Corporate Pathology: Redesigning Nature and Humanity Part 1

“The goal of life is living in agreement with nature.” - Zeno

One of the questions that comes up periodically is to what extent could a corporation be considered to be psychopathic. And if we look at a corporation as a legal person, that it maynot be that difficult to actually draw the transition between psychopathy in the individual to psychopathy in the corporation. We could go through the characteristics that define this disorder, one by one, to how they might apply to corporations. They would have all the characteristics, and, in fact, in many respects, the corporation of that sort is the proto-typical psychopath. - Dr Robert Hare

“Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.”

– John Kenneth Calbraith

Dead-locked economics

Sexual slavery, slavery of our beliefs, the bonded slave and our slavery to countless desires are held in place by the global financial and economic system that was always inherently unjust and inequitable.

This system is founded on the enslavement of older cultures which informs the new with psychopathological dispositions remaining hidden behind its inception. This archaic and grossly inadequate financial system has overseen the decline in job opportunities due to the inevitable investment in a hi-tech global economy. The result is a continuing surplus of goods and services with an ever smaller work force, while the US fiat currency and systems of credit and debt continue to ravage populations. Poverty is rising out of control with tiny pockets of jealously guarded affluence. This is leading to greater destabilisation, as various sub-cultures of youth crime emerge under well established mafia-led economies, in turn acting as corporate cannon fodder. 

 

Global financial debt and wage dependence are maintained and regulated by the IMF and the World Bank. These bastions of financial brokering are seen as the epitome of free trade ethic, yet rather than being the facilitator of all things financially rosy, they are in fact the gatekeepers of debt slavery and economic disparity. The IMF has engineered these controls with the collusion of commercial banks preventing individual nations from managing their own economic affairs, while increasing the centralisation of power under the auspices of a destined “Global Union” as a the ultimate economic ideal.¹ For each nation to control its own destiny, including the inflow and outflow of capital, this would take away the dependence on the resources that provide a rich and imbalanced bounty for wealthy countries. Occasional financial warfare between bankers, hedge funders and asset management conglomerates ensure the increasing march towards greater centralization coupled with nationalisation when deemed necessary. 

 

Despite the theoretical and abstract perceptions of neo-imperialistic Free Trade Worshippers, it remains the primary base for exploitation. The manipulations of inherent vulnerabilities and cyclic fluctuations that make up such a patently unworkable system offer an abundance of capital resources for those at the top of the pyramid. The debt based financial system, is energised by “borrowing” which affirms the future of developing nations assets (i.e. its people) which will then be held in bondage and ransomed out to whoever is buying. 

 

American hegemony has ensured that the extraordinarily damaging forces of economic globalisation continue unabated. Behind this monopolisation are highly influential institutions, some of which include: the World Economic Forum (or the Davos Group) International Chamber of Commerce, The Business Industry Advisory Committee, World Business Council on Sustainable Development, The US Council on International Business, The Business Roundtable Europe and The European Round Table of Industrialists. 

 

The most noted of these global steerage organisations are The Council on Foreign Relations,² The Bilderberg Group ³ and the Trilateral Commission ⁴ which, admittedly have a legendary conspiratorial mythos, not without due cause. These three organizations offer a cultivated and refined air of respectability and economic savoir-faire, yet the reality of their global manoeuvres offer important reasons as to why developing countries continue to drown in varying degrees of corruption, famine and poverty. These steering groups bring together CEOs of global corporations, leaders of national political parties and a general mix of “movers and shakers” to enjoy some consensus-building in how to mould and shape the global economy. Needless to say, the public is never privy to these inside negotiations. Members include most of the rich and famous in the political and financial arena since before the Second World War. (The Trilateral Commission is a more recent arrival). Its members write scholarly pieces which are then used in the decision-making process where the academic discourse often reaches dizzying heights of rhetoric, extolling the virtues of a borderless and united (i.e. monopolised “free” market) world which then the media happily disseminates. No matter how these accusations may be repudiated in the rare addresses to the press in public and via their respective websites, the overriding theme that connects all three groups is the historical and unquestioned ideology and belief that national boundaries should be obliterated and a one-world government, one world currency, one world religion and one world military force should be established. 

