Dale,
I think you mistake the persons you know for the corporation. Remember
that a corporation is a separate personality from its individual
shareholders, directors, managers and employees.
Monsanto (and Pioneer too) is a separate legal personality of its own.
It is literally a monster, with neither heart nor soul (even if some
of its component parts might have them). It might be helpful to
consider a corporation *as if* it were a different species, with
humans among its component parts. What these humans think is relevant
only in so far as they aid what the corporation itself, as a business
firm with its own legal personality, is programmed to do -- which is
to maximize profits. Chairman Shapiro himself is expendable and can be
replaced anytime.
I had been thinking, actually, of writing a piece I'd entitle: "How do
you slay a corporation?" Our ancestors could slay the biggest monster
of their time, the wooly mammoth. The biggest monsters of our time are
corporations. And our communities have not yet learned the ABC of
slaying a corporation that is a threat to their survival. Some have
tried bombing its headquarters, or killing its managers, taking it to
court, and a thousand other tricks, but they don't work. The
corporation is very good at healing its wounds and replacing its
constituent parts.
On the other hand, corporations have learned how to domesticate human
beings, like we domesticate cats and dogs. Such domesticated human
beings think they can't live without corporations, and, like guard
dogs, will defend their masters with their lives and attack even their
fellow dogs. Corporations have also learned to expand their own legal
rights ("liberalization"), to stay clear of human laws
("deregulation") or to even take over human functions
("privatization"). Through lobbying, they are also rewriting the laws
that we must live under. Need I define what "globalization" means?
You don't like the "kick them good, when they're down" attitude
towards a corporation? A wounded elephant is very dangerous. A wounded
corporation is even more so. We now learning how to inflict wounds on
a corporation, but we have not learned yet how to slay one. But we're
getting there. Soon, I hope.
Roberto Verzola
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