The corporate "person" is mandated by law to have a psychopathic personality.

[Jackpine Radical]

That is, they are required to work in the narrow self-interest of their shareholders.

The point has been made many times before--often by me--but I have seldom heard much about what to do about this fact of corporate psychopathy. So, here is a partially-baked idea:

What would happen if the nation--and, one hopes, the world--decides to demand that all corporations place in their charter a statement of how their existence will contribute to the public good, and how they will neutralize any negative effects they bring into existence? And then imagine that their charters will be reviewed from time to time by a board of regulators acting in the public interest, with the charters subject to revocation if they fail to live up to their commitments to society. Would we get a better class of corporate "citizen" from these provisions? How should members of that board be selected? Etc. Help me bake this idea a little.

[The Magistrate]

1. Very True, Sir, And Beautifully Succinct

[StrongBad]

2. Who watches the watchers?

[ZombieHorde]

3. Movie viewers. nt

[izquierdista]

4. And then imagine that the year was 1820

When that was actually done. Your idea isn't new; that's the way things worked before corporations started buying off influence, slowly but surely.

[Mike 03]

5. Interesting ideas. I know of instances where IMO a psychopath ran a company, usually

into the ground. I've also known of remarkable, ethical individuals who were CEOs and in some cases withstood horrific circumstances while trying to perform their job as well as possible.

All corporate charters claim that the corporation has the welfare of its customers as a priority, but the problem is, no matter what negative things they have to do to maintain the bottom line, there is ALWAYS some way to spin that action int something that benefits rather than harms societ. Look at the history of the Automatic Teller Machine. That says it all.

[Jackpine Radical]

6. Dr. Robert Hare, the psychologist who is the foremost expert on psychopathy,

wrote a book with Paul Babiak on corporate psychopaths called Snakes in Suits. YOu might be interested.