Is Corporate Evil Inevitable?
We are lost in an ever growing corporate forest of big business and mega-corporations. For the most part we view the impact that these companies have on our lives as positive.
However the super fast connectivity they give us, along with their at=a-touch-of-a-button information, immediate delivery and shiny new products, comes at a price.
The very nature of their size means that they will crush competition and come to dominate their respective spaces. With no resistance to their rule, it is they that actually become the rule of law.
Is this inevitable? Do all companies that grow past a certain size just naturally become evil?
Can we calculate it? Is there some kind of hidden evil, algorithm, that will be able to predict the exact point a company will go bad?
The Path Of Least Resistance
Let us take a moment to relax our lovely little minds, letting me lead you on a meandering stroll along the hazy sunlit path of another thought experiment.
Imagine if you will, that you have just started a small software company. You are excited because you have developed voice recognition software that will allow people to instantly converse with anyone in any language in real time.
Your software is soon being used all over the world, translators go out of business overnight, and everyone's happy; apart from the poor translators of course.
Stage One - The Garden Is Sold
Whilst you are enjoying your new found success of course; you have a burning desire to be a mega-billionaire, so you promptly sell the company for mega-billions.
Of course you retain a five percent share and the Chairman's seat on the board, however the company is no longer yours.
The new owners who consist of other companies and public shareholders, are keen to realise the mega-billions they have spent on your baby, as quickly as possible.
So things start to change, they look to advertising as now they have a medium that can advertise to anybody in any language with just one campaign.
Suddenly people aren't so happy anymore.
Stage Two - Information Gathering - The Road To Unhappiness
Advertising works great if you tell millions of people your message. It works even better if you only speak to the people who are interested in hearing your message. Advertising works best of all, when you tell people who want to hear your message and are also ready to buy from you.
You can only deliver such a targeted message to complete strangers, if you gather as much information as possible on them, essentially spying.
Of course any spying is consensual, this is because your old company will weave an agreement of complicity into the terms of service. Much like when Facebook openly tell you that they are tracking your movements, even when you don't use the site.
Stage Three - Resident Evil
Of course people don't take kindly to being spied upon, even when they agree to it in the first place. In fact it could be said to be worse. Rather like a digital crack dealer, you have allowed your customers a taste of the product. Then once they are hooked, you put not only a price on it, you also tag on unreasonable demands.
Now you are Chairman of a company that everybody hates, they love your products, but they hate you, you are the sleazy dealer who gave them a vision of a wonderful future, only to take a big fat, advertising-shaped dump all over their hopes and dreams.
Ordering The New World
Back to reality, and perhaps it is simply the fact that large companies, have enough clout to make a large impact, and you simply can't please all of the people, all of the time.
From blockchain technology, to quantum computing. The world of tomorrow is here now, and with it comes changes.
The way we secure our information, and indeed the way we identify ourselves online will evolve along with these wholesale changes we are to experience.
Maybe things will change, and large organisations will be more representative of society and its desires. Perhaps the blockchain, or indeed the quantum blockchain, will be the key to the gates, to that particular garden . .
. . . and who knows what delights might await us inside?
DO ALL CORPORATIONS AT ONE POINT OR ANOTHER GO BAD? IS IT BECAUSE THEY SERVE MULTIPLE INTERESTS? ARE ALL CORPORATIONS EVIL, OR ARE SOME GOOD? AS EVER, LET ME KNOW BELOW WHAT YOU THINK!
It is true when they say power corrupts. When these companies become so big and influential, they start possessing so much power, that is where the corruption starts.
They feel they can get whatever they want, and at whatever expense. As a matter of fact, they sometimes don't care who gets hurt or the people they step upon. Your anology is similar to the case of big oil firms in my country.
They destroy our farmlands and pollute our rivers. They later bring up one stupid scholarship scheme, thinking that it will heal our heart and redeem themselves. Its nonsense.
A time is coming when such power centralization won't be possible anymore. The time is even more closer than we think.
I agree @zionweke. It's tricky when the exchange of goods and services becomes about mega milions and selling to millions of people you'll never know. Perhaps it's the size, perhaps it's human nature but either way it's an incredibly dismal set of realities going on from google to shell oil to facebook to Jcrew!
there is still a lack of consensus about the ultimate 'humanity' of man. via freedom there is very little to resist the tumor like growth and insidiousness of "evil" defined by the seven deadly sins, etc, in society. the greatest battle of the next millennia is the battle against ourselves, to maintain our survival. the risk is constantly there as well because each generation seemingly needs to relearn the errors and foibles, it is onerous due to the small length of each individual life. technology is seductive but inherently dangerous as well, it is a dramatic play at a grand scale, the question of our survival
I don't think all companies are bad, just like all people aren't bad, yet when the bottom line is made a priority over all other things, then pressure on decision makers sometimes causes immoral activities to take place. Cutting corners etc. IMHO, lobbying needs to be eliminated as most mega corporations are driving the political structure in the United States and in turn are creating laws and political decisions that may not be in the best interests of the masses. I believe the number is something like 50% of all politicians become lobbyists when they retire from their political careers. That should say something about the state of government and where the root of government decisions are coming from.
I can relate to your thoughts as I am for the free market with monopoly restrictions being one of the rare examinations.
I don't believe that absolutely all corporations at some point break bad. It depends a lot on the personality of the main stakeholder. Unfortunately, I agree that most of them do.
Steemit can also end up being bad, with most of the major stake(SP)holders caring only for their profit, or it can turn out to be good, with most of the major stake(SP)holders caring for the community. Time will tell, but I'm optimistic. : )
You mean everyone that upvotes their own articles with a huge amount of rewards?
Or the fact that people who post 20 articles a day with 4 stolen sentences and a picture get more than my post on gender-biases?
Well, this is equality for you :D
Self-rewarding and plagiarism are some of the bad behaviors found on Steemit. I hope that we will have more and more incentives that promote good behavior (such as the @gentlebot and @thing-2), as well as more incentives that punish bad habits (such as @steemcleaners and @cheetah). Cheers! : )
Very good, I learned something new today!Thanks!
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I think your ideas are valid, although the question if all the corporations become inevitably evil is not something we can ever find out. I guess it depends on the people in charge, and their ideals or morals. I would never sell my company as I only trust myself fully in this world, I can wait until my company makes enough money to evolve but sometimes this is not possible. Waiting for your small company to grow might make you lose the competitive edge you have with the tech. This is why they sell, to keep the advantage and give it a chance. It's a gamble, and many of them lose. Lose their company or their dreams for the company.
It's much more complicated than to discuss in a small comment, you get attached to projects and you wouldn't like to see someone else destroying it :)
Nice post beautiful presented and explained. @cryptogee i think must be need The Path Of Least Resistance
thanks for shareing
Really what is the definition of bad? The amount of good that corporations can produce because of scale is great and overall efficient use of our resources.
The bad I think you are referring is the exhaust which is a downside of all beings.
Do you think all corporations motives are bad?
Wow amazing post :)
thanks for sharing us
Many corporations definitely go bad when government stops market forces from keeping them in check. Like you know, the world we live in.
Now in a laissez fair world, do corporations always go bad? I don't think so, or at the very least at a lower rate.
I do not think all corporations are evil per se. But they become massive bureaucratic behemoths, and some of them are taken over by worse people than others.