Opinions about corporations

[Vladimir-Vlada]

This thread acctuely is for posting opinions the issue of corporations. Their existence, purpose, function, goal, usefullness, etc.

 

Here I go:

 

I HATE CORPORATIONS.

 

I hate them from the beginning of my life. Corporations are the headquarters of evil. They manipulate, steal, kill, pollute, destroy the world and life. They rule the economy, which rules resources, which rule money, which rules us. People who work for them in order to at least TRY and create the world better, work for little money to help their families grow do it because they have no choise. And so, people continue their lives doing jobs which they didn't want to do in the first place, they suffer, try to survive, while the gready corporate leaders rule the world, destroying everyones lives on the planet. The reason why people, by the definition of some people, are stupid is because they are convinced in it, because they lack knowledge in certain things. Do you know why? Why they didn't want to study as none of us do? Because, the world has failed us. The world has disappointed us from the very beginning. And these... Savoiurs, present themselves as our leaders and saints from heaven to save us by "organising" us, destroy the world even more, so that people deciede to give up from trying to think of new ideas and fight against the enfluged evil, because they realise from their birth that life stinks, and do what you are told to. An exapmle of manipulation. What about money? Is there any purpose to it?

 

NO!

 

Because it is a tool of manipulation, because it divides us, terrorises us, corrupt us and turns us against each other. And every night I see these corporate leaders, sunbathing on the Bahamas in Hawaiian shirts, drinking martini, surrounded by women (sexist jerks), wathcing soap operas and laughing at me, before I fall to sleep and I point my finger towards them and promise to everyone on the world, to them and me:

 

"You might enjoy the suffering of others now. But one day; ONE DAY you will all pay for your crimes, for your greed, for the deaths you've caused and for the suffering that has occured because of you. You will be brought to justice, not yours, our justice; The Justice of the People, and then freedom will rule the world as it is supposed to."

 

They then laugh and disappear, while I fall to sleep angirly, as I mostly do...

 

But there are some minor corporations which treat people, workers and other corporations normaly, which try to do the best for everyone, but they don't last long.

 

This is what I have to say. For now...

[El Sitherino]

Wow. Calm down with the angst. I'm about as anti-corporate as you can get without being ignorant, but...

Truth is not all corporations are evil. And it's not always their fault. Most of it comes down to the fact that the masses pretty much hand over their obedience and allow themselves to be controlled, the fault is with the consumer first and foremost.

 

Monetary systems were invented to create control. We're greedy creatures, just like anything that has lust and hunger. Aggriculture was the rise to need for monetary systems. Without it people would take and not give back, money gave a system that created give and take. But like all things, greed made it's way to that, mankind realized that now money brings power.

 

And this was all many, many, many thousands of years ago.

[Vladimir-Vlada]

Most of it comes down to the fact that the masses pretty much hand over their obedience and allow themselves to be controlled, the fault is with the consumer first and foremost.

Our ancestors are the ones who surendered us.

 

* Blood preasure increased, ammount of adrenalin dangerously high. Cause: Fear... *

[lukeiamyourdad]

Now, I ain't saying I love corporations, but we both know communism doesn't work.

 

I think your rant is less about big corporations and more about people being richer and in the position to make decisions.

 

About taking advantage, I'll agree with you that in the third world, they'll easily take advantage of people who themselves, seriously have zero choice, since it's either work for them or don't. The second option usually ends up with starvation.

This is something that should be frowned upon and fought, especially in countries where the safety laws for workers are close to non-existent.

One can remember the Bhopal incident in India back in the 80's.

 

However, in the western world, there is indeed a choice and laws to back you up in most cases. There's all sorts of methods to "counter" the abuse of corporations against their workers.

 

As for them being richer. What can someone do? Life is unfair. Whining about it won't make yours better. There's always going to be a domnating social class in big societies. Even an anarchist society where everyone is equal simply doesn't work. After a while, they decide to have a leader, people who can make decisions, in order for the society to function. Usually, those people hold the riches.

 

And frankly, this is not even up for debate.

Why? Because 99% of the people who whine about everything "big corps" do also use Windows with their IBM computer while going to McDonald's to eat before going to see the next Jerry Bruckheimer ****fest, while stopping at Wal-Mart to buy one of EA's sports games.

 

As a matter of facts, I ain't pro-corporations. I'm very opposed to EA taking over every sport?

Why? I'm tired of playing my precious Winning Eleven with players like Ruud Van Mistelroum, Milan Balloum, Pavel Netrets or Oliver Kohm. It's bloody annoying.

[stingerhs]

well, i'm not exactly a big fan of corporations neither. in fact, i've always been somewhat of a supporter of increased corporate taxes to ease the load off of the individuals in the middle and lower classes. but thats another debate for another thread.

