Fw: Rules of corporate behaviour (long)

[Skaparlust]

An interesting text that your might not have read yet. Excerpts from "In
Absence of the sacred."
Greetings
Agneta Falk
Vaeddoe
Sweden





Ämne:  [emfacts] (Message#671) RULES OF CORPORATE BEHAVIOR
------------------------------------------------------------------------


http://www.dieoff.org/page12.htm

        A hundred years ago, even fifty years ago, it did not seem
urgent that we understand the relationship between business and a
healthy
        environment, because natural resources seemed unlimited. But
on the verge of a new millenniums we know that we have decimated
ninety-seven
        percent of the ancient forests in North America; every day our
farmers and ranchers draw out 20 billion more gallons of water from
the ground
        than are replaced by rainfall; the Ogalala Aquifer, an
underwater river beneath the Great Plains larger than any body of
fresh water on earth, will
        dry up within thirty to forty years at present rates of
extraction; globally we lose 25 billion tons of fertile topsoil every
year, the equivalent of all
        the wheatfields in Australia. These critical losses are
occurring while the world population is increasing at the rate of 90
million people per year.
        Quite simply, our business practices are destroying life on
earth. Given current corporate practices, not one wildlife reserve,
wilderness, or
        indigenous culture will survive the global market economy. We
know that every natural system on the planet is disintegrating. The
land, water, air
        and sea have been functionally transformed from
life-supporting systems into repositories for waste. There is no
polite way to say that business is
        destroying the world.
        -Paul Hawkin, THE ECOLOGY OF COMMERCE



            ELEVEN INHERENT RULES OF CORPORATE BEHAVIOR

                                                            by Jerry
Mander

The following list is an attempt to articulate the obligatory rules
by which corporations operate. Some of the rules overlap, but taken
together they help reveal why
corporations behave as they do and how they have come to dominate
their environment and the human beings within it.

        The Profit Imperative: Profit is the ultimate measure of all
corporate decisions. It takes precedence over community well-being,
worker health, public
        health, peace, environmental preservation or national
security. Corporations will even find ways to trade with national
"enemies"-Libya, Iran, the former
        Soviet Union, Cuba-when public policy abhors it. The profit
imperative and the growth imperative are the most fundamental
corporate drives; together
        they represent the corporation's instinct to "live."

        The Growth Imperative: Corporations live or die by whether
they can sustain growth. On this depends relationships to investors,
to the stock market,
        to banks and to public perception. The growth imperative also
fuels the corporate desire to find and develop scarce resources in
obscure parts of the world.

        This effect is now clearly visible, as the world's few
remaining pristine places are sacrificed to corporate production. The
peoples who inhabit these
        resource-rich regions are similarly pressured to give up their
traditional ways and climb on the wheel of production-consumption.
Corporate planners
        consciously attempt to bring "less developed societies into
the modem world" to create infrastructures for development, as well
as new workers and new
        consumers. Corporations claim that they do this for altruistic
reasons to raise the living standard-but corporations have no
altruism.

        Theoretically, privately held corporations-those owned by
individuals or families-do not have the imperative to expand. In
practice, however, their
        behavior is the same. Such privately held giants as Bechtel
Corporation have shown no propensity to moderate growth.

        Competition and Aggression: Corporations place every person in
management in fierce competition with each other. Anyone interested
in a corporate
        career must hone his or her ability to seize the moment. This
applies to gaining an edge over another company or over a colleague
within the company. As
        an employee, you are expected to be part of the "team," but
you also must be ready to climb over your own colleagues.

        Corporate ideology holds that competition improves worker
incentive and corporate performances and therefore benefits society.
Our society has accepted
        this premise utterly. Unfortunately, however, it also surfaces
in personal relationships. Living by standards of competition and
aggression on the job,
        human beings have few avenues to express softer, more personal
feelings. (In politics, non-aggressive behavior is interpreted as
weakness.)

        Amorality: Not being human, corporations do not have morals or
altruistic goals. So decisions that maybe antithetical to community
goals or
        environmental health are made without misgivings. In fact,
corporate executives praise "non-emotionality" as a basis for
"objective" decision-making.

        Corporations, however, seek to hide their amorality and
attempt to act as if they were altruistic. Lately, there has been a
concerted effort by American
        industry to appear concerned with environmental cleanup,
community arts or drug programs. Corporate efforts that seem
altruistic are really Public relations
        ploys or directly self-serving projects.

        There has recently been a spurt of corporate advertising about
how corporations work to clean the environment. A company that
installs offshore oil rigs
        will run ads about how fish are thriving under the rigs.
Logging companies known for their clearcutting practices will run
millions of dollars' worth of ads
        about their "tree farms."

