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The thing I sometimes have trouble with is: 1. Corporations behave like sociopaths. 2. Corporations don't really exist. They're a legal fiction that, in reali
by spangry 10y ago
The thing I sometimes have trouble with is:
1. Corporations behave like sociopaths.
2. Corporations don't really exist. They're a legal fiction that, in reality, is just a group of people working towards a common goal (maximum profit).
I wonder if it's counter-productive to think and speak of corporations as some sort of separate entity to the people it is composed of. I think the notion that 'corporations are evil sociopaths' is one of those thought-stopping 'mind-killers'. Corporations don't have intent, good or bad; they don't really exist (except in our minds).
As harsh as it may sound, if we want a 'corporation' to behave ethically, then we should assign blame to those that are perpetrating the harm: to the employees, managers and owners of that corporation. It's their collective efforts and actions that have led to unethical outcomes, not the singular effort of some invisible corporate spectre.
I think it's the only possible way to fight this 'diffusion of responsibility' that allows a whole bunch of (mostly) normal people to all do tiny unethical acts that, when viewed in aggregate, are abhorrent. I suspect whatever the best solution is will be similar (or analogous) to how you overcome the 'bystander effect': rather than saying 'someone call 911', say 'you, guy in the red shirt (point at him), call 911'.
tl;dr - It turns out the Ring of Gyges is not a ring at all. It's a multi-story building filled with rows of cubicles.
- scalio 10y agoThinking of corporations in terms of its employees means said employees have to take responsibility for their products. I'm all for it. The same can be applied to governments (though I believe it's less of a problem than with corporations): it's not "the government" that's fucking things up, it's the people in it.
- meshr 10y agoI agree. Moreover, we have ‘smart contracts’ technology now to make responsible society real. The problem is that we have too much parasites in human society who fight against progress in this area to protect their status quo. I think that in future responsible people won’t share the same economics/law system as irresponsible one, the same way humans are separated from the animals now. This split will happen once the world bullshit reaches its critical mass to make all reasonable people to unite.
- scalio 10y agoHuh, do you think all the status-quo-preserving douchebags will want to live by themselves? That's no fun, is it? Then again, the internet is young. Maybe such segregation would work, but I'm not a fan of the idea. I'd rather try getting everybody on the intellectual boat, mostly to avoid segregation but also because smart asshats exist (my hope being that the beauty of responsible society swings them over).
- TeMPOraL 10y agoI think it is accurate to talk about corporations like separate entities - alien entities, in the same way we sometimes talk about "market" as an entity, or about "$country" when we mean its government's decisions. In a complex organization composed of many individuals pursuing somewhat aligned, but ever so slightly different agendas, there may not be any single person to blame for the aggregate behaviour. I see your suggestion of overcoming "diffusion of responsibility" as a way to kill the alien being corporation is. When you force things to be set up in such a way a single individual (or a small group) is ultimately responsible for some area of corporate behaviour, you reduce the chance of corporation displaying some emergent behaviour that no human can prevent or vouch for. Seems like an interesting and maybe even good idea to me.