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...end of the cold war business has become the movie industry's new villain of choice. In five currently playing movies--the new version of The Manchurian Candidate, I Robot, The Bourne Conspiracy, Spiderman Two and even Catwoman--the corporation is the bad guy. There probably are not too many idealistic kids out there daydreaming about being corporate managers when they grow up.
The corporation was originally invented by governments as a way to get useful things done on the cheap. If the wealth of the kingdom will be increased by developing the North American fur trade, why not let private investors organize the project and take the risks by giving them the incentive of greatly increasing their own person wealth?
That strategy worked well but it had side effects that are only now being fully felt.
As many of you may know, more than 50% of the world's largest economies are not countries. They are, instead, corporations, multinationals whose reach spreads around the globe (Carroll, 2004). The way that these organizations behave is critical to the well being of people far beyond the circle of those they, employ and those with whom they deal directly. They have a huge impact on the global environment and on the well-being of global society generally.
At the time corporations were invented governments were not democratic. They were enterprises controlled by small cliques of powerful people who made key decisions in their own interests. What those people decided had huge impacts on untold numbers of people who had no sat, in their decisions. To illustrate the point, let me tell you briefly my fourth great grandfather's story.
Joel Daniel was born in New Jersey in 1759. When the Revolutionary War broke out 110 cast his lot with the huge enterprise of which he was a tiny part--The British Empire. Surely this mighty entity would quickly crush the rebellion and reward those loyal to it. But Britain had commitments around the world and finding the costs of funding the war higher than expected it decided (without Joel's advice or consent) to cut it loses and sue for peace. Since the Yankees didn't want him or his like back. Joel was left out on a limb. The Brits shipped him and his mates to the Canadian wilderness. He and his wife spent the winter of 1783/84 living in what is now St. John, New Brunswick in a tent. It was a severe winter and may of the refugees did not make it.
It was experiences like those of Joel Daniel that led millions of others to demand a say in making critical decisions and hi demanding recognition of basic rights. It took two centuries but, with the end of the cold war, democracy is now the world's governance norm.
Modern democracy has two components. First it requires that the government be chosen by and be responsible to its citizens. Secondly,...
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