I'm in a "discussion" somewhere else on whether or not corporations are evil. He seems to think they are. My point is that corporations aren't evil. However, the people who run them may be. Corporations (like guns and governments) may give a person (or group of persons) more power to perpetuate their evil and some cover from the consequences but the corporation itself isn't evil. If you think corporations are evil, then does that make Germany evil because of Hitler? I.e. was Germany evil or was Hitler evil and country and assets of Germany were his tools to perpetuate his evil? And this discussion got me thinking: I think that liberals hold in their world view that people are basically good - it's their surroundings or the world that ultimatly corrupt them. (This is, believe it or not an anti-christian world view. The christian world view is that man is born evil [with original sin] and has to strive for goodness.) Maybe this is why liberals support things like corporate regulation or gun control. Since people are basically good it must the the outside influence (i.e. the gun or the corporate anonymity and shielding) that needs to be controlled. Take away the outside influence and people are more likely to behave. I'm not trying to start any arguements here and if I've used any language that someone finds insulting I didn't intend to. I'm just trying to figure some things out....
They exist to make as much money as possible, withough going to jail. Do you consider that evil? I agree with the above premise. How many times have you read about a company having to go back and restate their earnings? How many of those times did they underreport those earnings? I would not say that the companies are evil. I would say that being ethical or moral in a company setting is not rewarded but punished, if it has a negative impact on the bottomline. And vice versa.
Not in a vacuum, of course not. I think anytime earning money is put above the well-being of other people, you have the potential for evil. One famous example is the Ford Pinto - Ford execs knew that their was a design flaw that was going to kill some people. However, the accountants determined that it would be cheaper to settle the suits that came from these death than to recall and fix the Pinto. Naturally, Ford chose not to recall the Pinto. People died as a result. Was that evil? I wouldn't say corporations are evil so much as they are amoral. And the influence of moral individuals in a corporation is minimized by the distance between the decisions made by the individuals and their effects. Do you think Ford execs would have approved keeping silent on the Pinto defects if they knew all the victims would be family members? Probably not. But since they had no idea who the victims would be (just that there would be victims), it was easier to keep quiet. Of course, there are times when earning money helps one person but hurts another. I'm sure some of the money Ford saved initially (until the press got ahold of the story) on the Pinto went to charity. So now the issue of evil gets really cloudy.
Yes, corporations are evil. Obviously, there is a sense in which you are right -- something with no sentience cannot be evil in and of itself. But, taking that approach makes "Corporations are evil," not wrong but nonsensical. So, you need to adjust your understanding and usage of the word to fit the context. And, there are a number of ways in which corporations are indeed evil (in some other sense). 1) A corporation is an organization of people with assets who work to a common goal. You know all the people in the organization are evil (from Original Sin, which you've mentioned), and they constitute the entirety of the agency of the corporation. So, all their evil summed together will yield only more evil. 2) Also following a religious vein, you'd know that the pursuit of money is the root of all sorts of evil (or all evil, depending on your translation). Corporations are vehicles for the pursuit of money. While the pursuit in itself is not evil, it is the root of many to all of them. 3) Speaking more sociologically, the main deterrent to committing evils (and crimes) is the likelihood of being caught and punished. For individuals acting as agents of themselves, behavior tends to be good because the corporation will protect itself from misbehavior by monitoring individuals and firing those who misbehave. However, very rarely does anyone suffer any personal affliction for actions that take as agents of the corporation. Many of the evils they can commit are immoral but not illegal. And, even while the company may be reprimanded by society for its behavior, the individuals can always say, "It's not me, it's the company." So, there is little to deter someone acting for the corporation from doing something immoral if it were profitable. 4) Given that the deterrence for evil is low, the goal is always to make money, and immoral bahavior is often rewarded with money, the corporation is a tool that actively encourages evil. Even with people in charge who are committed to doing right, they will always see their interest in doing wrong. And, even if they manage to resist it, the nature of the corporation has a corrupting potential in the temptations it presents. So, even if the people were good, the corporation encourages them to be bad. As for your Hitler example, I think you'll find evils being committed by many, many more people than Hitler himself. He used the power of Germany as a tool in his own machinations, but many gladly participated -- for money or for its own sake. There were many more anti-semites in Germany than Hitler and his commanders. There were a lot of people chomping at the bit for war. It's funny that you mentioned the bit about liberals believing people are good. A prof of mine heard a theory he liked that he told us about. It has flaws, but I like it too: In any political system, the liberals believe Man is fundamentally good and the conservatives believe Man is fundamentally evil.
Ottoman wrote something in the Walmart thread that I think applies very well in this discussion- Corporations are the cat. The canary is the community's social welfare.
I think that is also a difference between Christianity & Buddhism. Christians think man is born evil, and you spend your life trying to overcome that evil. Buddhists think man becomes flawed over time, and you spend your life trying to restore your original goodness.
watch the movie "Network" with Robert Duval.....Great movie...... will tell you all about corporations you need to know.... its old but damn they were right..
my church is a corporation in the state of tx... eeeek! Now I am must go have a talk to the board of directors and find out what's really going on. Wait a minute I am on that board.......
"I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" I don't think it was Robert Duvall but I can't remember the actor's name; he died a few years ago. Also good: Erin Brockovich
i think the question is phrased too much as black and white, it should be "can corporations be evil?" yes, they can, but not all of them are. corporations are not much different from groups of people, the only difference is that they are treated different legally, that's about it. Just like individual people, they choose to be evil, however, groups are capable of more evil, likewise, they are also capable of more good than an individual.
