Bakan Quotes & Sayings

While I don't think sociopaths have any sort of moral urge to do good things, I think they can and do act morally in the context of pursuing their own advantage. A good analogy would be a corporation. There are a lot of corporations that do things that you like, maybe even good things, like produce vaccines or electric cars, although the primary motivation is to make a profit. But just because you are trying to make a profit doesn't mean you can't do it by doing things you like, or that you are good at, or that comport with the way you see the world, or want the world to see you. — M.E. Thomas

The corporation was originally conceived as a public institution whose purpose was to serve national interests and advance the public good. — Joel Bakan

Goodwin has done the seemingly impossible-he has made economics comprehensible and funny. — Joel Bakan

If you look through the century, certain things have gotten better and certain things have gotten worse. I wouldn't say overall that things have gotten better. I think you could say things have gotten worse, but I don't think you could say that things have gotten better. Overall. You can't say that. — Nellie McKay

Philosophy starts with doubt and loves only truth. — Henri Frederic Amiel

By leveraging their freedom from the bonds of location, corporations could now dictate the economic policy of governments. — Joel Bakan

Joel Bakan, author of The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power argues that if corporations have 'person hood' under the law, then it makes sense to question what kind of people they are. He posits that corporations behave with all the classical signs of sociopathy: they are inherently amoral, they elevate their own interests above all others', and they disregard moral and sometimes legal limits on their behavior in pursuit of their own advancement. Organizations of this type would thrive under the leadership of people who have the same traits: sociopaths. — M.E. Thomas

The corporation's legally defined mandate is to pursue, relentlessly and without exception, its own self-interest, regardless of the often harmful consequences it might cause to others. — Joel Bakan

The notion that business and government are and should be partners is ubiquitous, unremarkable, and repeated like a mantra by leaders in both domains. It seems a compelling and innocuous idea - until you think about what it really means. — Joel Bakan

Fine, but you should at least have to write an epic poem in my honor. Here, I'll help you. "Ode to Keefe Sencen, that brave lovable nut. He may not have teal eyes, but he has a really cute,"
"KEEFE"! — Shannon Messenger

Corporations now govern society, perhaps more than governments themselves do; yet ironically, it is their very power, much of which they have gained through economic globalization, that makes them vulnerable. — Joel Bakan

A century and a half after its birth, the modern business corporation, an artificial person made in the image of a human psychopath, now is seeking to remake real people in its image. — Joel Bakan

His name was Ed. His nickname was Scrambled Ed. On leaving school he had taken a year out to decide what he wanted to study at University. The year passed and he still hadn't decided but went to University anyway.

'Academic' is defined as 'of, or relating to, institutionalized education and scholarship'. The same word, at the same time, also means 'having little practical use or value, as by being overly detailed, unengaging or theoretical'.
The latter definition seemed the most appropriate for Ed's university career which was a mash up of drinking, diving, surfing, kayaking and having his heart-broken. All washed down with a few pints.
After three years of that he was awarded a second class joint honours degree which he put in the recycling bin and went in search of something that would make him feel better. — Matt Padwick

The corporation, like the psychopathic personality it resembles, is programmed to exploit others for profit. — Joel Bakan

There can never be too much loving kindness or chesed. — Heather Wolf

The genius of the corporation as a business form, and the reason for its remarkable rise over the last three centuries , was - and is - its capacity to combine the capital, and thus the economic power, of unlimited numbers of people. — Joel Bakan

Quotes from the Underground is a remarkable resource and must-read for writers, researchers, activists and indeed anyone who embraces progressive values and hopes to rescue politics from corporate control. — Joel Bakan

Governments can can send inspectors to companies. Governments can put legal requirements in place to disclose information that consumers and workers and other interested people need. Non-governmental organizations don't have that legal power and to me, that's what imposes substantial limitiations on how far we can go with trying to keep corporations accountable though non-governmental measures. — Joel Bakan

THE PILGRIM AT ROME To go to Rome Is much of trouble, little of profit: The King whom thou seekest here, Unless thou bring Him with thee, thou wilt not find. — Kuno Meyer

We're so accessible, we're inaccessible. We can't find the off switch on our devices or on ourselves ... We want to wear an iPod as much to listen to our playlists as to block out the rest of the world and protect ourselves from all that noise. We are everywhere - except where we actually are physically. — Linda Stone

The whole difficulty I think that that we're facing now is the question of who is going to ensure that corporations are accountable. The problem with leaving it to activists and non-governmental organizations-even with the tool of the Internet at their disposal-is that those organizations and those people don't have the legal right to compel corporations to disclose information, and that is something that governments can do. — Joel Bakan

Every seed carries in itself the ability for multiplication. — Sunday Adelaja

There is so much power at your fingertips! Use it! — Sadie Calvano

Living in the woods does strange things to lonely men. — Paul Doiron

As institutional psychopaths, corporations are wont to remove obstacles that get into their way. — Joel Bakan

As the corporation's size and power grew, so did the need to assuage people's fears of it. The corporation suffered its first full-blown legitimacy crisis in the wake of the early-twentieth-century merger movement, when, for the first time, many Americans realized that corporations, now turned behemoths, threatened to overwhelm their social institutions and governments. — Joel Bakan

I had studied the violin to a certain amount of success. At some point, I realized that I didn't really like the violin. I was only doing it because I could, and I was good at it, and everyone was encouraging me. But I didn't have a great love for it. — BD Wong

Dodge v. Ford still stands for the legal principal that managers and directors have a legal duty to put the shareholders' interests above all others and no legal authority to serve any other interests - what has come to be known as "the best interests of the corporation" principal. — Joel Bakan

As a psychopathic creature, the corporation can neither recognize nor act upon moral reasons to refrain from harming others. — Joel Bakan

I think Google's founders are both a couple of guys with some high ideals which have been to some degree reflected in the way the company has been run in terms of its having a very good workplace and good employee programs, and now that they're going public they want in some ways to be able to ensure that that kind of approach continues. So they've effectively put in place this notion of "Don't Be Evil". — Joel Bakan

These are the elements of an emerging order that may prove to be as dangerous as any fundamentalism that history has produced. For in a world where anything or anyone can be owned, manipulated, and exploited for profit, everything and everyone will be. — Joel Bakan

The corporation is not an independent "person" with its own rights, needs, and desires that regulators must respect. It is a state created tool for advancing social and economic policy. — Joel Bakan