CORPORATION AS HUMAN

Being in business school is hard (and I can do a whole post on that) because instead of being taught to look at the way our society is constructed and learn to criticize, we instead are given the structures "as-is" and taught how to best function within those structures. One of the things that we are told to accept is that corporations' primary function is to maximize profits for its owners, the shareholders. Besides the obvious problem of the environmental and social destruction this mentality can cause, in the form of destroyed forests, polluted waste dumps, and suppressed wages, I also believe there is a schism between the ideals we hold when it comes to the way we treat each other and our "ideal" when it comes to corporations and how we're treated by them.

For starters, I would like to direct you to the website of a movie called The Corporation:

http://www.thecorporation.com/

It's also available on youtube (legally; the producers put it there, and it's in 23 parts):

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=FA50FBC214A6CE87

I learned quite a few things from that movie. However, the thing that always stuck out at me was the use of civil rights legislation to claim that the corporation is a "person" and deserves rights under law as such. Prior to that happening, corporations were created to do a specific, usually public-works-related, task and disbanded on completion of that task. Once given person-hood, though, they became the looming monstrosities they are today, dominating the political, social, and especially commercial landscape. Yet, despite the fact the government treats them as a person, we don't. We still treat the corporation as if it were an entity distinctly different from those friends and family who surround us, as if our interactions with these entities should be fundamentally different because the desires and, most importantly, the morals, of the corporation are fundamentally different than our own.

Why should this be? I don't believe a corporations primary function is merely to make the most money at the expense of all else. Think about it: people whose desires align with that of corporation are unhappy people, constantly striving for an increased satisfaction from something that really won't satisfy them. If people's desires are more complex than that, why shouldn't the corporation, who the government considers a person, to be more complex? Basically, my question is this: why do we give the corporation more leeway and lower moral standard than we give random individuals, or even individuals we know and interact with?

It's surprising to me that, given many individuals' moral standards regarding how we interact with each other, that we rarely apply the same standards to corporations, nor do we work forcefully for legislation to enforce at least some of those standards. Think about it: if you and a neighbor lived along a river, and your neighbor started dumping his trash into the river, you'd be pissed. You'd complain to you local government, who would fine him or arrest him. If you heard about this from a neighboring town, you'd probably consider that person an asshole, or some other four-letter-word. You would gladly support regulations for that type of thing, and you'd probably be more that outraged that he could get away with that.

However, you hear about something similar being done by a large company, most people, even if they agree that it should be stopped, just kind of sigh and move on. Especially in the business world, where personal relationships are king, and the only way to move up is by knowing the right people, the corporations relationship to their customers and their general environment tend to more often reflect the initial philosophy I mentioned, that of maximizing profits. Businessmen use the fact that the corporation is its own person to their own benefit without choosing to take on the responsibilities being a "person" really means. When they chose to elevate the legal status of the corporation to a person, they must develop their own level of moral responsibility for the corporation as a person.

Basically, my proposition is this: when considering your personal morality, compare it to the morality of the corporation. It seems completely unfathomable to me that an individual would say to themselves "I'm going to recycle" or "I need to treat my friends with respect" or "I should make sure my trash is disposed of properly" and would then choose to do things like cut the health care benefits of their employees while making a $million+ bonuses or spewing toxic chemicals into the air or lacing their products with all sorts of toxic chemicals. If you, as a business person, would not do something personally, why are you willing to allow your company to do so? At what point did making money supersede your morals?

Recent Synchronicities:
Monty Hall Problem
Sodom and Gomorrah

FREE WILL AND GOD

I am going to begin this particular essay by making this statement: if you DO NOT believe in God (or some kind of external, "spiritual" force), then you logically CAN NOT believe in Free Will. If you are a naturalist, and you believe only in "rationality", you cannot believe in Free Will. To restate it a third way, only the intervention of some kind of external, spiritual force can give humanity Free Will.

Based on the laws of cause and effect, Free Will cannot exist because, on a very simple level, our brains are merely processing machines (for anyone who reads Scott Adams, he calls us "moist robots", an apt term for this exercise) without anything to make them otherwise. Everything that is occurring next is merely the next logical result of everything that has happened previously. Up to that moment, your brain is merely reacting to its conditioning, its experience, and its current chemistry. You are not making a choice; you merely appear to be making a choice. In each moment, the decisions you think you are making are guided merely by the resultant effect of everything that has happened up to that moment. The appearance of making choices is far from real, just as the appearance of any trick-of-the-eye is far from being real as well.

