On 02/02/07, Ingrid <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
If corporate entities enjoy the rights and protections of citizens they can and should, IMO, carry commensurate responsibility.
Oh, I agree with you. What I was trying to say is that with individuals appealing to their consciences has some chance of success -- for example, make me feel guilty enough and I'll buy CRY cards. :) Heck, I may just buy 'em because I think it's the right thing to do. However, for corporates it takes external forces to make responsible behavior the best way to make a profit. The same forces which you mention below. I don't see why anyone would expect otherwise.
The market repeatedy demonstrates its inability and/or unwillingness to self-regulate, however. So legislation, and/or market mechanisms that ensure corporates pay the full price of their costs to society and the planet, may well be the only ways to ensure corporates do not, in fact, have untrammeled rights to sociopathic behaviour. Corporates are collections of individuals, each presumably capable of responsible, if not altruistic behaviour. Why should the standards applied be lower when we're acting collectively in pursuit of profit compared to the benchmarks for individual behaviour or that of human collectives whose goals are not just profit?
A corporation is nothing but a machine to make profit -- why would you expect it to be otherwise. Expecting a corporation to do anything which does not directly or indirectly earn them a profit is as silly as me telling the next charity that asks me for a donation to engage in commerce and earn money for it's activities. That's not the purpose of a charity -- it'd do that only out of sheer necessity if it couldn't raise funds elsewhere. The point is not that corporations are exempt from good behavior -- it's that *all* institutions will attempt to fulfill their own purposes. If you want them to do something else, you have to force it to become part of their purpose. Don't mistake anything other than a human for a human -- especially a collection of humans. -- b