 

anyways, corporations are a way to maximize funding for possibilities that more than likely could not be achieved by private funding alone. remember, a large part of a corporation's profits is derived directly from sale of its stock in places like Wall Street. in my view, a number of modern achievements could never have been fully realized without the funding potential of a corporation. of course, the large amount of funding for a risky proposition can often times lead to large rewards in the form of heavily increased revenue. in fact, that is definately the driving factor of any business: finding ways to increase revenue in order to increase the size of overall operations and thus further increase revenue. its the way of business, period. its not something that can be changed. and in the case of large corporations, well, they're just simply trying to get larger.

 

can this encroach on the consumer or the workers that drive it? most definately, especially if its left unchecked. anybody that looks at the history of the Industrial Revolution can see the effects of such unlimited profit seeking. heck, you can still see it happen on occasion in our own time period. its simply the never ending stuggle of the individual to find ways to gain more financial power. the power of the corporation is the ability to combine those individuals into a structure from which they can maximize their overall financial power as high as they can take it.

 

but what happens when you remove the driving force of those seeking more financial power? simple: the whole system will eventually collapse on itself. you can maintain it for a while by using extreme nationalism or strong leadership, but the fact remains that neither strong leadership nor nationalism can ever truely substitute for the innate human desire for greater power. stifle that urge, and the economy will grind to level that it is enforced to grind at. you can see every evidence of this if you study the economy of the Soviet Union beginning from the overthrowing of the Czar's to the beginning of Yeltsin's rule.

 

so, do we need corporations?? well, probably so. do we need to end them? definately not. a little bit of nudgery and limitations here and there can keep them in line, and the profits they bring in is by far too much of a mostly untapped resource for most goverments.

[RevanA4]

ok first let me make a prediction bout this thread " I predict its gonna become a flame war*

 

well I don't have an oppion really on them just that they are a nessicary evil though I HATE MICROSOFT with a passion.

 

but if you hate all of them you hate pretty much evey gamming company out there so no I don't dislike them I just dislike some of them

[REDJOHNNYMIKE]

Well, I don't have a real good head for business's details, but if you want to have a society where there is no-one in power (which you've implied in previous threads) to keep people in line,

I'd suggest watching several highly educational, enlightened philosophical films such as Dawn of the Dead, or even Shaun of the Dead.

 

A little extreme, but without leadership of some kind that's a pretty good example of the end result (with the exception that zombies don't eat each other "much" as an anarchal human horde probably would),

but oh well [sarcasm=1]OFF TO THE SAHARA GULAGS WITH THOSE CORPORATE MISERLY OPRESSORS [/sarcasm]

[Achilles]

Vladimir-Vlada,

 

Perhaps 4-6 years of serious study on the subject of business would help to broaden your perspectives. There are thousands of the corporations in the world. Some of them are large, some of them are small. Some of them operate in countries where there are very strict concepts of "ethical business practices" and some of them operate where the concept of business ethics doesn't even exist (literally).

 

Yes, some of them are led by corrupt people, but for every Enron there are hundreds if not thousands of corporations that are out in the market place operating ethically and legitimately. To paint all corporations with the same brush is silly and short-sighted.

 

The purpose behind corporations is to minimize risk. Without corporations, there are thousands of products that YOU USE EVERYDAY that might never have come about. Goods and services do not create themselves. When someone brings their product to the marketplace, there's a good chance that they'll get their hat handed to them, even if the product adds value to the community. By incorporating, the innovator has an opportunity to get his or her product to the people that need it without having to risk everything that they own to make it happen. Yes, the product might fail, and some people may lose money, but they willingly invested their money in a product that (hopefully) they did their research on and believed in. Furthermore, many people losing some, is probably better for the community than 1 or 2 people losing everything.

 

Am I trying to come off, altruistic? No. Like I said earlier there are some corrupt people that do abuse power and taint the process by putting personal considerations before those of the stakeholders (like they were hired to do). However, if you look, I'm sure you'll find plenty of proprietorships and government run agencies that are just as guilty doing the same thing? So is your issue with corporations or is it with capitalism? If it's with capitalism, then what system do you propose that we use? At the end of the day, you might find that the problem isn't the system itself, but rather individuals that inappropriately use the system for personal gain.

[vanir]

Plus there's the simple fact that if Lucasforums registered itself as a business, under LucasArts support it would be a corperation by definition.

 

It's just a name for a business franchise, mate. Anti-corperation is like underground music. It's all the stuff where everybody involved lives in poverty listening to crappy music on cheap stereos and fan-whinges about how rich Britney is.

 

Try not to kill yourself over a fashion statement, there's a real world out there and you can share in its wealth if you want.

