During one of the classes we saw the documentary “The Corporation”. This documentary help us understand many ways and reasons why corporations act in certain ways and the impact that their decisions have in the organization and in society.
The corporations were awarded with the power of having the same rights as a person. Even though they have the same rights as a person, corporations can have different interests and goals. Their main interests have always been profit even though they affect others or a society. “I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. ... corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”1
It is obvious that they help individuals and make their life easier with the products but their main goal is just their profit. They create good and services to help individuals but they create them not to help or make humans life easier, they create them in order to make money. Or that is what we have always seen or the image we have about corporations. We have had a bad image of corporations because of the effects they have caused to the environment and to individuals. In this documentary they list some cases where organizations harmed workers and human health (layoffs, union busting, fires, dangerous products, pollution, toxic waste, and using chemicals) they have also harmed animals when they destruct their habitat and when they experiment with them. Companies have generated irreversible harm to the biosphere through the emissions of CO2 and nuclear wastes. All of this horrible damages caused by corporations to the human beings and the environment are what everyone see of the corporations, just the bad side.
Corporations sometimes have good ideas that can be helpful but they have caused lots of damage. In the documentary they talk about privatizing many public goods. The idea is to give the public goods to a corporation that manages everything that has to deal with a specific good. In the documentary they generate a doubt or question of whether we should or shouldn’t trust a corporation to handle the world’s public goods. What we really know is that corporations will keep growing and new ones will be constantly emerging due to the globalization process. The bad thing about this is that we have been disappointed by the corporations in many ways and that is why some people are starting to go against many of the bad and unethical things that organizations do to our world.
QUESTIONS
1. Do Corporations pursue today other interest or the "bottom-line" remains as their single priority? What are the factors influencing the corporation’s objectives and goals?
Nowadays corporations still have a really bad reputation because we still have a bad image. They are trying to change that horrendous image we have from them and that is why they are starting to help in foundations in order to help animals and with the recovery of their habitat. Technology has become one of their allies in order to overcome with all of the challenges they can have during production but it has also helped with the environment because fabrics are not as harmful as before. But they are still exploiting individuals in developing countries because of the cheap hand labor they can have in third world countries. Even though human rights issues are crossing boundaries some corporations keep exploiting people in those countries. Some corporations are starting to care more about those issues and are decreasing working hours and constructing better infrastructures for employee’s safety. Not everything they do is bad and they are starting to have a considerable change that can benefit everyone. Organizations have learned from their mistakes and they are trying to emend their mistakes. Multinational corporations have a large and important impact in many aspects all around the world.
2. The film focuses on the negative consequences that the Corporation’s behavior causes to the environment, to human health and animal life. Discuss from a critical perspective, the possible benefits and arising from the actions of MNCs for these 3 groups.
The documentary showed a concern about what corporations are causing to the environment and the consequences that this will have for future generations. There are some images that impact and show all the bad things that corporations have done to the environment. Some corporations use oil that damage water, pesticides and toxic substances that cause irreversible damage to animals, humans and the environment. Many employees get sick because they have been exposed to highly toxic chemicals and they usually stay in the human body which in a long term can cause birth defects. Some animals are tortured because they are used in order to test different products. Organizations have caused global warming, extinction of many animals, human and animal intoxication and starvation, birth defects and pollution.
“Recently, the role of MNCs in economic development has changed from outside agent to partner; at the same time, host governments have increasingly acted on the need to conserve natural resources in the interest of long-term productivity. Citizens' groups and international organizations are also becoming more involved in environmental management.”2 People and governments are starting to be aware of all the bad consequences that corporations have created to the world, animals and human beings. That is why many human and animal rights groups have been created in order to help prevent more damage for future generations.
3. Do you think a corporation should be considered a "person"? Discuss the implications and limitations of granting such legal existence to corporations.
I think that corporations shouldn’t be considered as a person and shouldn’t have the same rights. A corporation is just a building and a brand name that has people working in the organization which are the brain of the corporation. A corporation doesn’t feel, doesn’t think and doesn’t take decisions by itself. The ones in charge of all this are human beings and that is why a corporation shouldn’t be seen as a person. The weird thing is that they are seen and have the same rights as persons but they don’t receive the same punishments as humans when they commit a crime or do something against human race. It is sad to see that when a corporation is accused of committing a crime the ones that go to jail are the employees in charge. “Why shouldn't anybody or any corporation be responsible completely for any damage that they cause? Isn't that the catchword from the 'conservatives' - personal responsibility? Isn't a corporation seen as a person in the eyes of the law? Aren't all persons seen as equal in America? If somebody took an oil truck and pumped 10,000 gallons of oil into BP's building would they do anything? Would the person be responsible? Would they throw the person in jail?”3 Also it is not fair that if corporations have the same right as people why they receive support when they have an economical crisis and why people don’t.
REFERENCES
1. U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864 (letter to Col. William F. Elkins) Ref: “The Lincoln Encyclopedia”, Archer H. Shaw (Macmillan, 1950, NY)
2. http://archive.wri.org/publication.cfm?id=2664&z=?
3. http://bigthink.com/ideas/20575
• http://www.globalissues.org/issue/50/corporations
• The Corporation, a documentary made by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott. http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=FA50FBC214A6CE87
• http://www.rau.ro/websites/e-society/lucrari/mariana%20preda%201.pdf
• http://www.globalissues.org/article/55/corporations-and-the-environment
IMAGES TAKEN FROM
- http://www.exonblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/online-marketing-graph2.jpg
- http://www.greencitizens.net/news/archive.php?c_name=World&month=March%2010
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