 

These meetings are about an old boy’s network of Caucasian males, from Northern industrial backgrounds of the wealthy Elite primarily concerned with maintaining the prosperity of a US style economy. Though many of the more naive participants believe they are inaugurating the seeds of prosperity tied up in a nice blue bow of international relations, the reality is somewhat different. The members are involved in an exclusive process that is wholly directed towards the corporate libertarian ethos of economic integration and that sickly sweet euphemism of “harmonization.” An elite agenda for power ensures that alternative visions of the financial and economic systems are never, but never, up for discussion. In fact, this is none other than a potent mix of both corporate fascism and state socialism i.e. National Socialism- the direct descendent of Nazi ideology.

Most policy directives can be traced back to these closed meetings between leaders that are effectively arranged to preclude alternatives and to sustain and enforce prevailing beliefs. ⁵ Without any elected, democratic process involved they are able to influence governments, financiers and corporations, NGOs and the entertainment world with absolute impunity.

Corporate Predators

Their “Globalisation”, “New World International Order” or “Global Union” has rendered the traditional role of government virtually obsolete. Global corporations are able to ignore outdated governmental restrictions concerning national economies and foreign policy. In fact, they increasingly make policy decisions across both national and international boundaries. The trans-nationalisation of business is concerned with eliminating any and every aspect of diversity. Whatever proves a hindrance towards a centralised system of “vertical supply networks” must be removed. And with it, the social, cultural and ultimately, the individual identity of nations caught up in this colonisation.

Whatever the quality of benevolence existing within the internal personnel of the corporation (i.e. ordinary citizens like you and I) the structures and directives that spur corporations on are the precise embodiments of the predator. No matter how hard these leviathans may try, they cannot go beyond their conspiratorial desire to implant a strictly one dimensional action of capitalist efficiency. True values of society are merely inconveniences on the road to consumption; they are obstacles to absorption where old cultures and ancient wisdoms are impediments to the pyramid of economic growth. 

 

A coalition of government and business interests have decided what is good for their profits by deciding what is good for you. Their only priority - at least at the executive level - is to their board members and shareholders to maximize profits. Anything that gets in the way of this drive is expendable. The list of 100 top corporate criminals from the 1990s is testament to what they can get away with without being caught. In reality, laws promote the multinational agenda rather than the basic rights for the men and women in the street. As such, these crimes are merely normal business practice for 90 percent of the listed companies. 

 

The Swiss pharmaceutical giant, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., that paid “a record $500 million criminal fine for leading a worldwide conspiracy to raise and fix prices and allocate market shares for certain vitamins sold in the United States and elsewhere” ⁶ is just one of a long line of companies which consider it a part of their yearly activities, as normal in fact as Exxon diddling the books and MacDonald’s lying about it’s so called nutritional meals. 

 

Or how about Daiwa Bank Ltd. that was charged with 16 federal felonies and who paid the largest criminal fine ever imposed in the United States at $340 million? Or Bankers Trust that was “fined $60 million for its role in a scheme by high-ranking bank officials to enhance the bank’s financial performance by falsely recording approximately $19.1 million in unclaimed customer funds as the bank’s income and reserves.” ⁷ Then of course, there is Damon Clinical Laboratories, Inc. that was fined $32.2 million for submitting false claims to the Medicare program and defrauding the American public. ⁸ And we mustn’t forget that tried and tested formula of giving away billions of dollars to Israel in the form of tax free benefits and corporate handouts including a $26.5 million in the sale of military equipment to Israel. General Electric was fined a paltry 9.5 million for persistent counts of fraud. ⁹ We can also mention the sorry tale of Unisys which conspired to defraud the US, including “bribery, conversion of government property, filing a false statement and filing false claims…” but we will not go down a road that is already so much a part of the Capitalist machinery the world over. ¹⁰

The so called fines inflicted on these companies are used as a sop for both the public and the Department of Justice. They are immediately swallowed up in the vast mega-profits that these monoliths create, or as one resident commented on the Eastman Kodak criminal fine for a chemical spill: “It’s equivalent to you or I getting a jaywalking ticket.” ¹¹

