Items related to Greed, Inc.: Why Corporations Rule Our World
Synopsis
A searing indictment of modern corporations, which enjoy the legal status of individuals but are not bound by the same legal and moral responsibilities.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
Wade Rowland is the author of more than a dozen books. He is assistant professor of communication and culture at Atkinson College of York University in Toronto. He and his wife, Christine, live near Port Hope, Ontario.
From Publishers Weekly
Surveying misdeeds from the explosion-prone Ford Pinto to Philip-Morris's alleged obstruction of anti-smoking campaigns, this provocative treatise concludes that corporations, were they people, would be legally insane. Working from a lively, lucid reading of moral philosophers and economists from Hobbes to Adam Smith, Rowland (Galileo's Mistakes) describes the corporation as the embodiment of "psychological egoism," which holds that selfishness is the primary human motive and the marketplace defines acceptable standards of morality. Though corporations are technically and legally the equivalent of a person, they are also required to put profit above human moral precept; it is therefore a "moral cretin," a "sociopathic entity spawned by a paranoid hallucination" and even "an alien life-form." There are gaps, however, in Rowlands's arguments: by judging corporations in terms of human ethics standards, the author never demonstrates that institutional, procedural morality is systemically inferior to personal morality; and one could argue that the crimes of amoral corporations pale beside those committed by the "moralistic" state. Still, by making explicit the ideological foundations of corporations, Rowland shows just how strange, unnerving and dangerous they can be, and mounts a stimulating challenge to conventional political economy.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherArcade Publishing
- Publication date2011
- ISBN 10 1611453771
- ISBN 13 9781611453775
- BindingPaperback
- Edition number1
- Number of pages264
- Rating
(No Available Copies)
Search Books: Create a WantIf you know the book but cannot find it on AbeBooks, we can automatically search for it on your behalf as new inventory is added. If it is added to AbeBooks by one of our member booksellers, we will notify you!
Create a Want
