I've been thinking about corporations -- from those such as Waste Management, Allina, Wells Fargo, Walmart, Target, the Star and Trib and the Southwest Journal to those such as independent booksellers, grocery stores, food and housing cooperatives.
I believe that a new paradigm can and must emerge if we are to survive the next thirty years or so. I further believe that if we do not find a way to express and honor human rights, democracy, and human values in the economic sphere, Minneapolis and the surrounding bioregion will not be worth inhabiting in 30 years. Only as we are willing to challenge ourselves to research and reflect can we eveolve new forms of economic engagement. If one looks at hew clinical descriptors of a psychopathic personality -- or of the "antisocial personality disorder" -- one finds a shocking description of contemporary conventional corporations. Do read below and check out the information below, and then think about the kind of leadership our culture is choosing -- both in the form of corporate "citizens" and in the form of individual leaders -- corporate, political, and media personalities. Then ask: what are the best ways for us as citizens to work for positive change? How can we change the character of the corporation in our city? More pointedly, how do the corporations in our city compare to the characteristics of psychopathic legal persons? Is public relations, media, and political process not mostly a way of charming, distracting, seducing and manipulating victims? I urge list members to check out this link to a page at the University of British Columbia Law School, and to reflect on the information contained there. http://www.law.ubc.ca/news/faculty/2003/oct/03oct07.html Law professor Joel Bakan is publishing a book to go along with the documentary currently making rounds which analyzes the modern corporation. Here is a brief excerpt regarding this project: ***** Through interviews, archival research and a cheeky use of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the psychiatric biz's Bible), the film-makers not only explore the strange history of the corporation and its legal rights as a "person" -- a very bizarre result of the Emancipation in the United States -- but they go so far as diagnosing this man-made entity as a "psychopath." Chapter by chapter, they explore a simplified definition of antisocial personality disorder (the term 'psychopath' doesn't actually exist as an illness in the DSM) and apply it directly to their research findings. When they discover corporations are indifferent to the consequences of their actions, they check off another trait. And so it goes, until they check off every symptom of generalized antisocial psychosis -- from indifference, to manipulative behavior, to the inability to distinguish lies from truth. It's all very clever. It's also pretty obvious, but that's what pushed Achbar and Bakan into action in the first place. "It is obvious," says Bakan. "But that's what made it so interesting. We take it all for granted, to the point where the corporation -- as an entity -- is somewhat invisible." Bakan tripped over the subject himself in the course of writing an academic book about why Constitutional rights are not altogether effective in safeguarding the individual. At about the same time, Achbar was in the process of researching a movie about globalization. Before you could say "you got my corporation in your global peanut butter," the two realized they would do better working as a team and started on the long, long road that would take them to corporate hell and back again. Abbott entered the picture through her working relationship with Achbar, the Vancouver documentary film-maker who worked with Peter Wintonick on the film version of Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent and chronicled the real life love story between a transgendered man and his lesbian lover in Two Brides and a Scalpel. Abbott was working on Two Brides when Achbar and Bakan got together through a mutual friend, and before long, she too was involved in the corporate breakdown. "The hardest thing was finding a structure," says Abbott. "Using the checklist really helped set things up, but the interviews dictated the direction and the flow of the film. As far as the mood went, we didn't want people to feel despairing at the end -- and that was certainly a possibility if we'd ended on Bolivia." Abbott is referring to one of the most disturbing elements in the film, where the people of a small town in Bolivia are told they no longer have any right to collect water from rivers, streams or from the sky. As a result of a World Trade Organization deal, the villagers' water now belonged to an American corporation -- and to collect it in a pail as it fell from the sky amounted to a breach of international law. When you see it played out -- and how many people had to die in order to make a stand -- it's easy to understand why Achbar, Abbott and Bakan saw the corporation as psychopath: so many consequences of the corporate age are perfectly insane. "Here's an institution modeled after a psychopathic personality, so why have we allowed it to continue? Why have we given it so much power?" says Bakan, rhetorically. "That was the meta-narrative." ***** -- pedaling for peace and justice -- yes, even today! (home from my first job already) -- Gary Hoover (Kingfield) REMINDERS: 1. 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