Reply #94: ENRON really never left they just changed names and a few players

[nolabels]

The ten 10b scam with..... Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting) - Corporate Profile
http://www.polarisinstitute.org/corp_profiles/public_service_gats/corp...
is a classic example.

http://www.jacksonprogressive.com/issues/mokhiberweissman/corpsdifferent012701.html
Corporations: Different Than You and Me
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

Jan 24, 2001
(snip)
Companies aggressively portray themselves as part of the community (every community), a friendly neighbor. If they succeed in that effort at self-characterization, they know what follows: a dramatically diminished likelihood of external constraints on their operations. If a corporation is part of the community, then it is entitled to the same freedoms available to others, and the same presumption of non-interference that society appropriately affords real people.

Especially because corporations work so aggressively and intentionally to obscure the point, it is crucial to draw attention to the corporation as an institution with unique powers, motivations and attributes, and to point to the basic differences between human beings and the socially constituted and authorized institutions called corporations.

Here are 10 differences between corporations and real people:

1. Corporations have perpetual life.
2. Corporations can be in two or more places at the same time.
3. Corporations cannot be jailed.
4. Corporations have no conscience or sense of shame.
5. Corporations have no sense of altruism, nor willingness to adjust their behavior to protect future generations.
6. Corporations pursue a single-minded goal, profit, and are typically legally prohibited from seeking other ends.
7. There are no limits, natural or otherwise, to corporations' potential size.
8. Because of their political power, they are able to define or at very least substantially affect, the civil and criminal regulations that define the boundaries of permissible behavior. Virtually no individual criminal has such abilities.
9. Corporations can combine with each other, into bigger and more powerful entities.
10. Corporations can divide themselves, shedding subsidiaries or affiliates that are controversial, have brought them negative publicity or pose liability threats.

These unique attributes give corporations extraordinary power, and makes the challenge of checking their power all the more difficult. The institutions are much more powerful than individuals, which makes all the more frightening their single-minded profit maximizing efforts.

Corporations have no conscience, or has been famously said, no soul. As a result, they exercise little self-restraint. Exacerbating the problem, because they have no conscience, many of the sanctions we impose on individuals - not just imprisonment, but the more important social norms of shame and community disapproval - have limited relevance to or impact on corporations.
(snip)