        It is a fair rule of thumb that corporations tend to advertise
the very qualities they do not have in order to allay negative public
perceptions. When
        corporations say "we care," it is almost always in response to
the widespread perception that they do not have feelings or morals.

        If the benefits do not accrue, the altruistic pose is dropped.
When Exxon realized that its cleanup of Alaskan shores was not easing
the public rage about the
        oil spill, it simply dropped all pretense of altruism and
ceased working.

        Hierarchy: Corporate laws require that corporations be
structured into classes of superiors and subordinated within a
centralized pyramidal structure:
        chairman, directors, chief executive officer, vice presidents,
division managers and so on. The efficiency of this hierarchical form
(which also characterizes
        the military, the government and most institutions in our
society) is rarely questioned.

        The effect on society from adopting the hierarchical form is
to make it seem natural that we have all been placed within a
national pecking order. Some jobs
        are better than others, some lifestyles are better than
others, some neighborhoods, some races, some kinds of knowledge. Men
over women. Westerners
        over non-Westerners. Humans over nature.

        That effective, non-hierarchical modes of organization exist
on the planet, and have been successful for millennia, is barely
known by most Americans.

        Quantification, Linearity, Segmentation: Corporations require
that subjective information be translated into objective form, i.e.
numbers. The
        subjective or spiritual aspects of forests, for example,
cannot be translated, and so do not enter corporate equations.
Forests are evaluated only as "board
        feet."

        When corporations are asked to clean up their smokestack
emissions, they lobby to relax the new standards in order to contain
costs. The result is that a
        predictable number of people are expected to become sick and
die.

        The operative corporate standard is not "as safe as humanly
possible," but rather, "as safe as possible commensurate with
maintaining acceptable profit."

        Dehumanization: In the great majority of corporations,
employees are viewed as ciphers, as non-managerial cogs in the wheel,
replaceable by others or
        by machines.

        As for management employees, not subject to quite the same
indignities, they nonetheless must practice a style of decision
making that "does not let feelings
        get in the way." This applies as much to firing employees as
it does to dealing with the consequences of corporate behavior in the
environment or the
        community.

        Exploitation: All corporate profit is obtained by a simple
formula: Profit equals the difference between the amount paid to an
employee and the economic
        value of the employee's output, and/or the difference between
the amount paid for raw materials used in production (including costs
of processing), and the
        ultimate sales price of processed raw materials. Karl Marx was
right: a worker is not compensated for full value of his or her
labor-neither is the raw
        material supplier. The owners of capital skim off part of the
value as profit. Profit is based on underpayment.

        Capitalists argue that this is a fair deal, since both workers
and the people who mine or farm the resources (usually in Third World
environments) get paid.
        But this arrangement is inherently imbalanced. The owner of
the capital-the corporation or the bank always obtains additional
benefit. While the worker
        makes a wage, the owner of capital gets the benefit of the
worker's labor, plus the surplus profit the worker produces, which is
then reinvested to produce
        yet more surplus.

        Ephemerality: Corporations exist beyond time and space: they
are legal creations that only exist on paper. They do not die a
natural death; they outlive
        their own creators. They have no commitment to locale,
employees or neighbors. Having no morality, no commitment to place
and no physical nature (a
        factory, while being a physical entity, is not the
corporation). A corporation can relocate all of its operations at the
first sign of inconvenience-demanding
        employees, high taxes and restrictive environmental laws. The
traditional ideal of community engagement is antithetical to
corporation behavior.

        Opposition to Nature: Though individuals who work for
corporations may personally love nature, corporations themselves, and
corporate societies, are
        intrinsically committed to intervening in, altering and
transforming nature. For corporations engaged in commodity
manufacturing, profit comes from
        transmogrifying raw materials into saleable forms. Metals from
the ground are converted into cars.

        Trees are converted into boards, houses, furniture and paper
products. Oil is converted into energy. In all such energy, a piece
of nature is taken from
        where it belongs and processed into a new form. All
manufacturing depends upon intervention and reorganization of nature.
After natural resources are
        used up in one part of the globe, the corporation moves on to
another part.

        This transformation of nature occurs in all societies where
manufacturing takes place. But in capitalist, corporate societies,
the process is accelerated
        because capitalist societies and corporations must grow by
extracting resources from nature and reprocessing them at an
ever-quickening pace. Meanwhile,
        the consumption end of the cycle is also accelerated by
corporations that have an interest in convincing people that
commodities bring material satisfaction.
        Inner satisfaction, self-sufficiency, contentment in nature or
a lack of a desire to acquire wealth are subversive to corporate
goals.

        Banks finance the conversion of nature insurance companies
help reduce the financial risks involved. On a finite planet, the
process cannot continue
        indefinitely.

