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THE CORPORATION: THE PATHOLOGICAL PURSUIT OF PROFIT AND POWER PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Joel Bakan | 272 pages | 23 Jun 2005 | Little, Brown Book Group | 9781845291747 | English | London, United Kingdom The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power PDF Book Sort order. View 1 comment. I cannot believe that these corporations get away with so much even after violating human rights on daily basis. Today, I'm giving it five stars because it is a succinct summary of what I know and believe about the institution of corporation, and because it is presented and backed up fantastically. View all 7 comments. Finally, something that is not really a complaint, but more an observation: this book was published in Complaint two: no consideration of contradictory evidence. This is what I gained from reading this short book. This book was an eye-opening and overall good read. This results in a pattern of social costs imposed by bsuiness in exchange for private gains for its executives and owners. Some of my favorite phrases were: "market fundamentalism and its facilitation of deregulation and privatization," "the expanding role of the state in protecting corporations from citizens," "socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor," "rationalized greed and mandated selfishness," and "the co-optation of government by business. In what Simon and Schuster describes as "the most revolutionary assessment of the corporation since Peter Drucker's early works", The Corporation makes the following claims:. Through vignettes and interviews, The Corporation examines and criticizes corporate business practices. How can we keep better eyes on the corporations that impact our society? Bakan includes these among his remedies on pages Granted, while I may not own a car, and resist the temptation to buy things that I do not need, I still live a rather luxurious life, and the fact that I can jump on a plane and fly to Europe and back, is a testament to that. I like electronics. Another point is that "corporations are designed to externalize their costs. Complaint one: reading through the end notes, you see as many as five "ibids" in a row. If the chance of getting caught and the penalty are less than it costs to comply, our people think of it as being just a business decision. See: Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy 2 Finance : the ultimate economic rent-seekers; capitalism's profit accumulation has required many adaptations in investment and debt. Dodge v. In Variety October 1, , Dennis Harvey praised the film's "surprisingly cogent, entertaining, even rabble-rousing indictment of perhaps the most influential institutional model for our era" and its avoidance of "a sense of excessively partisan rhetoric" by deploying a wide range of interviewees and "a bold organizational scheme that lets focus jump around in interconnective, humorous, hit-and-run fashion. It examines from the ground up how corporations have come to dominate our modern world and why the structure of the corporation has lead to abuses of resources, people and the environment in the pursuit of profit. That's something that you can't say about most things: people have conflicting desires, government has conflicting priorities and constituencies plus it changes direction so often. Back then, I would have eaten this book up, but these days I'm more skeptical. Definitely worth the read. That does not necessarily mean that it is good for us to live the luxurious lifestyles that we are living in the west, particularly since our lifestyles as all in history who live such extravagant lives are supported by slavery. When you see what has been added and taken away from the law in order to further corporate power and control, you truly see the writing of the devil. The book essentially asks for a New New Deal, but what we got instead are bailouts with no social responsibility attached. But it is very persuasive. The fact the profit motive has brought about pivotal innovation? I don't agree with him that the corporation is some kind of aberrant Frankenstein monster. And corporations really took off when limited liability was entrenched, thus freeing shareholders of any Basic premise of the book is to say that if corporations were real people as the courts look at them as , then they are terrible pathological human beings with no morals and we need to do something about it. Then you are directly supporting his practices and products. The corporate response was public relations , to create the image of corporate human values. Bakan, who is also a professional jazz guitarist, grew up in East Lansing, Michigan and now lives in Vancouver, Canada with his wife, Rebecca Jenkins, and their two children, Myim and Sadie. The book, on the whole, is worth reading. An ambitious and way-out radical conclusion, but the premise and examples are well-illustrated and well- argued. His critically acclaimed international hit, The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power Free Press, , electrified readers around the world it was published in over 20 languages , and became a bestseller in several countries. The Corporation Theatrical release poster. Given that corporations enjoy legal classification as people, one might call their pursuit of profit-at-all-costs psychopathic. And for the people working these places, that are doing 'bad things' or creating bad results as corollaries to their goals, it's easy to say 'just doing what I'm told, it's just my job' all the way up and down the chain Corporations, Bakan notes, were created by government, and given power by government. This site uses cookies to recognize users and allow us to analyse site usage. Fouling the environment and leaving the mess for somebody else to clean up is exactly what "externalizing costs" is all about. John Dodge wanted to start his own business with the dividend earned from Ford stocks, and he took Ford to court when the dividend was canceled. The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power Writer Similarly, the Great Depression prompted the image of corporate responsibility. Let's face it, if you're reading this book in the first place, much of what is in it will seem familiar or even redundant. Rome ended up collapsing, and with it creating a dark age of epic proportions, and that is something that we are even now also looking at. Subtly over time, the wo This book is a short but deep read. Bakan also looks at how corporations are further pushing into more areas traditionally maintained by the government such as schools and public spaces and how it is detrimental to society, mostly focusing on advertisement to children. Eminent Canadian law professor and legal theorist Joel Bakan contends the modern business corporation is created by law to function like a psychopathic personality. But Bakan believes change is possible and he outlines a far-reaching program of achievable reforms through legal regulation and democratic control. It's message is compelling-- and more important now than ever. Let's face it, if you're reading this book in the first place, much of what is in it will seem familiar or even re This is the companion book to the excellent documentary called, unsurprisingly, "The Corporation". If I had read this book five years ago, I would be giving it five stars for opening my eyes. When you see what has been added and taken away from the law in order to further corporate power and control, you truly see the writing of the devil. He shows by citing court cases that it is the duty of management to make money and that any compromise with that duty is dereliction of duty. Besides, if the corporations have the government officials in their pockets, then how can we even expect them to execute the regulations fairly? How can we make the world different? May 13, Ian O'Sullivan rated it it was amazing. Email this page. When it is too expensive to actually deal with the waste properly, and the laws that prevent the corporation from dumping the wast are weak, or even non-existent, then the most cost effective way to deal with waste is to externalise it that is dump it into the river and make it somebody else's problem. Corporations : in the end, the Frankenstein-esque Corporation is still a legal entity, created and maintained by laws. It's more of a basic outline of how shitty corporations are for people who might still not quite understand that. General Motors studied the best place to locate the gas tank to minimize the risk of a fire in the event of a crash. In addition, he provides a timeline of how corporations came into being and how they became such a strong force in our society. The corporate response was public relations , to create the image of corporate human values. The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power Reviews The tentacles of corporations are so far reaching, I'm not sure how the country goes about extracting itself from the death grip we've gotten ourselves wrapped up in. There is a whole chapter on sweatshops that will blow your mind away and it is frightening. The book doesn't specifically state this, but the thought process is clear: the author conceives of history as a straight line, where current trends continue unabated into the future. Joel Bakan is a professor of law at the University of British Columbia, and an internationally renowned legal scholar and commentator. By that time, I'd gotten off his train several stations back.

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