This will definitely be my last comment if I find out Rethos.com is selling my information to anyone, including “socially responsible” corporations.

Right on Kiadso, seeing this on rethos has worried me too. The imagination cannot even entertain the idea of a democratic corporation…its just not possible. Corporate divisions of labor are demeaning and corrupting. Corporate promises of environmental friendliness, or whatever are but illusions, because continual profit expansion just does not logically coincide with social justice and equity. The money and wealth have to be channeled somewhere right? And I don’t think a corporation will ever give up its profits to better the community..except for shallow charity work used to raise profits (otherwise it’d be illegal, its technically a form of theft to engage in an act that will knowingly lower the company’s worth). It’s not that the people working at corporations are evil people, its just that the institutional rules force evil actions…individual neurons aren’t evil, its the rules that dictate their firing that are evil.

And evil is not too strong a word. Like The Corporation points out, corporations are psychopaths willing to stomp anything that impedes those margins’ growth out of existence. If consumers demand that corporations be environmentally sustainable, employ balanced job complexes (where everyone engages in both stimulating and mundane tasks), show full transparency of operations, promote human rights by paying a decent wage across the globe, redistribute a percentage of profits to needed resources, and accept a degree of manipulation by the community it serves, we wouldn’t really have a corporation anymore now would we?

Hopefully rethos isn’t selling our info to “socially responsible corporations.” If so, we need another platform to actually bring about a society that provides goods and services in a community-oriented fashion through democratic participation. Kinda sounds like a co-op huh? Thats what we need, a co-op based society, maybe a little tweaked but ultimately, I think its the only way to have economic democracy.

I thought that you would be interested in viewing this website because I think it represents a beginning for fighting the tide of corporate destruction. It uses art and good research and mostly healthy skepticism to reveal the dangers of falling for the Global Corporate Line. Dow Chemical has tried to convince us all about their good citizenship…and this site unmasks them brilliantly. Seeing is a beginning. I’d be interested in your reactions.

Meet the new boss-same as the old boss…

Interesting post Kiadso. However, I do feel like we are taking the inclusion of corporations on this site in the wrong fashion.

I see Rethos as a tool. A tool that allows us to educate, influence, and help make this world a better place. Rethos, from my understanding, is a platform for change. And the only way to start such a change is to initiate a discussion.

I want to see corporations on this site. I want to hear what companies are doing to make a difference and look at how genuine their intentions are. I want us to propose solutions and I want these corporations to listen to us. I want us to find their flaws, their misrepresentations, and encourage companies to pursue positive change.

Any corporation that comes on this site cares enough about CSR to open themselves to the mercy of Rethos citizens. This requires courage. These companies should be welcomed because they want to make a difference… As should we.

We are being afforded the opportunity to influence “powerful” corporations, and to discard such an opportunity is sensless. Instead of talking amongst ourselves, we can talk with people that have the resources, organization, and brands to make a difference.

Its possible that you might see Rethos in a different light then I. But, I can tell you one thing, I would hate to condemn Rethos to becoming a platform for ramblings rather than a platform where true change can happen.

Peace

Ian, it’s unfortunate that you consider many of the anti-corporate and non-corporation-based writings to be “ramblings.” I don’t feel the way to fundamental economic and social change is to create profit-seeking corporations draped in green colors. Let’s not encourage people to start corporations (where only the few people at the top will most likely benefit) and instead, encourage people to start cooperatives (Like Richard states) that are based on mutual benefit instead of profit. Thanks for your ideas, Richard.

Even if the next person to be a corporate billionaire believes in fundamental economic and social change, I don’t feel they’ll make an impact on the world as a whole. The kind of impact I’m workinf for comes from the billions of people on the planet working together. Green corporations seem to lead to Green billionaires, that’s all. Corporations within a Capitalist economy like the one in the U.S. only care about one thing … profit.