        Homogenization: American rhetoric claims that commodity
society delivers greater choice and diversity than other societies.
"Choice" in this context
        means product choice in the marketplace: many brands to choose
from and diverse features on otherwise identical products. Actually,
corporations have a
        stake in all of us living our lives in a similar manner,
achieving our pleasures from things that we buy in a world where each
family lives isolated in a single
        family home and has the same machines as every other family on
the block. The "singles" phenomenon has proved even more productive
than the nuclear
        family, since each person duplicates the consumption patterns
of every other person.

        Lifestyles and economic systems that emphasize sharing
commodities and work, that do not encourage commodity accumulation or
that celebrate
        non-material values, are not good for business. People living
collectively, sharing such "hard" goods as washing machines, cars and
appliances (or worse,
        getting along without them) are outrageous to corporate
commodity society.

        Native societies-which celebrate an utterly non-material
relationship to life, the planet and the spirit-are regarded as
backward, inferior and
        unenlightened. We are told that they envy the choices we have.
To the degree these societies continue to exist, they represent a
threat to the homogenization
        of worldwide markets and culture. Corporate society works hard
to retrain such people in attitudes and values appropriate to
corporate goals.

        In undeveloped parts of the world, satellite communication
introduces Western television and advertising, while improvements in
the technical infrastructure
        speed up the pace of development. Most of this activity is
funded by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as well
as agencies such as the
        US Agency for International Development, the Inter-American
Bank and the Asian-American Bank, all of which serve multinational
corporate enterprise.

        The ultimate goal of corporate multinationals was expressed in
a revealing quote by the president of Nabisco Corporation: "One world
of homogeneous
        consumption. . . [I am] looking forward to the day when Arabs
and Americans, Latinos and Scandinavians, will be munching Ritz
crackers as
        enthusiastically as they already drink Coke or brush their
teeth with Colgate." Page 31

In the book, Trilateralism, editor Holly Sklar wrote: "Corporations
not only advertise products, they promote lifestyles rooted in
consumption, patterned largely
after the United States.... [They] look forward to a post-national
age in which [Western] social, economic and political values are
transformed into universal
values... a world economy in which all national economies beat to the
rhythm of transnational corporate capitalism.... The Western way is
the good way; national
culture is inferior."

Form Is Content Corporations are inherently bold, aggressive and
competitive. Though they exist in a society that claims to operate by
moral principles, they are
structurally amoral. It is inevitable that they will dehumanize
people who work for them and the overall society as well. They are
disloyal to workers, including their
own managers. Corporations can be disloyal to the communities they
have been part of for many years. Corporations do not care about
nations; they live beyond
boundaries. They are intrinsically committed to destroying nature.
And they have an inexorable, unabatable, voracious need to grow and
to expand. In dominating
other cultures, in digging up the Earth, corporations blindly follow
the codes that have been built into them as if they were genes.

We must abandon the idea that corporations can reform themselves. To
ask corporate executives to behave in a morally defensible manner is
absurd. Corporations,
and the people within them, are following a system of logic that
leads inexorably toward dominant behaviors. To ask corporations to
behave otherwise is like asking
an army to adopt pacifism.

        Corporation: n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual
profit without individual responsibility.
        -Ambrose Bierce, 1842-1914.

Excerpted from: IN THE ABSENCE OF THE SACRED: The Failure of
Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations, Sierra Club Books,
730 Polk
St.. San Francisco, CA 94109.



from the Winter 1995, EARTH ISLAND JOURNAL which is published
quarterly by Earth Island Institute, 300 Broadway # 28, San
Francisco, CA
94133 Phone: 415-788-3666; FAX: 415-788-7324; earthisland at igc.apc.org


Från:  Don Maisch <yahoo at emfacts.com>
Svarsadress:  emfacts-owner at yahoogroups.com.au
Skickat:  den 14 januari 2004 22:09:08
Till:  emfacts at yahoogroups.com.au
Ämne:  [emfacts] (Message#670) THE CORPORATION
------------------------------------------------------------------------


To All

A new TV documentary THE CORPORATION is now screening in Canada but
will be widely available eventually. Follow the links for more.... Or
order the book which will be out soon.

Don

THE CORPORATION
      A Feature documentary by Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott and Joel
Bakan.

      Based on the forthcoming book THE CORPORATION: The Pathological
      Pursuit of Profit and Power by Joel Bakan.

      When the corporation's inner workings undergo analysis - bizarre
      operating principles are revealed.


THE CORPORATION engages us in a darkly amusing account of the
institution's birth as a legal "person" whose prime directive is to
produce ever-increasing profit for it's shareholders regardless of
the cost to anyone, or anything else. This pathological nature wasn't
always written in stone. 150 years ago a corporation was merely an
organized way of doing business. Today it is is a global power.