Free Will can only exist if there is some kind of intermediating force, operating outside of the confines of reductionist science, giving us the ability to operate ourselves out of the confines of our own reductionist worldview. Either that, or we have to entirely reformulate the model which our scientific worldview is based upon where everything is not simply cause and effect, in order to bring Free Will into it. However, as it currently stands, without God, there is no Free Will.

OTHER CULTURES BLOW MY MIND

It's been a while since I've posted. In the meantime, I've been doing a lot of traveling. I really couldn't come up with a better title. It says exactly what I mean: looking at other people and cultures has completely changed my perspective on my own culture.

My first travel was to Paris. One of the things that struck me, interestingly, are the women in that city, who I could only describe as "classy." (I'm going to try and keep this from sinking into adolescent sexuality, so bear with me :).) The women were beautiful, well put-together, but not that overt, over-the-top sense that you get here in America. The women managed to pull off being "sensual" and beautiful in their own right without overly revealing. They did so with respect for themselves and their bodies that I found inspiring (and, in no uncertain terms, appealing).

I don't really know a lot about sex and sexuality in French culture, I'll be honest, but I did find this particular revelation to be very telling. American culture regarding sex is paradoxical: on one hand, our sexuality is very overt, revealing, and is used to sell all sorts of things in a way that I sometimes consider vulgar; on the other hand, there's an ongoing tension with society being too tense surrounding sex (and I would add sometimes myself included), and that any sexuality outside of carefully constructed situations is wrong and improper. However, underlying both of these seemingly-contradictory positions is a basic lack of respect for the human body: in advertisements, the body is exploited to sell; in religious circles, the body is a "sin-machine" that must be controlled in order to be a "good person."

I found in French culture, the way the women dressed was very indicative of an underlying respect for themselves and their bodies, something very lacking in today's culture. I do believe any underlying problems with sex and sexuality in our society (and probably in any society) has to do with an underlying disrespect for one's own body, and on an individual level, unhealthy sexuality is borne out of a lack of respect for either oneself or one's partner. Obviously, this is very fluid definition; what constitutes respectful sexuality is beyond my ability to elucidate, but I understand what I means for my own life.

Traveling next to Amsterdam, I found the most remarkable thing of all: a culture that finally had it's priorities straight. Amsterdam was beautiful, clean, had an amazing public transport system, powered by windmills, legalized and regulated drugs and prostitution, and managed to get the things working that needed to work, and chose not to waste money on things that aren't that important.

I don't mention these things because I'm some kind of raging pot-head or sexual deviant. I mentioned these things because I think these are the types of things our country is spending way too much time and money on, reducing the priorities of more important things, like promoting a good environment, a good education system, and an altogether more comfortable culture to live in. The people in Amsterdam are not uptight about the things that are legal in their country. They managed to put bicyclists, cars, trams, and pedestrians on the street together without having a ridiculous number of accidents and injuries (even with all the stoned foreigners wandering about). That alone is an achievement in itself.

Granted, I don't know a whole lot about the spending of the government. I do know they do spend a lot more money on harm reduction techniques and less money prosecuting harmless marijuana users. Basically, they care about the things that will make their country a better place, without getting all wrapped up in inflicting their individual morals on the populace.

Compare this to Italy, where I am now. Where the Dutch care about some things and don't care about others, the Italians don't give a shit about ANYTHING. This is the reason my internet doesn't run well, the government collapses every few months, and generally, the country is behind the rest of the industrialized world. It does have it's positive benefits: people sit in cafes and relax, take midday siestas, and generally just seem less worried about things. I think the Italians are generally a relaxed and laid back group of people, with I appreciate and respect to the utmost degree, but when that relaxation gets in the way of your country running smooth, then there's a problem. I think that would be my major criticism of this country: nothing runs well.

Obviously, this is just a brief summary of some the things I've seen. It's hard to put it all down in one place, but it gives you a completely new perspective when you see how other people do things. It's unfortunate that such a small percentage of the American population go abroad (granted, it's a lot more difficult for Americans to go to European countries than for Europeans to go to other European countries), but I think they might look at their own country, culture, and even their own lives differently if they managed to see how other people do it.

P.S. I don't claim to think the Dutch are perfect. I like their model the best so far, given my initial impressions of their lifestyle, but they, like every country, probably have things they need help on. For example, I don't understand the Dutch's constant desire to publish art so severely attacking Islam. The recent online release of Geert Wilders' video comparing Islam to Nazism seems simplistic and unnecessary. Regardless, my initial impression of their government and culture was very positive.