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I recently finished reading “The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power”. It’s a short book, and in many respects a light one. Bakan makes the case that corporations match the profile of human psychopaths. By law a corporation can only consider profit, if its officers do anything else they can be sued – it is their fiduciary duty to act only to maximize shareholder value. If being “good” does that, so be it. If not, then that’s fine too – many corporations make the famous lawsuit calculation – will it cost us less to get sued or fined than it will to do the right thing?
If a corporation does something good for society, and tells you it’s altruistic, if they aren’t lying, they’re breaking the law. It’s not their business to do the right thing – it’s their business to make money and nothing else. If doing the right thing happens to make money, great – but if it doesn’t, doing it breaks their legal duty to their shareholders (note that good will is worth something. There's a reason it's listed as an asset.)
Bakan makes his case well, and he’s on firm ground doing so. The law supports him, and he’s got many luminaries who are happy to tell him he’s right.
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