3 thoughts on “Space Invaders, Inc.”

1. to my friends at the “Bagel Street Irregulars” when this topic arose during our discussion one day:

   The problem with corporate hegemony is the absence of humanity from the actual decision making process.

   We were sitting around a table…about twenty of us…and I presented two scenarios. First…imagine we are twenty members of the Board of Directors of “Megabucks Corp.”. We have 75,000 employees, worldwide, in 145 locations. We are from several countries and see each other two or three times a year. A line on a report brings us the news that we must fire 5 workers. What are the odds that a single one of us will give it a second thought?

   Now picture yourself sitting around a table with 19 other people who comprise the owner, management, and staff of a small business. You will know them all…their families…their dreams. When the reluctant owner says, “I have to let five of you go”…will you think of anything beyond the bottom line or the dividend owed to each shareholder at quarters end?

   Of course, you will.

   Certainly there are exceptions, but anyone who does not believe that profit, and profit alone, drives the corporate world is a sadly naive fool.

   It is, perhaps, a primary reason why I don’t get the Tea Parties’ slavish devotion to the Corporatist Party. They are the food upon which the beast feeds, and yet they can’t see beyond their own moral judgements to discover the truth.

    

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   1. To what extent are corporate decisions driven by published expectations of the next profit and loss statement? Not just a profit, but 34 cents a share, up from 29 cents the previous quarter, is not enough if the published speculation was 38 cents. I’ve written the leads myself: “MegaBucks fell short of expectations in the fifth quarter, reporting 34 cents a share, short of the consensus expectation of 38 cents. MegaBucks shares fell $2.00 on the news.”

      I suspect the directors you mention might reply by pointing to the pension funds invested in the corporation that depend on such expectations, in a never-ending cycle of need begets greed begets need begets greed. Or is the other way ’round?

      Nor is this limited to MegaBucks, Inc. itself. How many smaller enterprises (“Inclings”) are devoted to serving the needs of MegaBucks, ranging from manufacturing the seatbelts that go into MegaBucks cars to running the diner where employees of MegaBucks buy lunch (metaphorically speaking).

      There are other models, of course, as Stross pointed out.

      How does it come that these questions are not of interest or discussed widely?

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2. Could they shift course–say, at the expense of the corporation for the benefit of the broader population of humans–of their own free will?

   Not without facing a Shareholder’s derivative suit.  

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