My thanks to Scottie for introducing me to Robert Reich via this video:
My disillusionment with corporations began back in the early 80’s when I learned how Microsoft became ‘great’. Then, in the early 2000’s I began researching genetic engineering and discovered what another big ‘M’ had done to maximize its profits.
More recently, it’s been Facebook and Google et al. I still have a lingering fondness for Amazon, but that’s only because I’m a reader and a writer. And of course, let’s not forget the big financial institutions right here in Australia.
To say that I’m disillusioned with corporations is an understatement, and yet, I was still surprised by the Reich video. Something about the sheer size of these behemoths amplifies everything that’s cruel, callous and vicious in the human psyche.
Stopping corporations from becoming so big and powerful won’t make them paragons of virtue, but it will stop the effects of their bad behaviour from poisoning society. And maybe, just maybe, it’ll allow the law to deal with criminal elements more effectively.
At the moment, these corporations are not only ‘too big to fail’, they’re also too big to prosecute. Something really does have to give.
Meeks
Authors' favourite books
NANO 2012
May 22nd, 2020 at 9:41 pm
Sorry wrong link https://familytreeourstory.com/2020/05/22/corporate-psychopaths/
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May 23rd, 2020 at 12:09 pm
Totally agree with that!
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May 22nd, 2020 at 9:33 pm
https://wordpress.com/post/familytreeourstory.com/15641
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May 22nd, 2020 at 9:19 pm
Unfortunately the way our socities are set up, often means psychopaths and narcissists rise to the top. The world just doesn’t run the way we think. Corporate psychopaths are a huge issue – Perhaps the biggest issue in the world today. Yes even during this pandemic.
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May 23rd, 2020 at 12:12 pm
I agree, and I believe a huge part of our current problems stem from precisely those corporations. They’re killing both democracy and the competition that underpins capitalism as a functioning economic system.
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May 23rd, 2020 at 4:03 pm
*societies
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May 11th, 2020 at 1:10 pm
I always felt that large corporates were sociopathic: if you consider them as a person, they act in a manner which has no concern for anything other than themselves (ie: profit and returns to shareholders). An economy with just a handful of large players also isn’t going to be properly competitive – my favourite example just now in NZ are the supermarkets. There are just two companies (one of them Woolworths Australia). Net outcome of this duopoly is that there is no actual market competition to speak of, and they can also dictate pricing to suppliers. Ouch.
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May 11th, 2020 at 5:28 pm
Yes! I think this lack of competition is the paradox of capitalism. I refuse to give it a capital ‘c’. In theory, capitalism is all about competition. The best product and the best price ‘wins’.
Yet corporations are only about growth and profits. To get them, they have to swallow up the competition. And then you end up with a paper duopoly because the last 2 corporations left standing just match each other on price – the highest the consumer is prepared to pay.
Oh and we have a few more supermarket chains here in Oz, but neither Aldi nor IGA is a real match for the big two, Coles & Woolworths.
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May 10th, 2020 at 8:35 pm
Absolutely!
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May 10th, 2020 at 10:52 am
Does it remind you of the Kings/Lords and serfs dichotomy?
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May 10th, 2020 at 10:58 am
Oh yes…we’re becoming more feudal every year.
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