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Greed, Inc. : why corporations rule our world and how we let it happen
Title:
Greed, Inc. : why corporations rule our world and how we let it happen
Personal Author EPSB:
Summary:
Why is TV so awful? Why do drug companies hide unfavorable test results? Are corporations moral or sociopathic? Rowland warns that corporations have grown too powerful and have spawned a "selfish, market-driven society." Greed, Inc. investigates how the modern corporation is a perversion of the philosophy of Western thinkers like Adam Smith, who he suggests would be horrified to see how businesses run amok in today's world. Rowland doesn't blame corporations themselves or their executives or shareholders. The problems, he writes, go much deeper. Rowland argues corporations can't be expected to act morally; they are fundamentally amoral, with only a responsibility to follow their profit-making interests. How can they be expected to fulfill the "social good" without being forced to do so by society and government? At the root of the modern corporation, Rowland suggests, is a flawed assumption that comes from Rationalist philosophers of the 18th and 19th centuries: that people are naturally greedy and selfish, while social institutions--such as companies--constrain people to act morally. If anything, Rowland writes, it's quite the opposite. Government should force corporations to serve our interests through stronger regulation and restrictions on their size and wealth. "Corporations are not human, " Rowland says. "Corporations are tools."
Year Published:
2005
Physical Description:
xxii, 232 p. ; 24 cm.
ISBN:
9780887621765
Publisher:
Toronto : Thomas Allen Publishers, c2005.