Brilliant debunking of anything you thought was ever good about corporations (which may not have been much). Bakan goes through the rise of the entity of the corporation, from its humble beginnings a mere 150 years ago, to the Globe-strangling monster that it is today. Savaging the notion of benign, responsible corporate rule, the face behind the mask is called the Bottom Line: Bakan follows through the logic stemming from the legal construction of corporations and argues that it’s impossible for a corporate body to be anything other than an inhumane money-making machine. Shareholder profit is the only possible motivation a corporation can have. It would be ‘illegal’ to pursue any other avenue of action. If it pays to be nice to consumers in the West, so be it. If it pays to be nasty elsewhere, equally so be it.

Noting the powerful lobbying that got the corporation institutions away from being specifically chartered and limited in their scope to being recognised in law as people – whilst simultaneously having no conscience, and with no individuals actually being accountable or personally punishable by those laws – Bakan notes that if a person was to exhibit the characteristics of corporations they would clinically be classed as a psychopath.

The lengths to which the institutions will go to preserve their existence is revealed in the account of a little-heard of attempted fascist coup in the US during the Depression era. Their amorality is further exposed in the history of IBM’s work for Hitler with the Final Solution. Easy to read and gripping, the book concludes by arguing that we all need to remember that corporations are only imaginary concepts – unlike flesh and blood people – and they only exist because we allow them to. The rules allowing them to operate could be changed, if only we all insisted upon it.

” The idea that some areas of life are too precious, vulnerable, sacred or important for the public interest to be subject to commercial exploitation seems to be losing its influence. Indeed, the very notion that there is a public interest, a common good that transcends our individual self-interest, is slipping away. Increasingly, we are told, commercial potential is the measure of all value, corporations should be free to exploit anything and anyone for profit, and human beings are creatures of pure self-interest and materialistic desire. These are the elements of an emerging order that may prove to be as dangerous as any fundamentalism that history has produced. For in a world where anything or anyone can be owned, manipulated, and exploited for profit, everything and everyone will eventually be.” ( )

資本主義の先進諸国における企業の性質を痛烈に批判する。
冷酷なまでに株主の利益を最優先し、時としてその為に非道徳的行為、犯罪行為を犯す存在「corporation」。しかし求められる贖罪は極めて軽く、再犯の歯止めとはならない。そして政府は、その冷酷非道を、企業が尊守すべき唯一の法として定めている。
企業の持つ法人格はサイコパスと言える利己的な性格を帯びている。この点について、私は私自身が資本主義社会を生きる過程で、その企業的性格を自身の性格としてしまっているように感じた。思いやりにかけ、自分の事しか考えない。しかも、それこそ企業が求める消費者像だと言う。私はまんまと引っかかったのか。
今日、大企業の持つその強大な力は、政府を上回るように感じられる。自社の為に政策を転換させるなど、造作もないはずだ。しかし本書は訴える。政府は弱くなってなどいないと。政府は単に、市民から企業にその恩恵をシフトしただけであって、あくまで上に立つ存在なのだと。政府なくしては企業は成立しないのだと。
企業など、法で認められた人格こそあれど、その存在は本来、虚構のはずだ。実態を持つ我々個人が、虚構に惑わされる必要などない。その事を忘れないでくれと本書は言っているのではないだろうか。 ( )

Fantastic, and manages to do a better job of attacking corporations in about 150 pages than Naomi Klein can do in 400 (personal taste perhaps--Bakan is a lawyer not a reporter). With detailed case studies, Bakan exposes many examples of the prevalence of corporate greed, where pursuit of profit travels a long distance inside the unacceptable use of superior bargaining power, concealment and law-breaking. With respect to the latter, Bakan correctly points out that it is in the interest of corporations to break any law just so long as the expected return from so doing is net positive. The result is a "Frankenstein's monster" of a corporate behemoth, more powerful and more agile than the states that created it, bent on the replacement of public welfare with private gain.

