The rise of the corporation follows the path of the rise of Western capitalist society. When industrial societies expanded, the birth of many corporations formed to consolidate power, market share and ultimately, profit. In the last century, the emergence of large multinational corporations (MNC)* has brought both benefits and numerous problems to our global society. The documentary film The Corporation has left an indelible mark on my perception on how globalization has affected poor countries. The film provides a critical review on the rise of MNC and its current corporate practices. The study of multinational corporations have led to the emergence of several academic approaches that question the merits and consequences of globalization. …show more content…
In the “Birth” segment, the film shows how the modern corporation began from the rise of the industrial revolution in the United Kingdom and slowly spread to America. The film shows the early concepts of a legal business corporation began as a government-chartered institution to assist in specific public projects with specific stipulations and liabilities. Influenced by corporate and banking lawyers, the U.S. Supreme Court came down with several controversial decisions expanding the personhood status of a corporation. In the “A Legal ‘Person’” segment, the film shows how American corporations are allowed to legal operate as a person, having rights to purchase other businesses and shield investors and its management from losses and sanctions by the corporations’ actions. Since the United States legal system concluded that a corporation should be legally considered a “person,” the producers chose to psychoanalyze this person and formulate a diagnosis based on their behavior in the corporate world. And this is the central point of this film: the modern corporation is diagnosed as a psychopath since it numerous actions are amoral, deceitful, incapable of guilt and failure to conform to social norms and respect the law (Achbar, 2003) By having personhood status, the American corporation was allowed to grow and take advantage of expanding their markets domestically and ultimately into
Under the supreme court ruling, corporations were granted corporate personhood--a term that in itself is an oxymoron. The term combines two words: corporate, meaning relating to a corporation, especially a large company or group, and personhood, meaning the quality or condition of being an individual person. One cannot be a part of a large company or group and be considered and individual person in the same aspect. Corporations are made up of individual people, who each possess the right of personhood, all making decisions based off of their own understanding of right and wrong. As Henry Thoreau said in his essay Civil Disobedience, “It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience”. The conscience of a corporation should never be called into question, but instead the conscience of those controlling the
Courts use a legal fiction of treating corporations as artificial persons in order to allow the law to apply to corporations as a whole. This concept actually began with ancient Rome, where a business was considered to be a single, non-human body made up of many people. In the United States, being treated as an artificial person means that corporations have many of the same duties, responsibilities and protections as
The ideas that corporations are viewed as people in the eyes of the law seems like a farfetched idea. However, with closer examination one cannot help but wonder if this is truly becoming the case. Since the 1950’s the rights of corporations have been expanding through multiple court cases that have charted the way for more recent cases like Citizens United v. FEC and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores . To better understand the notion that corporations are sometimes viewed as people it is important to understand the definition of a corporation. In the dictionary, a corporation is defined as a number of persons united in one body for a purpose . Even though it is hard for many to view a corporation as a “person”, it is undeniable that corporations
Ever since the outset of the industrial revolution, corporations have been an inherent constituent in American society. However, due to this heavy influence, corporations have ever since created a struggle with individuals for social, political, and economic power. At present, this issue is only being addressed at the economic level. Presidential candidates such as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are putting a considerable amount of attention towards corporate taxes but are neglecting the legal aspects of corporate personhood. The main issue besetting the United States as a whole, is legal reform among corporations because it is affecting the political values, freedoms, and security of the American people.
Social stratification implies the separation of a given populace into progressively superimposed classes. It is showed in the presence of upper and lower social layer. Its premise comprises in an unequal conveyance of rights and benefits, obligations and duties, social esteems, social power and impacts among the individuals from a general public. No general public is unstratified. Stratification includes the dissemination of unequal rights and benefits among the individuals from a general public. Social stratification is the division of society into lasting gatherings or classes connected with each other by the relationship of prevalence and subordination.
The idea of corporate personhood is not a few fangled idea brought on with the start of the 21st Century. The idea of protecting the rights of people associated with a corporation is far from new. Supreme Court decisions dating back over 200 years have blurred the lines between individual rights and the rights of corporations. The more recent cases Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores and Citizens United v. FEC are just a few of the recent case that have ruled in favor of expanding corporate personhood. However, there have been over fifteen major Supreme Court decisions that have changed the way corporations are viewed in the eyes of the law.
