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No, that is the problem with contemporary American governance. If we expect investment vehicles to deabte, define, or implement national policy we are in sad shape. ...and we are.
you missed the point (which actually further emphasizes it).
What's your point?
You must understand that 90% of the posters at TOD believe we should strive for a 'steady state' economy, where economic growth is solely measured by improvements in efficiencies, which in turn theoretically increase the lifestyle of its workers.
Yeah, you really understand the problem.
Legal entities are way for a few people to profit, while externalising costs to the rest of society/the planet. That model is beneficial to a few, harmful to many.
Society is supposed to be a way for many humans to live together in relative harmony (i.e. a way to limit intra species competition while maximising species survival through co-operation, empathy, etc.). Anyone who doesn't want to change a model that benefits a few and harms many is therefore a psychopath, by definition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy
"You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created."
Albert Einstein
Right, and a steady state economy working for the benefit of all fixes that...
NZSantuary said:
"Legal entities are way for a few people to profit, while externalising costs to the rest of society/the planet. That model is beneficial to a few, harmful to many."
Only in your communist fantasy world is this true. It never ceases to amaze me the imaginary demons people create to explain things they don't understand. Sure, some people in some corporations are scumbags. But by a large margin, businesses and their owners are good people who contribute to society.
Only in your monetarist fantasy. Corporations exist to make a profit and minimize costs. A major cost is labour and that is why they fought tooth and nail to prevent workers getting a good wage for decades. Before unions the USA and Canada were third world countries with a negligible middle class. Thanks to the offshoring of skilled well-paying jobs to the third world the middle class is slowly disappearing and the USA and Canada are regressing into third world toilets. Cheap credit can't hide this degeneration for long and the illusion is already starting to fail.
I agree that the future is dim, but the problem is not corporations. The critical constraint is and always has been...mankind.
Exactly! The corporate model (the legal structure) is the product of individuals who had self-interest at the heart of their creation. What is imaginary about this? Just because you use emotive words ("communist fantasy", "imaginary demons") to raise a strawman doesn't change the fact.
"You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created."
Albert Einstein
All human economic activity is done out of self interest. You could disolve all corporations and replace them with sole proprietorships, co-ops, government organizations.... anything you desire, and the problems we have discussed would still be present. Hence the problem is not corporations, it is human nature. So if you want to start a thread ranting about how evil, wasteful, and short sited mankind is, I could probably get on board with that. By shifting the blame to corporations, we draw incorrect conclusions, which lead to sub-optimal solutions. If one assumes that mankind is a peaceful, compassionate, and wise species, and that the root of all evil is the system in which he operates, one would conclude that we can abolish corporations, and all will be right with the world. I don't beleive that for a second. Our current economic system is far from perfect, but it's still the best thing going.
Disagree. Jared Diamond talks about what it takes to be a sustainable society. It's possible, without changing human nature. People will take care of the environment and think of future generations, if they feel a sense of ownership. And not in the corporate sense.
If it's your lake, your land, your trees, and you expect your children to live off those resources (and only those resources), you will be a good steward. It's in your self-interest to do so.
It was the best thing going. It won't be, in a resource-constrained world.
This article, posted to a previous DrumBeat, illustrates clearly what's wrong with corporations.
That is the problem with corporations in a nutshell. If, say, it was a king, and not a CEO, he would not be thinking, "I know the spit is going to hit the fan, but hopefully I'll be retired by then." I'm not saying I want a king, but I am saying there are better models than corporations, if your goal is sustainability rather than profit.
I thought corporations existed as a legal framework for pooling capital, managing legal liability, accessing the advantages of scale and division of labor, and disconnecting the functions of management and ownership so capital can flow freely to better managers and/or better business models. And by and large (99% of the time) they do that pretty well. I rebut Moneyman's assertion that corporations are the only source of economic progress - those Roman roads got built, one way or another - but the corporate model has served us tolerably well for the past several decades.
Third World Toilets? Cutely-worded nonsense. Get a sense of perspective, man. You can find problems in any country if you look hard enough, but several thousand Mexicans a year are risking their lives because they disagree with your assertion - and Mexico ain't Third World by a long stretch.
I think the "managing legal liability" part is the problem. Corporations allow people to avoid liability. Incorporate, and, in the words of Robert Kiyosaki, you "own nothing, but control everything."
Corporations, like capitalism, are very good at quickly exploiting plentiful natural resources. They aren't good at planning long-term. And, like capitalism, I suspect they will not be good tools in the post-carbon age. IMO, it's foolishness to think that the institutions that worked well for us on the upside of the resource curve will do so on the downside.
Leanan is right Corporations exist to avoid Liability, to maximize profits by fleecing the uninformed, to influence legislation through advantages of scale in order to better avoid liability and fleece the uninformed. The corporate model has served who? The corporations, the fleecers and scammers. Mexico is currently involved in a class war. A revolution against stolen elections, disrupting energy supplies to the maquiladoras(Corporations exploiting the working class forced to work for slave wages just to feed their families.) Yes I agree with you on one point. They ARE risking their lives, to expel the exploiters and bring about a better future for their children. If only the working class in the US could learn from their example.