Comments on: Predictions 2012 #6: “The Corporation” Becomes A Central Societal Question Mark

By: Oakleys

Oakleys — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 03:37:00 +0000

YXJYXQHAPPY I like it very much!

By: SOPA & citizenship in a digital age | NetFamilyNews.org

SOPA & citizenship in a digital age | NetFamilyNews.org — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:33:45 +0000

[...] social media companies themselves will too. In six blog posts, journalist, author and professor John Batelle looks at a variety of indicators of that. The most interesting to me was No. 6: “‘The [...]

By: On “The Corporation,” the Film | John Battelle's Search Blog

On “The Corporation,” the Film | John Battelle's Search Blog — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:05:45 +0000

[...] If you read my Predictions for 2012, you’ll recall that #6 was “The Corporation” Becomes A Central Societal Question Mark. [...]

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 16:16:00 +0000

Thanks for that cite!

By: BBowen

BBowen — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 07:00:00 +0000

John in wholehearted agreement with prediction #6 “I think 2012 is the year we all start to question the role corporations can and should play in our society” - Excerpts from HBR Interview with Macrowikinomics author Don Tapscott
“We’re at a turning point in history, and that many of the institutions that have served us well for centuries are now unable to do so. They’re stalled, they’re in various states of atrophy. And it’s not just about the corporation, but throughout the industrial economy these institutions have run out of gas. And we need to rebuild them around a new open model.”"And this is very different thinking, because the old approach is, well, our intellectual property is our most precious asset. Anyone tries to infringe on it we’ll get out our lawyers and we’ll sue them. Well, hello, that didn’t work so well for the record industry, did it? The industry that brought us Elvis and The Beatles is now suing children, is hated by its customers. And in Macrowikinomics we cite an industry insider who said the number three source of revenue is suing people that love its product.”http://blogs.hbr.org/ideacast/2010/10/the-economics-of-mass-collabor.html

By: BBowen

BBowen — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 06:57:00 +0000

By: Gideon Rosenblatt

Gideon Rosenblatt — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:07:00 +0000

One of the more astute critiques of the corporation that I have seen is from Marjorie Kelly in her book, The Divine Right of Capital. It’s worth reading the full book, but the essence of her argument centers on the notion of “shareholder primacy”, the idea that the primary reason for a corporation’s existence is to maximize returns for shareholders.

Corporations may be legal persons, but they are also legal creations, and that is why I like the approach that the B-Corp folks are taking, modifying this underlying assumption behind modern capitalism. Take that assumption away and markets still work; capitalism still works. Note: I’m not saying we should take profits away from shareholders (capital deserves a return on investments) – just the idea that shareholder primacy is the primary reason for the firm’s existence.

Here’s a chapter-by-chapter summary I did of The Divine Right of Capital, with the author’s permission. It summarizes it more fully than is appropriate here:
http://www.alchemyofchange.net/divine_right_of_capital/

Thanks for looking into this question, John. It’s good to see people like you raising these questions.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:21:00 +0000

Thanks Leeann!!

By: LeeAnn Prescott

LeeAnn Prescott — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:15:00 +0000

A little fact checking on John’s behalf (I’m his researcher):
It was decided in the 1886 case Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad that the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment (1868) applied to corporations in the same way as persons. The 1819 case had to do with the application of the Contract Clause in the Constitution and was thus not as wide-ranging (or influential in current corporate legal thinking) in its granting of rights to corporations as the 1886 case.

To be correct, John’s sentence “The 14th Amendment (yes, the one that banished slavery) established corporations, in the US, as “persons” in the legal sense.” should read something like,

“The 14th Amendment (yes the one that banished slavery 1868) was used as a basis for case law protecting corporations, with the 1886 Supreme Court case Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad granting the same rights to corporations as individuals under the Amendment’s equal protection clause.”

To further elucidate John’s point about the 14th Amendment, here are some quotes from A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn:

“Very soon after the Fourteenth Amendment became law, the Supreme Court began to demolish it as a protection for blacks and to develop it as a protection for corporations.” (p. 260)

[In 1886] alone, the Court did away with 230 state laws that had been passed to regulate corporations.” (p. 261)

“…of the Fourteenth Amendment cases brought before the Supreme Court between 1890 and 1910, nineteen dealt with the Negro, 288 dealt with corporations.” (p.261)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:41:00 +0000

Not a fan, eh?
I think of corporations as rather half formed – the “modern corporation” is really quite young, and has much growing up to do.