The Corporation Page #5

the problem

that whether you obey

the law or not

is a matter whether

its cost effective.

If the chance

of getting caught

and the penalties are less

than it costs to comply

people think of it as

just a business decision.

Drawing the metaphor of

the early attempts to fly.

Theban going off of a very

high cliff in his airplane

with the wings flapping

and the guys

flapping the wings

and the wind

is in his face

and this poor fool

think she's flying

but in fact

he's in freefall

and he just doesn't

know it yet

because the ground

is so far away

but of course the craft

is doomed to crash.

That's the way our

civilization is

the very high cliff

represents the virtually

united resources

we seem to have when

we began this journey.

The craft isn't flying

because it's not built according

to the laws of aerodynamics

and is subject

to the law of gravity.

Civilization is not flying

because it's not built according

to the laws of aerodynamics

for civilizations

that would fly.

And of course the ground

is still a long way away

but some people have seen

that ground rushing up

sooner than

the rest of us have.

The visionaries have seen it

and have told us its coming.

There's not a

single scientific

peer reviewed paper published

in the last 25 years

that would contradict

this scenario

Every living system

of earth

is in decline

every life support system

of earth is in decline

and these together

constitute the biosphere

the biosphere that supports

and nurtures all of life

not just our life but perhaps

30 million other species

that share

this planet with us.

The typical company

of the 20th century

extractive wasteful

abusive linear

in all of its processes

taking from the earth

making wasting

sending its products

back to the biosphere

waste to a landfill...

I myself was amazed to learn

just how much stuff

the earth has to produce

through our extraction process

to produce a dollar of

revenue for our company.

When I learnt

I was flabbergasted.

We are leaving a terrible

legacy of poison

and diminishment

of the environment

for our grandchildren's

grandchildren

generations not yet born.

Some people have called that

intergeneration tyranny

a form of taxation

without representation

levied by us

on generations yet to be.

It's the wrong

thing to do.

One of the questions

that comes up periodically

is to what extent could

corporation be considered

to be psychopathic.

And if we look at a corporation

as a legal person

that it may not be that

difficult to actually draw

the transition between

psychopathy in the individual

to psychopathy

in a corporation.

We could go through

the characteristics

that define this particular

disorder one by one

and see how they might

apply to corporations.

They would have all

the characteristics

and in fact

in many respects

the corporation

of that sort

is the proto typical

of a psychopath.

If the dominant institution

of our time has been created

in the image of

a psychopath

who bears moral responsibility

for its actions?

Can a building have

moral opinions?

Can a building have

social responsibility?

If a building cant have

social responsibility

what does it mean to

say a corporation can?

A corporation is simply

an artificial legal structure

but the people

who are engaged in it

whether the stockholder

whether the

executives in it

whether the employees

they all have

moral responsibilities.

It's a fair assumption

that every human being

real human beings

flesh and

blood ones

not corporations

but every flesh and blood

human being is a moral person.

You know we've

got the same genes

we're more or less

the same

but our nature

the nature of humans

allows all kinds

of behaviour.

I mean everyone of us

under some circumstances

could be a gas chamber

attendant and a saint.

No job in my experience

with Goodyear

has been as frustrating

as the CEO job.

Because even though

the perception is

that you have absolute power

to do whatever you want

the reality is

you don't have that power

and so metes if you had

really free hand

if you really did what

you wanted to do

that suits your

personal thoughts

and your personal priorities

you'd act differently.

But as a CEOm

you cannot do that

Layoff shave become

so wide-spread

that people

tend to believe that

CEOs make these decisions

without any consideration

to the human implications

of their decisions

It is never a decision

that any CEO makes lightly.

It is a tough decision.

But it is the consequence

of modern capitalism

When you look

at a corporation

just like when

you look at a slave owner

you want to distinguish

between the institution

and the individual.

So slavery for example

or other forms of tyranny

are inherently monstrous

but the individuals

participating in them

may be the nicest guys

you could imagine

benevolent friendly

nice to their children

even nice to their slaves

caring about other people.

I mean as individuals

they may be anything.

In their institutional

role they're monsters

because the institution

is monstrous.

Then the same is true here.

My wife and I some years

ago had a tour home

a demonstration.

25 people arrived

they hung a big banner

on the top of our house

saying murderers

they danced around outside

with gasmasks and so on.

As a public demonstration

it wasn't very effective

due to the fact that this

is a very rural area

two people and a dog

and it's not

a very big house

which I think rather

surprised them

but then we sat down

and talked to them

for a couple of hours

and we gave them

tea and coffee

and they had

lunch on our lawn.

After about 20

minutes they said

Well the problem is

not you. It's Shell.

And I said now wait a

minute lets talk about

what is Shell?

It's made up

of people like me.

In the end what we

found in that discussion

were all the things

they we're worried about

I was worried about as well

climate oppressive

regimes human rights

the big difference

between us was

I feel that I can actually

make a contributions to this

these people

were frustrated

because they felt that

they had no nothing to do.

So an individual

CEO lets say

may really care

about the environment

and in fact

since they have such

extraordinary resources

they can even devote some of

their resources to that

without violating

their responsibility

to be totally inhuman

which is why

as the Moody Starts

serve tea to protestors

Shell Nigeria can flare

unrivalled amounts of gas

making it of the worlds single

worst sources of pollution.

And all the professed concerns

about the environment

do not spare Ken Saro Wiwa

and eight other activists

from being hung for opposing

Shells environment practices

in the Niger Delta.

The corporation

is not a person

it doesn't think.

People in it think

and for them it is legitimate

to create terminator technology.

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