noted. 09/25/2011

• Criticisms of corporations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  • Noam Chomsky and others have criticized the legal decisions that led to the creation of the modern corporation:

     

     

    Corporations, which previously had been considered artificial entities with no rights, were accorded all the rights of persons, and far more, since they are "immortal persons", and "persons" of extraordinary wealth and power. Furthermore, they were no longer bound to the specific purposes designated by State charter, but could act as they choose, with few constraints.

     

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    When the corporatization of the state capitalist societies took place a century ago, in part in reaction to massive market failures, conservatives--a breed that now scarcely exists--objected to this attack on the fundamental principles of classical liberalism. And rightly so. One may recall Adam Smith's critique of the "joint stock companies" of his day, particularly if management is granted a degree of independence; and his attitude toward the inherent corruption of private power, probably a "conspiracy against the public" when businessmen meet for lunch, in his acid view, let alone when they form collectivist legal entities and alliances among them, with extraordinary rights granted, backed, and enhanced by state power.

     

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    Chomsky contends that corporations transfer policy decisions out of the hands of the people and into corporate boardrooms, where public oversight is limited. The extensive financial resources of corporations and the extent to which they're employed to influence political campaigns in the United States has also been implicated as a way in which corporations undermine the democratic institutions in a society.^[6]

     

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