Price-fixing, corporate fraud, pollution, or public corruption - the effects of corporate dynamics far out weigh the oft mentioned benefits to society where jobs and the push for economic growth are deemed as the only viable options for a desperate global population. Yet some of the biggest trans-national corporations have mutated into such monsters of consumption that the dehumanization takes more tangible and immediate forms, Coca-Cola being but one example. Union leaders at Coca-Cola’s Colombian bottling plants have been murdered while hundreds of other Coke workers have been tortured, kidnapped and/or illegally detained by violent paramilitaries, often working closely with plant managements. ¹² While providing for all our needs large trans-nationals have excelled in the realm of human rights abuses right along with criminal fines and lawsuits.

The Dow Chemical Co. made its name by destroying the health of millions of Vietnamese and enormous tracts of rainforest during the Vietnam war with its lethal War defoliant, Agent Orange. Not content with the profits from Agent Orange they put their creative minds together to produce Napalm which burned many thousands of innocent people to death and which was still used, albeit illegally in the present invasion of Iraq. ¹³

 

In 1988, with the sticky fingered handshake from Donald Rumsfeld, Dow chemical sold $1.5 million in pesticides to Saddam Hussein despite knowledge that these would be used in chemical weapons.¹⁴ When it acquired Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) and its outstanding liabilities in for the Bhopal disaster in India, these were summarily ignored at great emotional and financial cost to Bhopal’s civilians. ¹⁵ The company continues to be involved in human rights abuses: environmental destruction, water and ground contamination, health violations, chemical poisoning, and chemical warfare.

The petrochemical company Chevron and its Texaco subsidiary felt it necessary from 1972 to 1992 to leave more than 600 unlined oil pits in the pristine northern Amazon rainforest while dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic production water into rivers used for bathing. It destroyed the ecosystems, displaced indigenous Indians and caused countless health problems. ¹⁶ Chevron continues to exacerbate and ferment violent repression of nonviolent opposition to its oil extraction ventures in both Nigeria and the Niger Delta. The company has used any tactics it sees fit, including collaboration with Nigerian police and military for whom human rights simply do not feature.

The notorious Caterpillar Company provided the Israeli military with the bulldozers used to destroy Palestinian homes and often innocent civilians (such as Rachel Corrie) and continues to do so despite worldwide condemnation. How about the persistent corruption, cronyism, worker exploitation, war profiteering and contractor fraud of the Halliburton Co.? (Dick Cheney’s past helmsman ship of the company seems particularly fitting). Then there are the predations of the Monsanto corporation that displaces and destroys communities, causes serious health violations and employs child labor for its $5.4 billion yearly profits. ¹⁷

 

Many such hastily create new “human rights teams” in much the same way companies created “environmental focus teams” green consumer products and “sustainability department groups” which are doomed to failure due to the core dynamics of the companies themselves. It amounts to wolves wearing sheep’s clothing. They can’t be anything other than what they are: mega-consumers with huge ecological footprints, driven by their shareholder’s need for profits. Despite the push for green credentials and at the executive level, they know perfectly well that this is merely good PR. The daily list of actions that fly in the face of any notion of human dignity and respect continue daily according to the nature of the beast. If intimidation and bribery on the ground do not work then they can always rely on the bias of criminal law to ease the wheels of progress. One example of such loop-holing is known as “deferred prosecution agreements” ¹⁸ where the prosecutor charges the corporation with a crime, but agrees to drop the charges if the corporation fulfils its promises to the prosecutor. These promises include fines, cooperation – including the highly controversial waiver of attorney-client privilege – and monitors. The elimination of corporate liability is the goal and many advocate its preferential treatment for business.

Technology, governments, finances and the markets are controlled by global trans-nationals who are then free to pursue their goals of profitability without regard to national or local consequences and where relationships are defined entirely by market forces. With decentralised, community based, local and regional economies having no place in the consensus of an elite superclass, like marauding locusts we are taken up in their winds of change that leaves nothing and no sentient being with a long-term future. Of course, this is how their evolution of economics facilitated the perfect breeding ground for excess and disparity. The control of market power depends on the “invisible hand” of economic pathology.