Considering the odd legal fiction that deems a corporation a "person"
in the eyes of the law, the feature documentary employees a
checklist, based on actual diagnostic criteria of the World Health
Organization and DSM IV, the standard tool of psychiatrists and
psychologists. What emerges is a disturbing diagnosis.

Self-interested, amoral, callous and deceitful, a corporation's
operational principles make it anti-social. It breaches social and
legal standards to get its way even while it mimics the human
qualities of empathy, caring and altruism. It suffers no guilt.
Diagnosis: the institutional embodiment of laissez-faire capitalism
fully meets the diagnostic criteria of a psychopath.

In this feature documentary we see the people who inhabit the
corporate "person" explore, and expose, the implications of being
part of an institution that is required by it's own laws to place the
pursuit of profit over people. Over concern for the environment. Over
even the planet itself.

In production from the time of the loudest protests against
globalization to the high-profile bankruptcies of companies like
Enron, the filmmakers make this huge and complex topic easy to follow
and riveting to watch. Behind-the-scenes tensions and influences are
revealed in corporate and anti-corporate dramas through jaw-dropping
case studies and true confessions.

Featuring a multitude of interviews with CEO's and top-level
executives from some of the worlds largest corporations, representing
a wide range of industries, including: oil (Shell), pharmaceuticals
(Pfizer),computers (IBM), tires (Goodyear), carpets (Interface),
public relations (Burson Marsteller), branding (Landor), and
advertising (Initiative); as well as critical thinkers: Noam Chomsky,
Peter Drucker, Milton Friedman, Naomi Klein, Mark Kingwell, Vandana
Shiva, and muckraking filmmaker Michael Moore. Add to the mix a
corporate spy, an undercover marketer, academics, pundits, historians
and activists; deftly blend with newsreel footage, early TV
advertisements, B movies, and corporate propaganda films and you have
the fascinating, original portrait of an institution that is THE
CORPORATION.

Is there a cure for this pathological pursuit of profit-at-any-cost?
Or can we only apply restraints? Will people regain control over the
corporation?  With cautious optimism, we are invited to reconsider
our relationship with the dominant institution of our time.

*****************************
And from http://www.planetfriendly.net

THE CORPORATION
Screenings, Links, Volunteer Opps., What You Can Do. A special
edition of People- & Planet-Friendly.

Are corporations responsible and productive members of  society? Or
are they wolves in sheeps' clothing, stopping at  nothing to maximize
profits? Is profit for real -- or are the  costs being hidden? Are
poverty, war and the destruction  of the environment being needlessly
advanced by corporate  influence? Most important, does it have to be
this way?

Beginning this Friday, January 16, "The Corporation" is  screening in
Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa. It is being  hailed by some as "the
next Bowling for Columbine".  Perhaps even more so than Michael
Moore's remarkable  film, The Corporation tackles root causes of what
is wrong  with society today -- a society that is quickly destroying
the planet and everything on it.

Many of us work for corporations, big or small. There are many good,
well-meaning people in corporations, both staff and management. But
this film argues that the legal and economic structure of the
corporation itself - despite the best efforts of the people who work
for them - is inherently destructive. And unnecessary.

Anyone who wants a healthy life, meaningful work and a saner world
will be interested in this film. Why do things always seem to sink to
the lowest common
denominator -- pointless work, seedy consumerism, senseless violence?
How can we reconnect with our values and needs? This film helps shed
some light on these questions. It might even inspire us to do
something about it.

Below you will find screening times for the film and brief but
important volunteer opportunities at each screening.

We have also created an online discussion, where you can post your
thoughts, questions and announcements related to the film and the
issues it raises.

Whether or not you can make it to the film, check out the related
links, organizations and opportunities, below. There are many ways to
learn and get involved, from  simply reading up on the issue, to
spreading the word,  to getting involved in your community.

- Peter Blanchard
http://www.planetfriendly.net/business.html
http://www.planetfriendly.net/corporation.pdf
http://www.planetfriendly.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=3

                              CONTENTS
                              (A) Screenings in Toronto, Ottawa,
Vancouver .
. .
                              (B) Volunteer Opportunities
                              (C) E-mail List & Discussion / BB
                              (D) What Can You Do?
                              (E) Reviews, Quotes, Links

                              ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                              (A) SCREENINGS THIS MONTH
                              ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

                              Toronto, Ottawa & Vancouver -- more
cities to follow.
                              Check local listings to confirm times.
Updates and info:
                              www.TheCorporation.com

The Corporation has an e-mail announcement list.
They are also seeking donations; help publicizing screenings
when they come to your city; and pre-orders for VHS or DVD.
http://www.thecorporation.tv/emaillist.html
or http://www.thecorporation.tv/contactus.html
http://www.thecorporation.tv/

_________________________________________________________________
Hitta rätt på nätet med MSN Sök http://search.msn.se/

*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu,
Visit:

http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html