Akeeba, lets be clear on something (and please re-read my post cause clearly you have misinterpreted). I have never stated that the anti-corporate and non-corporation-based writings to be “ramblings.” The defintion of rambling is “going on for a long time” and when I refer to it, I refer to our discussions which we carry out as a community which do not draw out change. A proposed solution is great, but how do we implement it? This is where I see working with corporations beneficial. They have the ability to implement our propositions.

I like to see corporations as well, but only to learn about their practices. The fact that they are on this site most certainly does not mean that they are courageously trying to make a difference by throwing themselves at our mercy. It means, we are a profitable market, and they are trying to get us to buy their stuff any way they can. Now I think this is a great idea. Let’s tell them what we want.

We want you, corporations, to pay laborers a standard minimum wage… 10 dollars an hour. We want you to become directly accountable to the public, meaning, if a community decides they don’t want you around, you have no right to set up shop. Wal-mart, I’m talking to you.. in Austin, Texas you are taking over Northcross mall and people are very upset about it. Please leave. We want you all to advertise on your product and on your commercials your labor practices, your percentage of profits given back to communities, results of independent studies comparing similar products, death and injury resulting from your practices, animal treatment, number of anti-trust violations, and other things I’m sure I’m leaving out. This type of advertising would undoubtedly slaughter profit-margins..public relations is a massive massive industry because psychology can be used to get people to buy things without actually making the “thing” better – it is a despicable, corrupting practice, and would essentially be done away with.

If DOW advertised its testing practices and deaths caused it would hemorrhage money. If IBM advertised its prior nazi support it’s profits would take swan dive. If KFC plastered its abuse of chickens on every bucket the ensuing shareholder lawsuit would be over before Judge Judy’s first commercial break.

Oh, and, corporations, you can’t own two or more businesses whose coinciding interests disrupt democracy. G.E. you’re out. G.E owns NBC, and is a war contractor. NBC, as a media station, should disseminate information in an unbiased way, but how can it? With profits as the sole motivating factor, It would be silly NOT to use NBC to make war more likely..people love war-related media which increases advertisement value, and war means big aircraft, water treatment, etc. contracts. Imagine Halliburton bringing you news. In fact, Halliburton is a good comparison. Former CEO, Dick Cheney, is our Vice President. GE director, Sam Nunn, was senator of Georgia for 27 years. If that’s not a conflict of interest I don’t know what is. So you also can’t share politicians, OK corporations? And no lobbying as well, it’s not right to change the laws so you can make more money at our expense. AT&T and Comcast, stop lobbying to eliminate net neutrality so you can make a few more bucks, we like our websites being equal in cyberspace(I’d like to know your opinion on net neutrality, Ian). Rethos shouldn’t be disadvantaged by Change.org because Chang.org paid Comcast to have it load faster (not true to my knowledge). G.E might pay to have its websites load faster than DemocracyNow.org because Democracy Now dissuades people from supporting a war. All these things are kind of a bummer on that profit-margin..but that’s what we want.

In sum, if corporations did what we think they should do, a wave of suicides would wash over Wall Street.

Do you see the depth and width of the web we face. And rest (or don’t) assured it is a hard web to cast off, it is tenacious, powerful, and armed to the teeth with a ferocious greed and awesome power (something like half of the world’s 100 biggest economies are corporations). This web, undemocratically and unaccountably, reaches almost every aspect of your life, bowing only in the presence of profits. Why would we want a structure like this dominating our lives, if we had a say, we wouldn’t have them act this way.

For precisely this reason, we forge our say.. by creating structures that give everyone a voice, that allow those most affected by decisions to affect the decisions. I’m sure the residents of Richland, Washington would like to at least have known when GE released large amounts of radiation into the air to see how far it would travel. The soldiers who worked with Agent Orange would’ve appreciated a heads-up from DOW about its demonically deforming effects. It is our responsibility to do away with a system that encourages this type of behavior. The incentives run the wrong way – toward corruption not honesty, distortion not clarity, ignorance not enlightenment, authoritarianism not democracy. We can create a system with honorable and just mechanisms – we are human beings, the most complex information processing entities in the known universe. If we cannot come up with a freer and fairer way of producing goods and services, then I say we deserve the inevitable fate of corporatism.

