larkin

Corporations do today what was previously the domain of organized crime syndicates of the past.


Gambling and gaming has become big business.


Through corporate influence in the legislative process, loan sharking is legal and today is being used towards, individuals, municipalities, states and even whole countries.


Legal pornography has gone corporate. National hotel chains often provide pay-per-view.


Although big Pharma brings life saving medicines to the market, it is also in the in the business of making custodial drugs that foster a dependence on an artificial sense of wellbeing. They aggressively market them to children.


The rise of mercenaries is a fearful development. Kickass guns for hire coming home as soon as they are finished abroad. They'll even have their own private prisons.

Cicero

On the whole, there is some truth to what you propose.

The machinations and fraud perpetrated by big name wall street firms in the recent financial crisis support your proposal. This is just a recent example of corporate thug-like behavior with the S&L crisis of a few decades ago and the Enron scam more recently. I think there can be something to say that corporations tend to bring out the worst in individuals inclined to disreputable behavior with a highly competative environment as a motivation and lack of individual responsibility as a moral cover.

Corporate law seems to make corporations have the attributes of indivuals, take for unstance the USSC ruling on campaign contributions.

Edratman

I concur with Cicero.

I think a big difference is that corporations take pains to maintain the illusion of legal compliance.

Nestor

No. Government has replaced organized crime.

larkin

A corporate entity as a person is run and controlled by people. They have seen to it that a corporation has the rights of an individual. When a corporation goes belly-up, I believe that the people running the corporation have cashed out and run for the hills. In the majority of cases, many of these people are unaccountable.


Ken Ley died before actually being convicted. His ill gotten gains went uncontested to his heirs.


That's like robbing a bank and dying before going to jail and you family inherits the stolen money.


(I happen to think Ley is alive and living on his own private golf course somewhere in the Caribean.)


Corporations are not persons!

David Vagamundo

If the legislature makes something legal, then it is no longer "crime;" e.g. gambling (which many US states are engaged in today through lotteries.) If it is not "crime", then the individuals and organizations that engage in it are not engaged in "organized crime."

I think Nestor has nailed it, though.

Rasta

We still have loads of organized crime in America. So long as we think we can control people with words written on paper.

Carlisle Blues

The corporate entity will go to great lengths to maintain their positive legal status; through compliance and accurate reporting. The laws that govern the enterprise are what allows them to operate in a manner that gives the appearance impropriety.

larkin

You mean like Enron, Bernie Madoff, Halliburton's performance in Iraq, First Jersey Securities, Silverado Savings, run by Neal Bush, AIG and the likes of Goldman Sachs, Ameraquest Morguages, Did I forget the pernicious behavior of the health insurance industry that kicks ill people off the roles.
The individuals that run these corporations are protected and unaccountable. Bernie Madoff is a stunning exception.

David Vagamundo

Uhhh---Many of the Enron executives were indicted and some were sent to prison.
Neal Bush was investigated and fined $50,000 for his role in Silverado.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings...vings_and_Loan

Robert Brennan, founder of First Jersey, was convicted of securities fraud and sent to prison.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Brennan

Halliburton and the insurance industry are entirely different, and the investigation of AIG, Goldman, etc., is just starting.

So Madoff is not nearly as much of an exception.