Transnational Corporations (TNC’s) play a large role in the development of the global economy, through the sharing of research, trade and technological advances between the different countries. They also play a big part in increasing the interconnection in the world’s economic, cultural and political systems, otherwise known as globalisation. Nevertheless there are both positive and negative impacts that TNC’s bring to the global economy, socially, economically, politically and culturally.
In the book, The Corporation Joel Bakan presents arguments, that corporations are nothing but institutional pathological psychopaths that are “a dangerous possessor of the great power it wields over people and societies.” Their main responsibility is maximizing profit for their stockholders and ignoring the means to achieve this goal, portrays them as “psychopathic.” Bakan argues that, corporations are psychopaths, corporate social responsibility is illegal, and that corporations are able to manipulate anyone, even the government.
The 2003 Canadian film documentary, The Corporation, is about the modern-day corporation. It critiques that it is considered to be a person, but since it has so many disregards to the human well-being and only cares about making as much money as possible, if it were an actual person it would be considered a psychopath.
In the book, The Corporation Joel Bakan, presents arguments: that corporations are nothing but institutional pathological psychopaths that are “a dangerous possessor of the great power it wields over people and societies.” Their main responsibility is maximizing profit for their stockholders and ignoring the means to achieve this goal. This in results portrays them as “psychopathic.” Bakan argues that: corporations are psychopaths, corporate social responsibility is illegal, and that corporations are able to manipulate anyone, even the government.
David Korten, Master of Business Administration and PhD Stanford, was consistently researching how businesses globally outcome the world. With numerous years of experience perusing business, David Korten published When Corporations Rule the World in 1995. When Corporations Rule the World gave readers his perspective of anti-globalization, which was a passion for David Korten. His primary idea was that business enterprises were manipulating the conclusion of the world 's economic and social involvement from this process of globalization. His sentiment about globalization directs politics, society, and environment in a negative direction for the human involvement. Korten states that multinational corporations acquired considerably amount power in determining the fate of the state.
Multinational companies can give have nations numerous advantages. Nonetheless, these foundations may likewise carry with them loose codes of moral lead that serve to misuse the poverty of creating countries, instead of to give the basic bolster important to countrywide financial and social advancement.
Dr. Farok J. Contractor is a professor in the Management and Global Business department of Rutgers Business School, New Jersey. He has written hundreds of articles on the topic of international alliance and foreign direct investment. “Punching above their weight: the sources of competitive advantage for emerging-market multinationals” is one such article of global interest which has been declared of great value both for the public as well as for policy makers. The prime focus of this article is upon the phenomenon of emerging market multinationals which have swept the world by storm and introduced a whole new way of conducting global leadership and business. These emerging market multinationals are specifically discussed
Big companies such as Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) is characteristic of the capitalist economic system which have a role as non-state actors. However, it is shown to have an important role and can determine the direction of the economy of a country that these companies invested. Multinational enterprises have developed since the early 19th century. In the 20th century, with the growth of information technology and transport, causing the expansion of international trade is increasing. Attributed to the establishment of branches in different countries to produce products which looks similar products manufactured in the home country in all respects and began to move the capital from the United States to invest in
Multinational Corporation may be defined as a group of people who works together in a private sector that produces whether goods or services and also brings into existence financial surpluses as target and also own assets used for production in more than one national unit in a global complex of nation states. The examples of multinational corporation companies are Coca Cola, Air France, chevron and so many others. Some of their advantages is that they operates massively, their assets and sales run into billions of dollars and make supernatural profits. They also operate all over the world, their control resides in the hand of individual organization but its interest and transaction spreads across national boundaries. It is also oligopolistic in structure, this occurs through the process of merger and turnover, they acquire awesome power coupled with it giant size makes in oligopolistic in character. They grow in a spontaneous and unconscious manner. They also operates in collective transfer of assets or resources which takes place in form of packages like equipment, machineries , raw materials, finished products and also managerial services. These are some of the benefits, it provides advanced technology and other technologies that are not in the host country, it also provides advanced capital internally and externally and gives a country the privilege to access global capital market. It allows the host country has access to superior global distribution and marketing