After watching the film The Corporation, many things come to your mind. Probably not the best ones, seeing that many companies in the world take advantage of many "technicalities", without doing ilegal things; but at to what extent this non ilegal actions are ethical? Some corporations simply don't care about ethics, or they do care, but do not consider it so important as profit. I think sooner or later this attitudes will come back and bite you in the a$$. Sort like Karma, sooner or later.
Let's answer a few questions, regarding this movie, proposed by my teacher Gina D'amato
1. Should corporations be entitled to the same legal rights as individuals? Where should the line be drawn?
- Let's say yes, because they took advantage of a technicality. But if they want same legal rights as individuals, they should have same legal duties. They should pay for the bad things they do. If they hurt someone, they should be judge as a individual. Or maybe a little bit harder, just because they are not mere individuals, they have more power than the majority of individuals, so there actions can reach far more than an average person. I think, that if they really want those legal rights, they should want the legal duties.
2.How can we ensure corporations are held accountable for their actions?
- Ensure? Very hard. Many corporations have so much power, that they can influence judges, juries, and politicians to take sides with them. The main point here is to have a non corrupted judicial system, and believe in it. Sometimes evidence is so clear that doing an unfaithful action will bring worst consecuences. Also, media should give importance to cases that show the crimes of corporations, making people aware of it, being objective, this can act as a pressure towards the people in charge of judging.
3. Should individuals (directors, employees, shareholders) bear any responsibility for the actions of a corporation? If so, to what degree?
- Yes they should, totally. They are representatives of the corporations, some of them don't know what is going on with it, they should. But other do know, or directly influence the corporations decisions. What happened with Enron for example. Where the highest ranking managers new what was going on, and tricked their employess by giving, selling or inviting them to purchase stocks of the company, just before it went bankrupt. They betrayed their employees, they did not have any ethics and many people lost all their lifetime savings. Probably this is a rare case, or not vey common, but my point is, that everyone involve in the corporation should respond for it's actions, taking into account the level of involvement and how directly or undirectly their actions influenced what happened.
4. What are the benefits of the corporate form? Could an alternative model offer these as well?
- -Corporate form gives you the opportunity of capitalising yourself. You have access to the stock market, even though is a good way to do it, you are giving the company to the people who buy those stocks. -Also, a great benefit if you have economic issues, is that as a corporation, you only respond for the assets the company has. So if you get sued for 1 million USD and you only have 500 thousand, you'll just pay that.-Being seen as an individual, with rights is also a big benefit.-A big corporation, can act as a big family. It creates a sense of belonging for the employees, a kind of culture.
- There are other models that offer other benefits, but restrict other. For example a partnership makes you give your assets in order to pay money issues, la the example we just saw. So is a matter of knowing what to want, sacrificing some things for others.
Good or bad, ethical or unethical, corporations are a "necessary evil", because they are a huge, important part of the world economy, giving jobs, services, products and many other things to people, governments, etc. But they also have showned to bring bad things too.
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