This was the title of a Firesign Theater album of the 1970s and on the cover, there was a dais of people under pictures of John Lennon and Groucho Marx.
That said, there have been people who have said that I am a socialist, a communist, anti-American, and anti-capitalism and I’d like to prove all those people correct. With the word that the former champion in auto safety and quality, Toyota has purposefully cut corners and cost people’s lives by diluting and evading safety regulations, it is time to look at the modern corporation.
There was a book and documentary released in 2003 each called “The Corporation” that was a Canadian study of corporations, and it showed them, as entities, as immoral and unfeeling to the pledge of customers and workers. The movie and book trace this proclivity back to judicial rulings that made corporations like “people,” with similar rights and protections. Add to that the diffuse decision making structure of most corporations and difficult if not impossible attempts to document an audit trail, corporations, with their size, numbers of people working for them, and huge sums of money at their control, have eclipsed normal people, and have the government working for them, at our expense.
The book and movie’s suggestion is to roll back 170 years of jurisprudence and make new rules for corporations to make them more responsible and transparent. However, this will not happen. I have a simpler suggestion – if corporations are like people, let’s impose people-like punishment on them, and more of the Biblical variety. If a division of a corporation makes a decision to break safety laws, then world governments can take possession on these units from the parent and liquidate them. AIG was nearly brought down by one group within the company; then let the government take possession of that unit, liquidate it, and fire everyone who worked for the division. And, if there’s an audit trail, find the person who made the decision, or just make it the CEO, and prosecute them. Most states have murder statutes that include “depraved indifference,” that is, while not actually killing someone, your failure to act had a part to play in that death. We use it for parents all the time – why not for the heads of Toyota? And why stop there – if there is a financier or major shareholder like a Warren Buffet who went along with the depraved indifference, and you put them on trial, you would see corporate misdeeds falling sharply.
And last, if a company, for example Exxon Mobil, has more than 3 oil tanker accidents/spills in a 5 year period, the company is broken-up, liquidated, and all senior managers who had anything to do with lax standards and controls, get hauled up before a judge and jury. We’ve had AT&T and other giant conglomerates broken up on anti-trust grounds – why not for failure to be a good corporate citizen?
I know – you think this is unworkable, evil, sinful, unpatriotic, etc.. While I don’t believe that the death penalty stops criminals from committing murder and other capital crimes, I do believe that with the threat of liquidation, a “corporation” might think twice before cutting a few corners to save money at the potential cost of a few lives.