Why is Newt Gingrich waging class warfare?

[Stavros]

A helluva lot of CEOs are psychopaths or sociopaths. And it certainly makes sense. Ya know, you've absolutely no empathy for people under you. You can't care. Because you lack the ability to care.
Also the entire corporate structure is psychopathic. It doesn't accept responsibility for its actions. Completely irresponsible. (Think: ExxonMobil.) Plus it can't assume responsibility. The corporate structure is guided by one thing and one thing only. It has no long-term goals. A corporation is concerned about the next quarter. To make as much money as it can and as fast as it can. And it must. By law.
So, who should head this callous and shallow and pathological and manipulative institution? I mean, who would you want? Betty White or Mitt Romney? Jane Goodall or Rex Tillerson, the CEO of Exxon? It makes sense why you'd want a psychopath.

Ben, please explain in what way are either Richard Branson or Bill Gates 'psychopaths'? Was Steve Jobs a psychopath who didn't care about his own employees or his customers? Really?

As for this: Also the entire corporate structure is psychopathic. It doesn't accept responsibility for its actions. Completely irresponsible. Corporations might try and fix it so that law suits and other litigation doesn't cost them, but they usually take full responsibility -monitor the share price, thats one way of doing it! Have you really never heard of Ralph Nader and the campaigns he mounted in the 1960s and 1970s to get motor car maufacturers to make safer vehicles? What about corporation social responsibility?

And this: A corporation is concerned about the next quarter. To make as much money as it can and as fast as it can. So if you find out that a firm has a 50-year growth strategy how does that fit with the 'fast buck'? If you are in it for the long term, long term planning takes place- in fact, its the firms who don't plan for the next 50 years who are least likely to survive.

Ben, I beg you, get a job, in the private sector, preferably with a mulitnational, at least get some inside experience of business; you will be surprised to find out how different it looks...ps they pay better than most other employers...

[muh_muh]

Your ignorance of your own history is frankly staggering.

im german

whos the moron now dipshit?

[Ben]

Ben, please explain in what way are either Richard Branson or Bill Gates 'psychopaths'? Was Steve Jobs a psychopath who didn't care about his own employees or his customers? Really?

As for this: Also the entire corporate structure is psychopathic. It doesn't accept responsibility for its actions. Completely irresponsible. Corporations might try and fix it so that law suits and other litigation doesn't cost them, but they usually take full responsibility -monitor the share price, thats one way of doing it! Have you really never heard of Ralph Nader and the campaigns he mounted in the 1960s and 1970s to get motor car maufacturers to make safer vehicles? What about corporation social responsibility?

And this: A corporation is concerned about the next quarter. To make as much money as it can and as fast as it can. So if you find out that a firm has a 50-year growth strategy how does that fit with the 'fast buck'? If you are in it for the long term, long term planning takes place- in fact, its the firms who don't plan for the next 50 years who are least likely to survive.

Ben, I beg you, get a job, in the private sector, preferably with a mulitnational, at least get some inside experience of business; you will be surprised to find out how different it looks...ps they pay better than most other employers...