How does this get to happen? Apparently due to nothing more than a company's legal structure and incorporation as a legally distinct entity, coupled with its over-arching mandate to make money for its owners. Thereafter, the ethics of company officers are irrelevant, and not something they should legitimately bring to work if they are detrimental to profits. And apparently they are fine with that--the concentration of a company's interests wins out easily over the more diffuse and conflicting ethical interests of people, and safety in numbers affords easy cover for any individual executive to sacrifice her ethics at work, and then pick them up again when she leaves and sleep soundly at night. Meanwhile government regulation runs a losing race against the elements of surprise, secrecy and sheer economic power with which companies circumvent regulations, and duck under or over them, and lobby for changes that suit their ends contrary to the public good.

All good as far as it goes. If there is anything missing here, it is a more honest realisation that--even as far as individuals are concerned--benevolence is anyway in relatively short supply, at least in comparison with self interest. Rather than trying to curb self-interest--via more spending on regulations, greater use of company charter revocation laws (a toothless idea in a globalised world if ever I saw one), and more powerful public advocacy--not enough consideration is made of changing incentive-structure compatibility. That is, bending corporate self-interest towards public interest in ways that sacrifice some of both (which regulation does anyway--it is delusional to imply that there is no public welfare cost to non-free increased government control). This probably requires greater acknowledgement (than Bakan appears to provide) of the extent to which the mass of ordinary profit-seeking activity day-in, day-out produces positive public externalities. Probably Adam Smith first provided the startling truth that benevolence is not, in fact, necessary to advance public interests (and it is a good job that it is not).

Because of this, the book seems to end weakly, and disappoints the expectation that has been built up--that in response to the eggregious harms that the survey of corporate behaviour just uncovered, some truly radical solution is about to be proposed. But this is part of what is admirable about Bakan's study too. There are few Klein-esque calls for outright assault on the system, though there is a call for activism in concept. The final chapter reads more like an appeal to decency than anything else, and as such is easier to take to heart. More could perhaps be made of taking it to the heartless boardroom too though.

Francesca ( )

Excellent exposure and explanation of how a legal fiction - the corporations - are pursuing profit at all costs, ruining societies and the environment in the process. Hopefully the latest economic crisis will help many to understand that extremes - in this case extremes of almost unregulated business limited only by greed - is not a solution but part of the problem. We have seen that communism is bound to fail, soon we will witness the failure of dog-eat-dog capitalism. ( )

I thought this book might be an eye-opener and I wasn't wrong. Actually, I think I was aware of lots of the issues mentioned in the book, but had never quite thought through the possible implications or consequences.

Bakan spells them out in no uncertain terms. He discusses how corporations use cost-benefit analysis to assess the implications of their actions. Where it is cost-effective or profitable for them to break laws or regulations (eg in environmental or safety laws) - in terms of low risks of being caught and low fines vs potential for high profits - then they will break those laws. The cost-benefit analysis by GM to decide it was more cost-effective for them to pay compensation for injuries or disfigurement than to improve the design of their cars in terms of safety was absolutely chilling. These actions seem immoral.

And yet, as Bakan reminds us, those people who run corporations are legally obliged to work in the interests of the corporation, at the cost of everything else. Laws are there to be broken, workers are there to be abused, customers are there to be exploited - as long as those actions maximise profit.

He goes on to discuss the possible future of the corporation amidst increasing privatisation and individuals who are increasingly self-interested and unconcerned about the welfare of others. I think I found the following sentence to be the most sinister "A century and a half after its birth, the modern business corporation, an artificial person made in the image of a human psychopath, now is seeking to remake people it its image" (p135).

Thankfully, the end of the book deals with what can be done to contain corporations, such as increased regulation, holding managers accountable for the actions of the companies they run, proper funding of investigative agencies and massively increased fines for breaking laws. By the end of the book, I felt a little more hopeful than I had half-way through.

All in all, a very worthwhile read.