Good Post!
Friday, October 15, 1999, 1:28:41 AM, you wrote:
...
RV> I had been thinking, actually, of writing a piece I'd entitle: "How do
RV> you slay a corporation?" Our ancestors could slay the biggest monster
RV> of their time, the wooly mammoth. The biggest monsters of our time are
RV> corporations. ...
RV> A wounded elephant is very dangerous. A wounded corporation is
RV> even more so. We now learning how to inflict wounds on a
RV> corporation, but we have not learned yet how to slay one. But
RV> we're getting there. Soon, I hope.
RV> Roberto Verzola
It is very difficult to slay a corporation and the idea is not very
compatible with sustainability. Think of them as pests, which you
don't try to eradicate, but rather control; and the best way to do
that is by establishing a healthy environment, on a global (literally
and figuratively) scale, as well as implementing a strategy specific
to the characteristics of the particular pest and it's needs and
habits.
While corporations obviously have ample means to work against this,
the battle is there to be waged, from within and without. "Winning"
requires being as well organized and efficient as a corporation, but
in a more inclusive, comprehensive way. The "system" is more than
what "they" take into account, and this is both the strength and
weakness of the corporations.
By limiting their focus and ignoring long term and wide spread
damages, they can concentrate on short term and locally (i.e., good
for the corporation, according to their own convoluted criteria)
concentrated benefits.
However, in the long term, the very factor of being exclusive is what
generates "better", more universal alternatives outside of it, that
focus on issues that while harder to define, culminate in a sense of
the quality of life and even, of life versus death.
The best case in point that comes to mind is that of big tobacco, It
took a while, but they seem to be judicially dead, at least for now
and in only some jurisdictions.
This is all good theory but in practice, of course SOMEONE has to wage
the battle and it will take a lot of unity on the part of many to
accomplish this goal - just like the way a corporation works, with
different, more limited goals.
Dale may say that the goals of a "good" corporation are no different
and he may be right. The problem is, for them to get to be good, they
have to get their asses good and kicked once in a while. Right Dale?
They don't do it alone. They do it in the context they are really in,
once that's made known to (not by) them. Although they may deny that
(which isn't important - the element of control is).
In the end, the corporations are made up of people and you are right
Roberto, in that people can lose control. When that happens, this must
be corrected from without, in order for the people within to BE
people again.
Douglas Hinds
CeDeCoR, A.C.
dmhinds@acnet.net, cedecor@acnet.net
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