Summary:
Corporations are today's psychopathic creatures that get respect in court as much as humans. A corporation cannot be equal with a living creature so it cannot have natural rights. Corporations must be immediately regulated by laws that are prepared by objective legislators who have not any relationship with them.
In court, corporations and humans have the same rights. They are equal with humans in front of the law. So they can be identified with humans' personal characteristics. For example they can be caring, kind or enthusiastic. Just like humans: for example, General Electric likes an old man having many things to tell, Nike is young and energetic and Microsoft is an aggressive person (The Corporation Film). So they can have some psychopathic characteristics too. Absolutely they have. A mentality that destroys our nature, trying to patent even genetic codes, does not avoid advertising even to children's subconscious must be called psychopathic. But there's only one underlying reason for these: making money for their shareholders. As Robert Hinkley states in his article named "Redesigning Corporate Law" that "the people who run corporations have a legal duty to shareholders, and that duty is to make money. Failing this duty can leave directors and officers open to being sued by shareholders", making money is the basic purpose of a corporation stated in law, and the people who are running it are responsible to shareholders for making profits. So, the thing to be done is to change the laws.
Nature is our habitat. Only nature can provide us things for the sustainability of life. We cannot live without that. So logically it should be protected for our next generations. But there are bad new for all of us. The situation does not seem good. Corporations especially huge international ones are consuming the resources of the world unawares with an incredible speed. According to film "Advertising and the End of the World", if this consumption goes on like that, 90 % of the sources of the world will not be available in 100 years. Maybe there will be enough resources for our children. But, what about their children? Our main aim must be to continue our generation like all livings. But it seems hard with today's corporatist thinking focused on producing only to make money. Actually there was a balance in nature until humans touched it. Now it is alarming. Earth that gives us our food is polluted with chemicals; water that is the basis of life is polluted with factory wastes. As Nike CEO Philip H. Knight mentions in the Corporation film "I have not thought about what we have been doing to this world while producing our products." It is obvious that most of the corporate bosses have not done so, because they are mainly responsible for this situation in nature. Probably, they are not aware of what they are doing. So laws must be over the corporations like the Damocles' sword. There must be obligations on corporations about nature. For example, simply they may plant two trees for every tree they cut down. And there may be restrictions over resources' consumption. Obligation for using filters would be a good way to lessen toxic wastes. To encourage corporations to use clear energy resources like wind or sun may be added to the list. These are all simple solutions.
Everything is in a cycle in Earth: sustainability of life. Water evaporates and it returns with rains. We are born and die someday but our seeds remain in this world: our children. Plants do it too. Their seeds remain in Earth. These are all the things become in the nature. But today even nature itself becomes monopolized by corporations. They started taking patents of living creatures. According to "The Corporation" film, farmers in India struggled against the USA government and corporations which took the patent of Neem tree. They were right on their struggle. Because, everything in nature is given us by God. They cannot be patented. They are for all people. We all should give struggles for this righteous action. Nature cannot be taken from our hands. Dr. Vandana Shiva states in the Corporation Film "W. R. Grace and the U. S government's patent on Neem was revoked by a case we brought along with the greens of European parliament and the international organic agriculture movement. We won because we worked together. We have overturned nearly 99 percent of the basmati patent of Ricetek. We stopped the third world being viewed as the pirate and we showed the corporations were the pirate." Working together against these nature thieves will bring success. The only thing we need is to unite. There would be some differences between us but we are all same at all. As Nazým Hikmet says in his poem named "Davet": living, like a tree alone and independent and like a forest friendly.
Another example for psychopathic corporation treatments is marketing methods focusing on children. They aim their sales at the children. Consequently, the buyers are parents of course, but children oriented advertisings are more effective because firms use children effects on their parents. In the Corporation film, Harvard Children Center Psychiatry Professor informs "Comparing the marketing of yesteryear to the marketing of today is like comparing a b. b. gun to a smart bomb. It is not the same as when I was a kid or even when the people who are young adults today were kids. It is much more sophisticated and it's much more pervasive. It is not that products themselves are bad or good. It is the notion of manipulating children into buying the products." Today, advertising on children has come a different, unbelievable dimension. Especially, we can see them in advertisements of corporations like McDonald's and Kinder. In the "Corporation film" there are results of a research on nagging. And the results are very clear : 20 percent to 40 percent of purchases would not have occurred unless the child had nagged their parents. And also what is found is that a quarter of all visits to theme parks wouldn't have occurred unless a child nagged their parents. But interestingly, this research was for helping corporations help children nag for their products more effectively. This shows entire of the table. Marketing techniques based children creates more sales for firms and more unnecessary spending for parents. But this is not the only factor affecting children. Sometimes we see some brands making advertisements based on children originally whose target audience is not children. These firms make this because they want to place the image of their brands into undeveloped children's brains. They hope to gain advantages of this action when these children grow. Because, they have already placed their image into children's subconscious previously. This is how system works. It is disgusting.
But coming to this point was not so easy of course. The firms that were thought unimportant 150 years ago became today's ruling international corporations (The Globalization Film). Corporations should be controlled by strict rules but it seems impossible today because of relationships between politicians and corporations. Today even in Turkey we see that in privatizations of public instutions, generally corporations that are close to ruling power win the bids. For example, Oger Group, that won the bid of privatization of Turkish Telecom, is known as being close to some parts in Turkey's current ruling government AKP. We see similar situation in privatization of Petroleum Office and Star TV. Doðan Group that supported AKP before elections won the bids on these privatizations (Based on information in the interview with parliamentarian Emin Þirin in Milli Gazete). Maybe it gives some signs. There is a similar situation in the USA too. George W. Bush has some connections with international oil companies. It is said that this was the factor leading the Iraq War (Based on information in the in defense of Marxism Manifesto on the Imperialist War against Iraq). Rules that should restrict corporations assist them. So, firstly there must be strict rules prohibiting every type of beneficial relationships between corporations and politicians. Secondly, new, objective laws should be made about corporations. Their statement in law should not be the equal with humans'. Corporations abuse that situation. An example, in the Corporation film is that: "At the end of the Civil War to give equal rights to black people. And therefore it said. No state can deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law. And what happens is the corporations come into court and corporation lawyers which are very clever said: "Oh you can't deprive a person of life liberty or property. We are a person. A corporation is a person" ." Corporations really know to use gaps in the laws. Horribly, they even used the laws for helpless, newly freed slaves for themselves. And according to "the Corporation film" again, Supreme Court let this situation. And result was that: for instance between 1890 and 1910 there were 307 cases brought before the court under the 14th amendment which is for newly freed slaves. Strangely, 288 of these cases were brought by corporations, but only 19 by African Americans. It is very interesting as well as frightening. This can be an indicator for us about what corporations can do to get new benefits for themselves. And finally there must be new responsibilities for corporations on human rights... Solution is here: legally a human always must be over a corporation. But it is not so easy to execute. Because as it is said, firstly the links between politicians and corporation must be cut down, this is the basic problem. After this, other steps can be followed with much more ease.
All in all, corporations are today's psychopathic creatures that get respect on court as much as humans. A corporation cannot be equal with a living creature so they cannot have natural rights. This is the key point. Corporations must be immediately regulated by laws that are prepared by objective legislators who have not any relationship with them. This could be a solution to leash this monster that is destroying our nature, trying to patent living creatures and poisoning even our children with different marketing methods. To make living more beautiful and to sustain the life, there must be radical regulations over corporations.
WORKS CITED
Jhally, Sut. Advertising and the End of the World, 1997
