[Kibby]

BigT-

While I have a feeling our politics might be seriously in conflict, I find your thesis fascinating. Its an area that I have devoted a lot of thought and study to.

I've never read the corporation, but I'm sure I can predict the gist of it. Here's an idea might enjoy incorporating into your thoughts on the subject. Try considering laws as commodities that can be purchased through expenditure of either 1) social capital (people's time and energy- protesting, church talk, pamphleteering, etc....) or 2) money (buying off politicians, lobbying, etc...). If one can accept this premise, an interesting effect can be observed. Those corporation that have laws affecting their profitability would be legally required to try and change those laws affecting their profitability if the necessary influence was cheap enough (drug, oil, tobacco. . .). Those making the most can then most effectively alter the legal landscape and, as time progresses, the legal landscape would continual change to benefit those who are most able to afford it.

Now one might say that with corporations competing with each other wouldn't their influence counteract each other? You would be right. Laws benefiting certain sectors would come and go as power comes and goes. The important thing to keep in mind is that the laws that govern corporations in general though would continually become slanted in the corporate benefit. This creates an impressive funneling effect of money to corporations, and by extension the wealthiest members of society that own them by proxy, that I would claim we have observed throughout the twentieth century.

The cornerstone of the socially accepted human behavior that governs this effect can be summed up in one phrase, 'A fiduciary responsibility to the stakeholder.'

Anyways, if you've read this far, kudos to you.

outie,
Kibby

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yeh this is actually what i'm basing my 'theses' around; i use the word loosely because this is more of a report and less of a position paper.

what im essentially going to get at is that the book itself is somewhat paradoxical. on one hand, it's really a piece of [censored], however, i think it's so bad because it so over the top and does a very poor job of intelligently articulating it's points. unfortunately, a less eccentric and more theoretical book would not be nearly as appealing to the public. this is so important because the book itself actually will probably do quite a good job at inspiring the type of reform that we DO need. imo (i should use that acronym in my paper), government regulation is currently sufficient if it is properly supplemented by societal pressure which inherently increases the value of firms to be socially and environmentally responsible as the more people react to these issues the more it will impact their bottom line. this book will actually increase general awareness about these issues and contribute to fueling the societal pressure i mentioned above. it will, however, only do this to an extent. i don't imagine many people will fully buy into the author's opinion because it is basically a communist manifesto, however, i think these people will meet the author somewhere in the middle, which is actually what we really need.

in light of that, i dont know, maybe he's a genius, but more than likely he's just some shmuck trying to make a ton of money from a corporation. i think the fact that this book made him a fortune is absolutely amazing. im sure he donated it to social reform.

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