OT: Public referrendums on destroying evil companies

[PvK]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:

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Originally posted by PvK:
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Saying that the people who are sufficiently informed can avoid buying certain products is a ridiculous non-solution.
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Really, PvK? Because if non one buys a corps products..the corperation GOES BACKRUPT. This is gennerally considered a bad thing for them.

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Yes, really! Because the percentage of people "who are sufficiently informed" is small enough that megacorps don't care, particularly once they've dominated a market. Some corporations don't deal much or at all in public sales anyway (e.g. Gator, chemical manufacturers, research companies).

And please define what you mean by benifical, because using just that I know of more than a few people who would leave McDonalds and the other corps you listed alone, but close down MM, Shrapnel and quite a few others you would like to see stay in one piece.

When I wrote "corporations should only exist to do beneficial things", I didn't mean to say that they should be destroyed if some people don't appreciate what they do. I was reacting to people seeming to say that corporations just abstractly needed to exist. However, I didn't mean to say that a corporation should need to justify its existance.

However I do think that when their behavior causes problems, someone ought to consider controlling that behavior. Corporations certainly can't be counted on to do it themselves, because they their whole purpose is generally to maximize their own profits, by doing whatever they can get away with. This can and does frequently get way out of control, and in the case of megacorps, on a vast scale compared to what mischief individual humans can do.

PvK

[ October 28, 2003, 01:44: Message edited by: PvK ]