Re: FW Corporate Crime (fwd)
At 05:06 PM 1/12/2000 +0100, S. Lerner wrote: Crime of the Century The corporate century ends with private enterprise unanswerable to the public. etc This piece intrigues me, and I have forwarded it to other Listservs To me the two key paragraphs are: "In the beginning, we the citizenry created the corporation to do the public's work build a canal or a road and then go out of business. We asked people with money to build the canal or road. If anything went wrong, the liability of these people with money * shareholders, we call them today * would be limited to the amount of money they invested and no more. This limited liability corporation is the bedrock of the market economy. The markets would deflate like a punctured balloon if corporations were stripped of limited liability for shareholders." [Does anyone know the original reference for this paragraph? -- CS] and "Let us not forget that corporate control was never inevitable. They took it from us, and it is our responsibility to take it back." These paragraphs have strong implications for the balance between the power of governments and Corporations i.e. the definition of Democracy Obviously, I believe that, over time, Direct Democracy could do much to re-balance this situation. I know of no other change to our governance system that has the potential to do so Colin Stark Canadians for Direct Democracy Vancouver, B.C. http://www.npsnet.com/cdd/ * Date:Mon, 10 Jan 2000 15:10:40 -0500 From:Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Corporate Crime MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain http://www.sfbg.com/focus/71.html Crime of the Century The corporate century ends with private enterprise unanswerable to the public. By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman AS WE MOVE to the end of the millennium, it is important to remind ourselves that this has been the century of the corporation, when largely unaccountable, for-profit organizations of unlimited longevity, size, and power took control of the economy and of the government. And did so largely to the detriment of the individual consumer, worker, neighbor, and citizen. Let us again remind ourselves that corporations were the creation of the citizenry (thanks here to Richard Grossman of the Project on Corporations, Law, and Democracy for resurrecting and teaching us a history we would have collectively forgotten). In the beginning, we the citizenry created the corporation to do the public's work build a canal or a road and then go out of business. We asked people with money to build the canal or road. If anything went wrong, the liability of these people with money * shareholders, we call them today * would be limited to the amount of money they invested and no more. This limited liability corporation is the bedrock of the market economy. The markets would deflate like a punctured balloon if corporations were stripped of limited liability for shareholders. And what do we, the citizenry, get in return for this generous public grant of limited liability? Originally, we told the corporation what to do. You are to deliver the goods and then go out of business. And then let us live our lives. But corporations gained power, broke through democratic controls, and now roam around the world inflicting unspeakable damage on the earth. Let us count the ways: price-fixing, chemical explosions, mercury poisoning, oil spills. Need concrete examples? These are five of the most egregious of the century: Archer Daniels Midland and price-fixing In October 1996, Archer Daniels Midland, the good people who bring you National Public Radio, pled guilty and paid a $100 million criminal fine at the time, the largest criminal antitrust fine ever for its role in conspiracies to fix prices to eliminate competition and allocate sales in the lysine and citric acid markets worldwide. Union Carbide and Bhopal In 1984, a Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal, India, released 90,000 pounds of the chemical methyl isocyanate. The resulting toxic cloud killed several thousand people and injured hundreds of thousands. Chisso Corporation and Minamata Minamata, Japan, was home to Chisso Corporation, a petrochemical company and maker of plastics. In the 1950s fish began floating dead in Minamata Bay, cats began committing suicide, and children began getting rare forms of brain cancer. Thousands were injured. The company had been dumping mercury into the bay. Exxon Corporation and the Valdez oil spill Ten years ago, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker hit a reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska, and spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil onto 1,500 miles of Alaskan shoreline, killing birds and fish and destroying the way of life of thousands of Native Americans. General Motors and the destruction of inner-city rail Seventy years ago, clean, quiet, and efficient inner-city rail systems dotted the U.S. landscape. They were eliminated in the 1930s to make way for dirty, noisy gasoline-powered
FW Corporate Crime (fwd)
Date:Mon, 10 Jan 2000 15:10:40 -0500 From:Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Corporate Crime MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain http://www.sfbg.com/focus/71.html Crime of the Century The corporate century ends with private enterprise unanswerable to the public. By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman AS WE MOVE to the end of the millennium, it is important to remind ourselves that this has been the century of the corporation, when largely unaccountable, for-profit organizations of unlimited longevity, size, and power took control of the economy and of the government. And did so largely to the detriment of the individual consumer, worker, neighbor, and citizen. Let us again remind ourselves that corporations were the creation of the citizenry (thanks here to Richard Grossman of the Project on Corporations, Law, and Democracy for resurrecting and teaching us a history we would have collectively forgotten). In the beginning, we the citizenry created the corporation to do the public's work build a canal or a road and then go out of business. We asked people with money to build the canal or road. If anything went wrong, the liability of these people with money * shareholders, we call them today * would be limited to the amount of money they invested and no more. This limited liability corporation is the bedrock of the market economy. The markets would deflate like a punctured balloon if corporations were stripped of limited liability for shareholders. And what do we, the citizenry, get in return for this generous public grant of limited liability? Originally, we told the corporation what to do. You are to deliver the goods and then go out of business. And then let us live our lives. But corporations gained power, broke through democratic controls, and now roam around the world inflicting unspeakable damage on the earth. Let us count the ways: price-fixing, chemical explosions, mercury poisoning, oil spills. Need concrete examples? These are five of the most egregious of the century: Archer Daniels Midland and price-fixing In October 1996, Archer Daniels Midland, the good people who bring you National Public Radio, pled guilty and paid a $100 million criminal fine at the time, the largest criminal antitrust fine ever for its role in conspiracies to fix prices to eliminate competition and allocate sales in the lysine and citric acid markets worldwide. Union Carbide and Bhopal In 1984, a Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal, India, released 90,000 pounds of the chemical methyl isocyanate. The resulting toxic cloud killed several thousand people and injured hundreds of thousands. Chisso Corporation and Minamata Minamata, Japan, was home to Chisso Corporation, a petrochemical company and maker of plastics. In the 1950s fish began floating dead in Minamata Bay, cats began committing suicide, and children began getting rare forms of brain cancer. Thousands were injured. The company had been dumping mercury into the bay. Exxon Corporation and the Valdez oil spill Ten years ago, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker hit a reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska, and spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil onto 1,500 miles of Alaskan shoreline, killing birds and fish and destroying the way of life of thousands of Native Americans. General Motors and the destruction of inner-city rail Seventy years ago, clean, quiet, and efficient inner-city rail systems dotted the U.S. landscape. They were eliminated in the 1930s to make way for dirty, noisy gasoline-powered automobiles and buses. The inner-city rail systems were destroyed by those very companies that would most benefit from the destruction of inner-city rail oil, tire, and automobile companies, led by General Motors. By 1949, G.M. had helped destroy 100 electric systems in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, St. Louis, Oakland, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, and elsewhere. In 1949 a federal grand jury in Chicago indicted and a jury convicted G.M., Standard Oil of California, and Firestone, among others, of criminally conspiring to replace electric transportation with gas- and diesel-powered buses and to monopolize the sale of buses and related products to transportation companies around the country. G.M. and the other convicted companies were fined $5,000 each. These are not unusual examples. Books have been written documenting the ongoing destruction. The question remains how do we put a stop to it? And the answer seems clear to us reassert public control over what was originally a public institution. How to reassert such control is the subject of debate and conflict, in Seattle and around the world. But it seems clear to us that as the 20th century was the century of the corporation, the 21st promises to be the century in which flesh-and-blood human beings reassert sovereignty over their lives, their markets, and their democracy. Let us not forget that corporate control was never inevitable. They took it from us, and it is our