Akeeba, I’m glad the ideas I present help you develop your own. Michael Albert’s economic vision ParEcon has helped me a lot. Look it up on www.znet.org

If you, or anyone else, haven’t looked at zmag and znet definitely check them out. Znet is a great place to regain your strength after taking a beating from the corporate media all day. Zmag is the original magazine.

Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and other notable progressive activists have blogs on there and very lively debate is commonplace. Give it a look.

I think that yes, there could be a wholly socially resonsible corporation.
The point, however, is that there never has been one and never will be one, since once a corporation becomes completely socially responsible, it ceases to be defined as a corporation. I believe that this is the case, but if anyone thinks differently, please respond.

Ian,

You say: “We are being afforded the opportunity to influence “powerful” corporations, and to discard such an opportunity is sensless.”

That’s an interesting take on this situation, but I disagree. It sounds like you’re saying that because corporations are powerful, we should feel grateful for the chance to beg them not to abuse their power that they shouldn’t have anyway? Also, I cannot for one minute imagine a corporation taking anything from an article posted on Rethos and making a company policy decision based on it. Corporations on Rethos would want to be on Rethos not to learn from us, but to SOLICIT us. And because we’re a “target market”, they would know exactly the right greenwashing things to say in order to do this successfully. It’s yet another way of making more money no matter how you want to dress it up.

You also say: “Rethos, from my understanding, is a platform for change. And the only way to start such a change is to initiate a discussion.”

Why would initiating a discussion with a corporation help? Why not a platform to initiate discussion with elected officials? Discussing policy issues with elected officials would make way more sense than begging corporations to please not use the power they have that they shouldn’t have in the first place.

Also, speaking of initiating a discussion, where is the Rethos staff in this discussion? I’m disturbed by their silence on this issue. I’m still not convinced of the reasoning behind calling this site a platform for change. It seems like the reality is they’re asking us “consumers” to accept the way things are (corporate power is here to stay!) and use their site to take feeble swings at the symptoms (corporate abuses of power) of the problem (capitalism), while at the same time, corporations get access to the neatly packaged little target market that we are.

Kiadso,

You say: “I cannot for one minute imagine a corporation taking anything from an article posted on Rethos and making a company policy decision based on it. Corporations on Rethos would want to be on Rethos not to learn from us, but to SOLICIT us.”

You’re partially right on this. A corporation does wants to solicit you. However, corporations would join the Rethos community specifically for the purposes of learning from you. How can they sell to you if they don’t know what it is that you want?

You say: ”...because we’re a “target market”, they would know exactly the right greenwashing things to say in order to do this successfully…”

Could we be so naive and maleable, even after having all these discussions about the corruption of corporations, that we would accept any form of greenwashing? Under any form of scrutiny, greenwashing is easily uncovered and companies would be foolish to attempt such.

Continuously, one must remember the medium in which Rethos is based on; a web 2.0 environment isn’t easy for a corporation to greenwash the public. It’s not like putting an ad campaign plastered on the back of a bus, or getting a spot on CNN where they report exactly what you say. Any corporation that joins is going to have to respond to our questions, if asked. If their answers don’t add up to what they are made out to be, their credibility is quickly dissolved.

Ian, I think you severely underestimate the craftiness of the corporate world and overestimate its legitimacy.

Why should we even bother to pester and prod these organizations time and time again, just constantly trying to get them to stop their greedy ways? Boycott after boycott, trial after trial, struggle after struggle. Here’s the ultimate problem – they aren’t going to do an inch more than they have to, to make money. Its always going to be an uphill battle. True, starting a co-op based society is an uphill battle as well, but at least once its set off we can be certain that the fair practices will be maintained, because they are directly accountable to the community – you can literally vote them out of existence, become a coordinator, determine the profit flow – all these liberties unavailable in a corporate system.

But here’s the worse part…corporations provide many of our necessary goods and services. Really think the oil companies give a shit about our little movement? – as long as we need that energy to keep our economies running, they have free reign my friend. See, once a corporation realizes there’s not much the public can do to make it lose money, they’ll take full advantage and pillage..right up to the point where someone notices, then they pull some PR stunt and pillage a little more quietly. Either you are very disingenuous, Ian, or do not grasp the extent to which corporations dominate our lives.

Unraveling the corporate web of power takes a hell of a lot more energy than questioning a few upstarts on their practices. It takes pulling apart G.E, Viacom, Clearchannel, the banking cartels. Alright, which seems easier – getting corporations to begin to advertise their harmful practices, redistribute income, completely redo job structures, separate mega-conglomerates, essentially give up the majority of their power and profits…or creating a movement in which people take charge of their own economic destiny by truly managing economic affairs democratically in the form of co-ops and other democratic organizations. Rather tame a forever resentful dragon, or raise a loyal dog?

Its not just easier, its more logical overall. We create and support the institutions that will give everyone a direct voice regardless of wealth. You see, those who are invisible to the unseen hand of the market will never be cared for in a free market system. Think healthcare – will a corporation ever research and create a drug for a disease that affects only the poor? That CEO would be forced out the door immediately for putting the profit-margin at risk. Who’s going to buy the drug? The Gates Foundation maybe, but, really, charity can only go so far.

How are we supposed to get healthcare corporations on board with our ideas? Boycott corporations who…don’t spend tons of money researching and developing drugs for the poor? Eventually we’re gonna have to come up with a new way to develop medication anyway because all those corporations will go out of business.

We cannot sit around babysitting these things, checking everyday to see whether or not they did something greedy, malicious, deceitful, corrupting. The moment we turn our backs, they will turn on us and take full advantage of any little opportunity to sidestep just practices, to overlook fair policies, because in the end they’ll be richer for it. They just have to pretend they didn’t see it happening.

Why try and control a psychopathic structure with cameras and chains, when you can just as easily have confidence in a moral, accountable one.

All this talk of having corporations answer to the rethos community is pure propaganda. It ignores the larger problems inherent in corporations, and leads us to believe anything other than total economic democracy is acceptable. Believe me, it isn’t.

Richard brings some very interesting commentary. However, what Richard is doing is what we call projection; because a couple of corporations that are harmful to humanity, all corporations must therefore be the same.

Unfortunately, this is very far from reality. The reason why I actually take offense to this depiction is because, I work for a corporation that does good things for people. And, the reality is, there are a lot more corporations like the one I work for then the large corporations that Richard depicts.

Let me tell you a story that may make you appreciate some good things about the corporation;

Though you may not believe it (for those that have read the posts in which I participate in), I used to not really like business and I didn’t even know what capitalism was. My passion was actually for music. I didn’t care about money, or even being able to put food on the table, I was devoting my life to my art.

While studying piano interpretation at university, I went through a very traumatizing experience; the best musician I knew who was finishing up his PhD in Piano told me that he was leaving the profession. He said “there just isn’t enough money in music for me to make a living. How am I supposed to put food on the table for my family?”. So, my friend dropped out and started in computer science because he felt he could make a good living at geek squad (or something else in computers…whatever).

At that point, I questioned why would he do such a thing. He was the best musician I knew! He won every major piano competition in Canada and was on his way to being a star.

At that point, I decided I was going to do something. I saw so many friends that had superior skills in music leave the profession that something had to be done.

So, I had a vision. I saw myself starting a business that would serve musicians. And, I had a good idea, but not how to get there.

At that point, I dropped out of music school and went to business school, where, for the first time since high school, I had to read print instead of sheet music. During that experience, I was introduced to a whole new world; a world of possibility, a world where entrepreneurial dreams could come true if you had the will and a good plan.

During business school, I found my way; In 2002, I officially started a music school, made by musicians for musicians. The concept was simple; we helped musicians start a teaching practice,by linking piano students with piano teachers. We didn’t have a location; teachers would go to the students house. With an investment of maybe $5.00, we grew to a couple of hundred students (which in Canada, it’s like a mega-corporation…kidding). We had so many clients that we actually had to turn them down; we just didn’t have enough teachers. But, out of the whole ordeal, my favorite part of this business was that we were the highest paying music school in North America (that I know of). We payed our teachers $40.00 an hour while our competitors were giving their employees $18.00, less than half what we paid. And, not that it was really important to me at that time, we were more profitable than all are competitors.

Out of that experience, I saw musicians be able to work 2 days a week and have their careers blossom.

Now, I am sure someone will find a crafty way of crushing my little business because it was an evil for-profit company. I may even have critic for not making it a non-profit or co-op. But, the reality is, I deserved every last penny I made from it. I bled for that company and sacrificed a lot of my life for it. I worked 7 days a week for years. In fact, I had my teachers telling me to pay them less!

But, here is the reality… My story is 1000 times more common in today’s day and age then any “scandalous, corrupting, greedy, malicious corporation” that Richard proposes is the norm. There are millions of entrepreneurs like me that have started corporations around the world and are doing good things for those around them.

Richard, you say: “Ian, I think you severely underestimate the craftiness of the corporate world and overestimate its legitimacy”.

Richard, you’re talking to a guy that has legitimized it…

Well what a fine debate!

If I may chime in…

So-called “Social Responsibility” is clearly in opposition and empirically opposed to the bottom line (profit) where corporations are concerned. If nothing changes regarding the “appropriate” behavior of corporations, (whether by interventions or levees or legislation), then there will be no incentive for corporations to take on any responsibility other than the ONE they currently maintain: a responsibility to maximize profits for their investors (period).

Anyone who believes otherwise, in my opinion, suffers from a very common condition: an addiction to the form of Capitalism. This system has become, for many, what water is to fish. A fish may prefer warmer to colder water, faster or stiller water, shallower or deeper water, and so on…but it’s not going to question the water!

Unlike fish and their connection to water, we are not dependent upon capitalism for our survival. But so many of us think we are; and can’t imagine any other way of being.

Take “carbon offset trading” as a perfect example of how corporations, via capitalism, are now convincing consumers that the path to saving our planet rests in yet another marketplace solution. Scratch the surface of this scheme and find the World Bank and Maurice Strong and other corporate culprits profiteering like it’s World War II all over again.

And Ian, unless you plan to franchise your music school globally, and further plan to diversify your interests to include instrument manufacturers, and further seek to infiltrate public school systems to impart your private music curriculum (in the name of greater efficiency and reduced costs)...unless you have sought serious venture capital to support a charted growth plan meant to dominate a great sector of music education here and abroad…then your “company” hardly qualifies, amongst the behemoths we speak of typically when we talk about “Corporations”.

It’s like comparing corner stores and Wal-Marts.

Amen.

Ian, we applaud your effort and respect your company. We understand people generally have good intentions. Do you think the receptionist at Kaiser Permanente likes to turn down life-saving procedures, or that Ford managers enjoy laying off thousands of people? The good intentions of any corporation on the stock exchange is limited by the growth of the profit margin. Any altruistic action that doesn’t make money will never happen. Tell me, how the hell do you make money from allowing the community you serve and employ have a say in distributing profits, something that would quickly bring the developing world out of despondency? So, unless you have reversed the incentives that caused IBM to sell information processing machines to the Nazis to facilitate the death camp process, Enron to lie to the public, and telecom companies to seize the internet and destroy net neutrality, you really haven’t legitimized a damn thing.

Ian, how do you propose to deal with these incentives? How do you segregate corporations and politicians?

Like fullmoon said, aside from governmental restrictions on practices, corporations have no incentive to change. And evidenced by the huge amount of corporate welfare, lobbyists, and the WTO, corporations have huge political power – makes sense, since changing laws that profits don’t care for makes shareholders happy. Like you said Ian, corporations have the power to make change, more power than consumers, a very very dangerous situation.

The corporate and capitalist structure doesn’t have the foresight to deal with the impending energy crisis from the peak in oil production. It can’t realize that in 2050 we’re gonna need four times the energy we need now. It weeds out any technology that can’t be profited from.

Unless I’m missing something, the only factor that corporations consider when making any decision is the profit margin. So, it would take a huge, perpetual, and likely impossible, effort to corral these institutions when thats the only bargaining chip.

Better to create a different way of getting goods out there. Better to fight for total economic democracy. Only a human being allowed to exercise his full rational potential can plan for the future, with our current structure rational societal planning bends over for profit-making – allowing greed (by definition the purpose of corporations, this is beyond dispute) to dictate the course of society WILL result in the fall of our modern society.

“Power today resides in control of the means of production, exchange, publicity, transportation and communication. Whoever owns them rules the life of the country, even if democratic forms remain. Business for private profit through private control of banking, land, industry reinforced by command of the press, press agents and other means of publicity and propaganda, that is the system of actual power, the source of coercion and control, and until it’s unravelled we can’t talk seriously about democracy and freedom.”
-John Dewey-

Fullmoonmedia, you mentioned: ”...comparing corner stores and Wal-Marts.”
Ironically, all corporations start that way; as a corner store. Just as Walmart did.

That really reinforces the problem with the corporate capitalist structure. You start with a small corner store and end up with an unethical, life insurance-taking out, bullying, giant of a complex, because the profit motive drives the whole process.

It’s just that when they’re little you don’t really have to worry about them because their power isn’t as overwhelming as your News corp’s and Clearchannel’s…yet. Given enough time the structure moves toward the life-dominating corporations we see now.

It is precisely this reason, because small-time, mom and pop, well-intentioned endeavors can take on a life of their own and come to rule the manufacturing and distribution of vital goods and services that we need an entirely different sort of economy – a participatory economy that isn’t predicated on greed and competition. The co-op promotes a sense of solidarity and community. It is not difficult to imagine the entire world consisting of concentric, nested worker and consumer councils that evolves from a solid co-op foundation.

Visit www.znet.org and read on the debates of a post-capitalist society. The potential is there for an economy that places more emphasis on needs, rationality, as well as efficiency because it includes more parameters in its functions than simple profit-expansion.

It’s about time to evolve from this capitalist world into something more holistic. An anacrho-syndicalist society is most fitting for a technology advancing culture. It allows for free association of ideas and a much much faster progression of technology because an advancement isn’t bound by its market-value, but true intrinsic value to society.

Ian, I’m afraid logic and reason is against you and the corporate world, and it is only a matter time before the majority of people realize this. The idea is spreading and like all other reproductive mechanism, is doing so exponentially. I beleive we are at the cusp where that seemingly linear trend turns upwards and transforms our way of life. This has been the case with every economic and social movement in the past, including capitalism.

But this doesnt mean we can sit around and wait for it to happen. No, we are part of that graph and must push to make that turn upwards occur as soon as possible. The survival of the people in the poverty-stricken areas that give corporations their valued cheap labor is contingent on our actions. But if left to fester, this system will create in our sector of the world the same conditions we see in southern Africa and Asia, and Latin America.

This system is nothing but a human creation, and it takes only a decision on the part of those of us who see the inherent flaws to change it. Get involved in your local activist organizations..sit around, talk about the importance of economic democracy, when you get enough support try and build up credit unions, and co-ops. Network with as many people as you can. Change really is inevitable once we focus on it.

Mr. Treadwell, you mention:”...You start with a small corner store and end up with an unethical, life insurance-taking out, bullying, giant of a complex, because the profit motive drives the whole process.”

Are you saying that if my little music school grows to be big, it will be unethical? Its values will be out the door?

Here is the reality; Corporations are not evil. Its the people that run them who are. Set the incentives to make a company ethical, virtuous, and moral and it will be.

I am sure many of you might say that this is not possible; corporations are made for one thing and thats profit. That is a false statement. Ethics have become extremely important to the business world because we realize that if we want to build a business for the future, we need to make a business which is fit for human beings.

Bollocks! As long as the CEO of a publicly held corporation is subject to the laws governing corporations in the United States he/she has one, and only one, duty to perform and failure to exercise all of his/her abilities and resources in the service of that duty is a breach of that duty: that duty is to maximize profits for the shareholders. Any diversion of resources or wealth to projects or processes or the promotion and sale thereof is a breach of that fiduciary duty unless they are specifically designed to increase the fiscal bottom line.

Until the laws regulating corporations are changed to impose other duties on managers and boards of directors, the age of the socially responsible corporate entity will be as superficial and false as the idea that GE “brings good things to life” or that you can increase your sense of physic well-being by drinking Coca Cola.

Ian: “Are you saying that if my little music school grows to be big, it will be unethical? Its values will be out the door?”

Answer: YES

Reason from Ian: “But, the reality is, I deserved every last penny I made from it. I bled for that company and sacrificed a lot of my life for it. I worked 7 days a week for years. In fact, I had my teachers telling me to pay them less!”

(Notice the possessive manner in which Ian writes about ‘his’ teachers. Humans cannot be owned. Notice how he assumes his suffering and risk to have been (and possibly still be) greater than the suffering and risk taken by the years of practicing and not-knowing-what-the-future-holds that each teacher goes through. This quote shows Ian’s disconnection between himself (owner) and the employees and his addiction to a capitalist economic structure.)

Fullmoonmedia: “Anyone who believes [a corporation’s main responsibility is NOT to maximize profits for their investors], in my opinion, suffers from a very common condition: an addiction to the form of Capitalism.”

Alec: “Until the laws regulating corporations are changed to impose other duties on managers and boards of directors, the age of the socially responsible corporate entity will be as superficial and false as the idea that GE “brings good things to life” or that you can increase your sense of physic well-being by drinking Coca Cola.”

Ian: “Ironically, all corporations start … as a corner store. Just as Walmart did.”

(In a capitalist economy, continued growth and capital gain is extremely important to the success of any business. Especially in today’s global market. A corporation that’s not able to mass-produce and mass-market, while keeping profit up, simply cannot survive. In the case of a corner store, it may survive for a while, but as soon as one of the big corporate stores moves in close, the corner store is faced with a choice: expand to become a mega store that must focus on profit and maximizing capital, sell out to the big corporate store if it’s buying, or close down. It’s unfortunate that this is the case, but in the U.S., this is the case.)

Richard: “It is precisely this reason, because small-time, mom and pop, well-intentioned endeavors can take on a life of their own and come to rule the manufacturing and distribution of vital goods and services that we need an entirely different sort of economy – a participatory economy that isn’t predicated on greed and competition. The co-op promotes a sense of solidarity and community. It is not difficult to imagine the entire world consisting of concentric, nested worker and consumer councils that evolves from a solid co-op foundation.”

Ian: “Are you saying that if my little music school grows to be big, it will be unethical? Its values will be out the door?”

Answer: YES

Akeeba, your post gives me the slight sensation that you judge me as greedy. I might be far off, and if I am, please tell me and I appoligize in advance.

In any case, if I was greedy, trust me, I wouldn’t have started my career in the music business!

In regards to your comment: “Notice the possessive manner in which Ian writes about ‘his’ teachers. Humans cannot be owned”

I could have easily said my people, my family, etc. This does not translate to me believing I own them. In fact, its important that I disclose that the teachers for my school are not actually employees, they are “my” clients. What I didn’t mention in my previous post was the structure of the business which I operate. Clients of the school are actually the teachers, not the end student. We utilize something called the “Cliented Workforce Model (developed by IJW Management Inc., the company which I presently work for), whereby, your clients are entreprenuers with their own business and you provide the sales and marketing function for them. This is similar to a co-operative however, individuals are rewarded by how hard they work and income is not evenly ditributed. The better you perform, the more potential business you receive. Continuously, referrals are completely for the benefit of the teacher. The school receives no rewards. Teachers collect payment from the student and pay a commission back to the school.

Just because someone is a capitalist, doesn’t mean they are greedy, or money hungry. I am a capitalist not because of these reasons. I am a capitalist because I saw it as a tool to accomplish something of a greater purpose than money. It was a tool to help my vision become a reality.

I agree completely Ian, let’s set the incentives to be “ethical, virtuous, and moral.” Generally, that would entail setting up an artificial market where the incentives run beneficially, because from current evidence, market pressures create a slavish system. The most profitable thing to do is have your product made as cheaply as possible, and sell it as expensively as possible. Hence sweatshop products being sold to rich people. The only reason this would ever change is if some company said, we are a responsible company and pay our wage-slaves double what they pay and made more money that way. But that is hardly ever the case. You pay a hell of a lot more than you would make from the increased purchases – the costs don’t lead to benefits. So then, a market system creates the wealth distribution we see in our world, because that is most profitable.

How do you get these incentives. How do you get the healthcare industry to create drugs for the poor without creating an artificial market that rewards necessity. I argue these incentives cant be created with a traditional market structure, because they aren’t profitable.

I suppose you’re right. We need a qualifier there – any publicly traded corporation is only interested in profits. One can imagine a business that voluntarily redistributes profits and doesn’t hoard and behave unethically, but such a business will not become a huge corporation. The businesses that do become huge corporations do so because they have a continual source of funding through investment and are very good at reducing costs and making money, which gets more investment because people want a piece of the action. So how we set incentives that are “ethical, virtuous, and moral” without shooting ourselves in the foot.

First, we’ll have to do away with this stock exchange system and find new ways to invest in companies.

Ian, because you have a knowledge of the business world few of us on rethos can claim.. you can help create the type of business that will change society. I’m sure you would hate to run a company like AT&T or News Corp., and would be tempted to give out some of that obscene profit to kick start some domestically owned companies in Africa or Latin America. Sadly you would be fired.

But who needs these companies anyway?

We need a way to distribute goods and funds fairly. I think the fairest tax is a consumption tax. But more important than the taxation system is the distribution system. We need taxes because together we can do more for society than we can alone, but we must all be directly involved with spending taxes instead of voting for some clod or another to do it for us. And we don’t need to press the government or corporations to do this at all.

We can take a multifaceted, converging strategy and make it happen. Imagine a business that set a consumption tax on its own, by working it into its profit margin; say 33 cents from each dollar gets put into the community fund, 33 cents goes to the owner, and 33 cents goes to reinvestment as decided democratically by the community. The community would have a lot of direct control over the business, and be able to vote it away if need be. These structures could be accomplished by a contract between the business and the community. The community fund would be spent through an internet mechanism with people deciding what percentage of their equal allotment would go towards which project, but regular discussions would ensure some sort of guided spending. The price of goods would only rise a little if the owner was willing to live modestly, as I’m sure you would Ian. Imagine all of a community’s businesses operating this way, and a community investing in a business because it believes the business will better the community.

The rewards for society from this kind of business are overwhelming. The sense of community is greatly enhanced as people must cooperate to spend wisely. Decision-making and analytical skills are inherently increased as people must decide how to best spend their community-business profit. The community itself is vastly improved as funds are put into schools, hospitals, parks, roads, community centers.

If this is what you mean by your new brand of capitalism, I’m all for it. But this isn’t really capitalism because the business is partly owned by the community, and eventually each community will produce what it can on its own and buy or trade with surrounding communities for everything else. Of course this buying and trading will have to be done fairly to avoid the problem we see with the developing world – their terms of trade, that is selling raw materials for cheap while they are used to make more and more sophisticated products which are more profitable than the raw materials, keep them disadvantaged. When you buy something, say, a table the largest percentage of your payment goes to the managers and CEO of the company, and a small percentage goes to the workers who cut down the trees. This could be remedied without increasing the cost of the table by paying the CEO less and the tree cutter more. But to do this we need to alter the market structure, which can only be accomplished when the community owns businesses.

What do you say Ian? Will you help create a society that runs on community instead of corporate business? Will you help these ventures be successful and help people understand that if they invest in such a business their community will flourish? This is a truly socially responsible business because it allows economic democracy, but it is not likely to put dollar signs in a venture capitalist’s eyes. But I still believe it can be done… do you?