Looking for Good Company: Bubbles and Blemishes

• Author: Allan C. Hutchinson
• Pages: 19-37

19



Ling  G Comn:

  

Corporations have been e nthroned and an era of cor ruption in

high places will follow, and the mone y power of the country will

endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of

the people until all wealth is ag gregated in a few hands and the

Republic is destroyed.

~ Abraham Lincoln

I    years since the prescient President Lincoln voiced

his concerns. Indeed, in his letter written towards the end of the

American Civil War, he worried that, as a result of the growth of large

corporations, he could “see in the near future a crisis approaching

that u nnerve s me and c auses me t o tremble.”  Well, if Lincoln was un-

nerved and trembling in November , he would surely be a basket

case today —t he future is here and a crisis has arrived. And his anxiety

would not be quelled by a visit to Canada. ere is more than enough

“corruption” to trouble even the most hardened observer. