As
an undergrad I read a book titled The Corporation The Pathological
Pursuit of Logic and Power by
Joel Bakan. This book compares the corporation to a psychopath going
through several points that define psychopaths and explaining how
corporations are the same. The idea did not originate with this book
but it was certainly made more famous through the book and
documentary on the subject. The Corporation
made a lot of sense to me, in fact it fell right in line with many
of my beliefs. I am wary of being close minded, and getting caught up
in only ideas that fall in line with my personal view of the world. I
seek opposing views, so that I can reanalyze my own. However, thus
far my views of corporations have only been confirmed- with the
exception of the information we received about Patagonia, which I feel I
simply do not fully understand enough to discover where the dirty
corporate psychopath lies within that company... I realize this is
based on my personal bias... I'm working on it (on a side note I saw
recently that the CEO of Whole Foods co-authored a book Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business,
I would really like to read this and see what arguments they offer). Back to the point at hand, Kovel's argument does absolutely
nothing to change my opinions of corporations. This causes a mixture
of emotions really, satisfaction, despair frustration…
Kovel says "capital shapes as well as selects the kinds of people who create these events." This idea takes the comparison of the corporation to a psychopath a little further to another popular comparison, the idea of the CEO, the 'corporate leaders,' as psychopaths. There is much discussion about the corporate world turning people into psychopaths, the system takes in people wraps them up in a big ole blanket of capitalism and turns them into a psychopath… This makes the idea of environmentalists infiltrating corporations to steer them in the right direction seem a mite less feasible… We can go in with all the right intentions but eventually we get broken down and turned into a product of the system. But… what if we infiltrated en masse, this is obviously more of a thought experiment than something very plausible, but bear with me for a moment. What if a huge group of environmentalists filled high level positions in the largest corporations, what would happen? What could happen? The shareholders might not be happy if stock value goes down, but if all of the major shareholders are us… it would require a great deal of reframing.. but if it was actually feasible it does seem like a good way to reframe. Corporations after all hold a lot of the worlds power and money, they are the ones leading the cultural change in globalization, forcing their products into the homes of people who wouldn't normally purchase them by using the culture of these people in their marketing strategy, thus effectively using their culture to change their culture. mind bomb. Just like we saw in Peter Dauvergne's discussion on the introduction of diapers into China. It is going to require something very big it seems to me right now to create the kind of social change that is required to move us into living sustainable lives, but I have no idea what kind of change that might be, nor do I have any idea what this sustainable life we might lead would look like… thats something to look into, what would the world look like if we truly lived with nature?
Alright, gear change.
I
very much like the way Kovel shapes this chapter, the use of the
Bhopal 'accident' as a study. I appreciate that he goes through very systematically – logically – and searches for an explanation –
causality – of the things he discusses. Very philosophical thinking which I enjoy. I also appreciate how he
hits the big points, or at least points I find to be big. More
specifically Kovel's discussion on Environmental Economics as a
tool to right environmental wrongs is very relevant for me as I am
currently taking Environmental Economics. In my class we are presented with very clean solutions, we of course look at the struggles faced by Environmental Economists as well, but the solutions they come up with are presented as inherently good ideas, which would solve the worlds problems if we would just follow and implement them correctly. Kovel doesn't think so. I'm inclined to view the tools of Environmental Economics as a tool, a tool to introduce change, it seems to me that we need to work with the current system in place, to change minds in view points subtlety so that people don't even realize it's happening.
Frequently after running through brief thought series about how to make the world a better place, I end up with communism.. the sharing of resources, everyone has their own place. But in a beautiful harmonious, circle of life nature like way, not in a Stalin kind of way. Poor Marx if he could see what has become of his wonderful ideas in the general understanding. Kovel's frequent references to Marx's ideas are intriguing. Certainly they are natural references considering Marx's extensive focus on capitalism, but I've never read something about corporations situated within capitalism with the reflections of Marx so succinctly brought in, and it was very satisfying and certainly thought provoking.
And that mess of thoughts is what I have to say about that.
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