The End

'the reality is this and nothing more. it is the nature of capitalism, and of the institutions which comprise it, to maximize their profits. therefore it follows that it is their nature to exploit wages, working conditions, and societal conditions to the degree to which they are most profitable. I understand that reality.'

'And you say they are not evil?'

'yes, i say they are not evil.'

'I don't understand you.'

'You think too much of good and evil. This is not middle-earth. what are good and evil? look at them and think of what they are. Good and evil are, in their essence, value judgements. They are a matter of opinion, unless you want to talk about some supreme being who determines set values for us, are not innate to the thing in itself.

'What does this have to do with the corporation?'

'A corporation is nothing. It has no bias. It is amoral. it does not even know or recognize morals. It is nothing more then a tool, waiting to be used. It is not evil.'

'But look at the consequences!'

'Look at them and accept them for what they are, and refer to them as evil if that is what you see, but do not pass judgement on the knife when it was the hand that did the killing. The evil exists in the act, and not in the thing.'

'Then what do you suggest?'

'When we are willing to look objectively at the nature of a corporation, we can accept what it is. What that is, is a profit maximizing entity which bows to the gods of efficiency and productivity. That is what it is. It achieves these goals very well. I doubt whether it could be replaced by another system more effective to those specific ends.'

'If we accept this definition, we will no longer be deluded by any naive conceptions of other attributes that a corporation may have, like a moral conscience, environmental concern, loyalty, or any of these other ridiculous notions.'

'Then it is up to us as a society to decide whether these attributes, on their own, are an acceptable compass for our future. And if they are not, it is up to us to make adjustments that make it acceptable.'

'We do this already. But unfortunately we do it less and less of late. We seem to have begun to take Adam Smith quite literally with his talk of the invisible hand. We act as if it were a prophecy, rather then a simple metaphor for the way that markets tend to work. There is no prophecy. There is no perfect destiny that we should expect if we only just follow the hand. If you want a prophecy, you'll be more satisfied with a preacher then an economist.'

'But that is another story. For now, let me say this. I believe that a corporation can be used positively. Too many people get caught up in ideology, which misses the point of making things better right here and now. Corporations are what they are, which is profit driven machines. This isn't going to be changed. They are also not going to be done away with or even should be done away with, as they are quite effective in doing what they do. What we need to do instead is to realise the corporation for what it is and work to maximize its positive influence and minimize the negative.'

- posted by Sigurd8/06/2004 10:12:00 PM