The Nature of a Corporation

The corporation itself may not so easily escape the psychopath diagnosis, however. Unlike the human beings who inhabit it, the corporation is singularly self interested and unable to feel genuine concern for others in any context.

The corporation is irresponsible, because in an attempt to satisfy the corporate goal, everybody else is put in risk.

Corporations try to manipulate everything, including public opinion.

(they display) A lack of empathy and asocial tendencies.

Corporations often refuse to accept responsibility for their own actions and are unable to feel remorse.

Corporations relate to others superficially – their whole goal is to present themselves to the public in a way that is appealing to the public but in fact may not be representative of what the organisation is really like. Human psychopaths are notorious for their ability to use charm as a mask to hide their dangerously self-obsessed personalities.

Corporations that have signed codes of conduct promising good behavior appear to have taken important steps towards social responsibility, but the pressures operating on them to lure and keep consumers and investors haven’t eased one bit. In capitalism, they cannot be socially responsible, at least not to any significant extent…..You and I are complicit.

As consumers and investors, we make the whole world run. Markets have become extraordinarily responsive to our wishes – more so all the time. Yet most of us are in two minds, and it is the citizen in us that has become relatively powerless. Capitalism is triumphant. Democracy is not.

From “The Corporation” by Joel Bakan (Professor of Law at the University of British Columbia)

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“Supercapitalism – The transformation of business, democracy and everyday life” by Robert Reich (former US Secretary of Labor and a professor at the University of California, Berkeley).