David Korten on the problem with corporations

Last Saturday I attended an Earth Charter Summit here in Columbus. The featured speaker was David Korten, author of The Great Turning: from Empire to Earth Community. Today, I got a start on transcribing his talk at my Religious Left Blog. What you see below is a brief excerpt.

Now, from time to time, someone will ask me, "Why are you so obsessed about corporations? Aren't they just communities of people?" Well, I think most of you here have been studying this issue just a little deeper--you probably wouldn't ask that question. Because, what we know, is that there are many highly thoughful, ethical people who work at corporations, but they are all, including the CEO, employees of the institution. They are paid to serve the institution at its pleasure, required by law to leave their values at the door, and subject to instant dismissal at a moment's notice. These are not qualities we normally associate with community.

We're talking here about an institution of enormous power, governed by absentee owners and accountable managers, in the business of converting the life energy of people and nature into money for the short-term financial gain of already wealthy shareholders and managers, without regard to the human or natural consequences. In other words, the publicly traded Limited Liability Corporation is a gigantic pool of money with an artificial legal personality, required by law to behave like a sociopath.

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