 

That being said, businesses carry a lot of weight in social organisation that can only be limited through law. In the same way political dictatorship is arrived at by complacency, one does need to watch how much say the business community gets in who has which opportunities available.

But as has been mentioned this is a human tendancy rather than a business one. Your next door neighbour, your children, your grandmother all treat people who seem like money better than someone who might have an attitude problem. This is express in all sorts of tiny subtelties, like being educated, dresses well, is very polite, is quite smart, obviously brought up well....then doesn't seem trustworthy, is a bit creepy, has a chip on their shoulder, seems to be overly involved with money, etc. It's all the small ways we identify people from money as opposed to trailer trash.

You'll have a lot of work ahead of you if you want to change that, people love to hate, love to exclude, enjoy dominating for gratification, it's the world's most popular chocolate.

[Vladimir-Vlada]

Thread will be deleted in 5 minutes...

 

You'll have a lot of work ahead of you if you want to change that, people love to hate, love to exclude, enjoy dominating for gratification, it's the world's most popular chocolate.

I already had that candy, a lot of it. I am going to eat some more.

[stingerhs]

you can delete it, but i can bring it back.

[Bimmerman]

I'm sure everyone here has used Google, right? Google is a publicly traded business on Wall Street. So, by definition, Google is a corporation- it includes news services, email, image/web search, and more. And you can buy its stock, which I believe is doing quite well, enough so that they are having a second public offering.

[Achilles]

Yes, Google IPO'd quite handsomely over a year ago. But Internet companies aside, let's look at bare necessities. Most of the companies that you buy food, gas, beverages, toiletries, clothing, etc from are corporations. The car you drive is run by a corporation (unless you drive a Bentley or the like). The gas you put into it is manufactured by a corporation. The tires? You guessed it: corporation. You can't just hold up one or two poorly managed organizations and use them as justification to say that all corporations are evil.

[Lynk Former]

As long as money exists, corporations will exist. As long as there are limited resources, money will exist.

 

So to destroy a corporation you must give us unlimted resources which EVERYONE can access with next to no effort. But even then there will be different types of organisation, the difference will be that those entities won't be driven by money.

[vanir]

US governing administrations are corperations of a sort, albeit with objectives of self sufficiency rather than profit.

What would you have as an alternative? Monarchism? Dominance as "deigned by god" ?

Or you prefer the social route...public education systems can tell people their opinions?

 

Then there is the tenuous fact that many democratic laws do indeed facilitate criminal activities, as has been the long standing argument of religious fundamentalists.

But it is not the "corporations" who're telling you we're now at war with East Asia. It's your redneck neighbour and about 85% of the people who live in your street.

 

Corporations rarely victimise the "little guy," more typically they protect him...from the mob rule all societies tend towards. Fully half of all the "anti-corporation" claptrap you'll hear in your life is borne of villagers wielding torches and whingeing about who they can't and can't get away with socially disciplining.

 

You've got the guy who just can't stand it when someone is more imaginative than him. He wants to prove that guy isn't as physical.

The woman who thinks blondes get more attention from men. She wants to prove blonde means stupid then.

The old guy who refuses to look at his own character so he busily judges everybody else's.

The hag nobody wants to listen to so she pokes her nose over everybody else's fence.

The ape-heads who think small people should be dominated by larger people because the world just makes more sense that way.

The ones who think poverty is anybody's choice. Or victimisation is a matter of judging the victim.

 

These are the people who're "anti-corporation, down with the system," and oddly (<- sarcasm), the ones kept most in check by corperate establishment.

[Astrotoy7]

I dunno, if it werent for corporations like 20th Century Fox backing a young director in 1977 to make a "Flash Gordon type movie" , none of us would be here....

 

I think it is more important to focus on keeping corporations in line and allowing free trade, without exploitation than simply whining about how they suck(even though they indeed may!!)

 

mtfbwya

[Prime]

I work for a large multinational company. I guess I am evil too.

[El Sitherino]

I work for a large multinational company. I guess I am evil too.

Yeah, but for entirely different reasons.

[Vladimir-Vlada]

* Sigh... *

 

I delete this now before a flamewar breaks out.

 

Thread rescucitated.

 

Vlad, once again I'll ask you to leave moderation actions to the moderators. Please do not delete threads which contain other members posts for the sole reason that you do not agree with what other people say or because the answers are not exactly what you were expecting. I don't mind when people delete threads that have one or two posts but when there is a lenghty discussion going on, please leave the thread there. Debates are welcomed as long as they remain respectful of other members - D333

[Prime]

Yeah, but for entirely different reasons.

You are always blowing my cover. Jerk.

[Vladimir-Vlada]

@Darth333:

 

OK, sorry. I didn't know that what I did is not allowed, I thought that I could do that to my thread. I deleted it because I was afraid that I might start a flame war. So, I'll keep it clean.