Notes

1 While the carte blanche exploitation of Africa was signed for in 2000 the American Union has stalled somewhat, thanks largely to the efforts of Victor Chavez the President of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia who will not play ball. The Global Union is an entirely elitist plan for an “New International Order” that neo-conservative, corporate and Zionist elites wish to suck in all nations of North, Central and South America as well as the Caribbean Islands, and which would function just like the present European Union, which was completed in the year 2000. Like the European Union, there will be one monetary system, one central bank, one unelected governing body, one military force, one judicial system, no borders, and no Constitution and Bill of Rights. NAFTA, has now become the FTAA, (Free Trade Area of the Americas). 

2 Further reading: ‘Kinder capitalists in Armani specs’ by Will Hutton, The Observer, 1st February 1998, p22; ‘Goldwater Sees Elitist Sentiments Threatening Liberties’, By US Senator Barry M. Goldwater, 1979. See also: The Shadows of Power: The Council on Foreign Relations and the American Decline by James Perloff. (1988) ISBN: 0882791346.

3 Further reading: American Hegemony and the Trilateral Commission by Stephen Gill, Cambridge University Press; Reprint edition (1991) ISBN: 052142433X; Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management, Published by South End Press, (1980) ISBN: 0896081036.

4 Further reading: ‘The Bilderberg Group and the project of European unification’ by Mike Peters, The Lobster, Issue 32, 1996; Bilderberg Group, The Global Manipulators, by Robert Eringer, Pentacle Books, (1980); ‘European Parliament examining Bilderbergers -Bilderberg questions tabled at European Parliament by Patricia McKenna MEP’ - November 1998 to February 1999 by Tony Gosling., www.Bilderberg.org.

5 pp.133-140 - ‘Building Elite Consensus.’ When Corporations Rule the World, by David C. Korten, Published by Earthscan (1995) ISBN 1-85383-434-3.

6 ‘The Top 100 Corporate Criminals of the 1990s’www.corporatecrimereporter.com.

7 F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. Type of Crime: Antitrust Criminal Fine: $500 million 12 Corporate Crime Reporter 21(1), May 24, 1999.

8 Daiwa Bank Ltd. Type of Crime: Fraud Criminal Fine: $340 million 10 Corporate Crime Reporter 9(3), March 4, 1996

9 General Electric Type of Crime: Fraud Criminal Fine: $9.5 million 6 Corporate Crime Reporter 30(7), July 27, 1992.

10 Unisys Type of Crime: Bribery Criminal Fine: $5 million 5 Corporate Crime Reporter 35(11), September 16, 1991.

11 Eastman Kodak Type of Crime: Environmental Criminal Fine: $1 million 4 Corporate Crime Reporter 14(1), April 9, 1990.

12 ‘Chicago Protest Against Coca-Cola Death Squads in Colombia’ By Fightback News Service, May 17, 2003.

13 ‘US admits it used napalm bombs in Iraq’ By Andrew Buncombe, The Independent, August 10, 2003.

14 ‘Rumsfeld 'offered help to Saddam'’- Declassified papers leave the White House hawk exposed over his role during the Iran-Iraq war, by Julian Borger, December 31, 2002.
15 Members of Congress tell Dow – Face up to your Bhopal responsibilities, US Congressional Letter to Dow Chemical July 18, 2003.

16 ‘Amazon Indians want court to speed up Chevron case’ by Alonso Soto, Reuters, 25 Jul 2006. “Lawyers for Amazon Indians embroiled in a $6.1 billion pollution case against Chevron Corp. in Ecuador asked a local court on Monday to move faster, a month after the country's government filed its latest accusation against the oil giant in the United States.”

17 ‘Child Labour and Trans-National Seed Companies in Hybrid Cotton Seed Production in Andhra Pradesh’ Dr. Davuluri Venkateswarlu Director, Glocal Research and Consultancy Services, Hyderabad. India Committee of the Netherlands / Landelijke India Werkgroep - April 24, 2003.

18 ‘Crime Without Conviction: The Rise of Deferred and Non Prosecution Agreements.’ A Report Released by Corporate Crime Reporter Wednesday, December 28, 2005.