Two things about corporations (and, again, they're very rational and great at achieving one aim: maximizing money): they are not benevolent institutions and they aren't concerned about externalities. So, for instance, the negative cost of oil companies is global warming. (In the 1990s, and Al Gore has affirmed this, oil companies commissioned their own scientific studies about global warming and said it's real and it poses a serious threat but we're going to have to undermine the science to serve our very narrow interests. Which, of course, is to maximize return on investment. So, the externality is future generations. And oil company executives cannot, because of their company code, as it were, be concerned about the cost of global warming to humankind and to future generations.) I mean, we can restructure the corporate framework. We can make them completely democratic. We can make them be concerned about the stakeholders. The stakeholders are separate from the stockholders. And they'd include communities. I mean, just to show how corporations aren't kind and caring institutions, well, they'll shut a factory in, say, Des Moines, Iowa and move those jobs offshore. Now, a corporation is looking for lower costs. So, it makes sense for them, as it were. But what about the people in Iowa? And it's easier for the CEO not to be, say, stressed out if he or she is a psychopath. It's easier to do your job: offshoring jobs --
The American psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton coined the term doubling. Meaning in your personal life (and this could and most likely does apply to both Branson and Gates; and I'm sure they're very nice people) you can be the nicest person. Nice to your wife, kids, the neighbors and your family pets, as it were.
But in your institutional role, well, you've to be a monster. What do I mean by that? Well, take, say, Rex Tillerson. The CEO of ExxonMobil. He can't be concerned about global warming. If he becomes overly concerned about global warming and starts to care about future generations and says, ya know, we need to stop burning oil like right now. Well, he can't. If he does, well, he's out and someone else is in. I mean, the board would make sure he's pushed out. And this makes sense. I mean, if I'm a shareholder of ExxonMobil I don't want a CEO trying to stem global warming by stopping the burning of fossil fuels. I mean, my income comes from my Exxon shares.
The institution demands that you can't be concerned about future generations, the planet etc., etc. Now Rex Tillerson in his private life may care deeply about global warming. (Again, the Lifton term: doubling.) He may give generously to Greenpeace etc. But in his institutional capacity he can't be concerned because he's required, and this is by law, to put the interests of the shareholders above all else. Everything. Including the planet and future generations. (Take, say, Richard Branson. He's deeply concerned about global warming. Again, as a person he is committed to doing something about it. But in his professional life he owns an airline. And we know that the airline industry bears a great deal of responsibility for global warming. Again, doubling.)
And the corporate institution demands that Branson put the interests of shareholders above all else. The planet, future generations. I mean, Branson is indirectly saying, because of global warming, again to which he is deeply worried , that his grandchildren's future has no value.
So, again, Branson is a nice person with genuine worries about the future. But corporate structures aren't organized that way. And they can't be. Because it would be irrational.
Actually, we're called rational wealth maximizers. No one matters but me. Future generations, well, who cares. Depressing. But true.

[Ben]

The author and journalist Chris Hedges (all of his books are well worth reading) talks about varying forms of capitalism -- and the insidious form of corporate capitalism.



Even ol' Sarah has been critical of corporate or crony capitalism. Albeit she doesn't critique the overall corporate structure or even the free movement of capital or free trade. Now, according to Adam Smith, the absolute core of free trade is the free circulation of labor. So, in that respect, we don't have free trade. Neither do we have free markets. We merely have corporate tyranny. And you can't live in a democratic society if the most powerful institutions in that society are de facto Kingdoms. Which is what corporations are. But, again, they're rational. Which is why they're sooo frightening because, as I've mentioned, things like global warming are simply externalities:

[trish]

So, again, Branson is a nice person with genuine worries about the future. But corporate structures aren't organized that way. And they can't be. Because it would be irrational.

So CEO's aren't psychopaths. What you seem to be saying is that given their current structure, if each corporation were a person, then [corporations] would be psychopaths. I might add to that: never give a psychopath the keys to your car.

[Dino Velvet]

I might add to that: never give a psychopath the keys to your car.

What if he insists it's his car and really believes it?

[Ben]

More of Chris Hedges:

[trish]

What if he insists it's his car and really believes it?

Fake like you're throwing the keys to him (but instead throw something shiny and jingly (like your medical alert bracelet). Pretend you throw like a girl and make sure the "keys" go between his legs and behind him. When he turns to pick them up, run for the car, unlock the door remotely, dive in, lock, start and lay rubber.

[Dino Velvet]

Fake like you're throwing the keys to him (but instead throw something shiny and jingly (like your medical alert bracelet). Pretend you throw like a girl and make sure the "keys" go between his legs and behind him. When he turns to pick them up, run for the car, unlock the door remotely, dive in, lock, start and lay rubber.

That's some good thinking there. Have a good supper tonight?

[Ben]