence upto complete destruction.

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

Indeed - so ,in america , why aren't they ?
Or am I missing something , and they are ...?

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Its just nonsensical at a fundamental level. Organizations are legal fictions with the sole purpose of limited liability in order to make profit. They are not political organizations, they are not humans. They are not citizens. They have no rights save for what governments allow them. They are entitled no rights by the U.S. constitution.

Of course, the fact that corporations are more powerful than governments means that they've been able to spend billions in granting themselves rights and we are powerless to do anything about it, but fact is, the U.S. constitution is for US citizens, not corporations.

[redheadrat.livejournal.com]

I simply don't get the analogy. If you tell it to someone who cares less about corporations, cancer cells, or shareholders, this quote has no meaning.

Furthermore there is a question about the nature of shareholder and the dismissal of other stakeholders.

What happens when large portions of a corporation are owned by its own employees and their pension funds? Or maybe when there is other long-term shareholder types that aim for a different picture?

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

I simply don't get the analogy.

ok, the argument goes like this...
A corporation is efficient. It makes money, gets bigger and grows in size and complexity.

Ok - but so does a cancer tumour in the body - and corporations are like cancers in society, they cause pollution , they have a negative impact on people's rights. If Corporations do not adapt to social pressure to behave insoccially responsible ways , we ought to excise them from society, like we did the News of the World.

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

If corporations were answerable to shareholders, they wouldn't be cancerous; they would work for their own and society's long term health and sustainable growth. Shareholders never wanted the Enron scandal or the Sunbeam fiasco or the Dot-Com bubble.
The problem is that some corporations, or some parts of corporations, mutate into cancerous forms and cause problems. Like a cancer patient who won't undergo surgery or chemotherapy, society refuses to deal with the specific people and organizations at the root of the problem, the tumors, to follow the metaphor. So, the cancer spreads, it metastasizes, until you have the kind of crisis we are currently confronting.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

Yes but a benign one until it grows to the point it metastases; it extends by unchecked growth beyond it cellular wall. At that point, it attempts to influence toxify and corrupt the production of other 'legitimate' organs, such as government, or honest competition to overrun it with overwhelming influence, fueled by the genetic need to grow.

Not a bad analogy.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

The government and private competition are quite capable of corrupting themselves. No need to peg malignancy in one entity when there is so much evidence to spread that monicker around.

[whoasksfinds.livejournal.com]

but do nothing for the organism in which they live

what organism do they live in?

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

The ' Body politic ' !

[taiki.livejournal.com]

Sure, but cancer happens all the time in the body. Usually it's kept in check by white blood cells and other immune system agents.

When there's no more checks or it grows out of control...

This analogy is way more fitting than anyone would think.

[whoasksfinds.livejournal.com]

does cancer create jobs?

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

conservatives hate the immune system. Too much body regulation!

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Yes, if one takes lessons from the Adolf Hitler school of public relations. If one can't find a way to phrase the argument without involving biology in this fashion, well.....

This is not in the least to ignore the problem of too much power to unaccountable bureaucracies. The phrasing is a problem.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

So iPhones, cars, MRIs, Scotch, shipping, cheap food, and jobs don't do anything for society?

Corporations make money because people think that what they do is useful enough that it's worth paying for. If the can't do something the organism thinks is useful, they die. This is pretty much the opposite of a cancer.

[taiki.livejournal.com]

I love my iPhone, doesn't mean I can't have a stance that maybe Foxconn workers shouldn't die because I want an iPhone.

I love products of corporations, hate the malfeasance.

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

You used a computer, smartphone, or whatnot to make this post, that made by a corporation (or more likely, many corporations once you consider the component parts). Another corporation sold it to the public. It made it to the retail store, or was delivered, by yet another corporation. The vehicle used to transport it was made by another corporation (or series of corporations if you count the tires, spark plugs, and all the other parts). So exactly how is it that corporations do nothing for society?

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

Except you miss the obvious fact those items were made by corporations OVERSEAS, with American technology, using foreign labor that formerly, due to corporate lobbied tariff and tax deregulation, formerly used labor in the US.

Probably the same (former) labor pool that is part of the TP/OSW movements.

So you are an apologist now for multi-nationals?

Do tell?

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

Exactly where do you get anyone here or there saying that 'corporations do nothing for society'?

Why do you keep putting words in our mouths?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Cancer? Bad analogy there. Corporations wield disproportionate and unaccountable power, yes. The c-word is a bit overdoing it given who else liked biological analyses for people/groups he didn't like.

I don't know...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... in many ways, it seems appropriate. There is an extra-judicial quality to some corporations that make them immune to the machinery of justice.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

The proper analogy is a corporation is a cell in the social body or an organ composed of cells. They can develop tumors or cancers to the detriment of the whole but a good immune systems holds it in check.

If they develop cancer, blame the system that is supposed to regulate it.

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

A corporation has no responsibility to not do bad things?

The UK already has corporate personhood.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Let us not forget that the Crown is a classical example of corporate personhood. The individual who wears the Crown is merely a symbol of a larger body of people who will slay you if you challenge royal authority.

Re: The UK already has corporate personhood.

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

let us also remember that the UK abolished the death penalty in 1956, the year I was born , the only way now to get slain by anyone acting on Her Majesty's behalf is to go to war against Britain- and going to war is a risky business whoever you pick on.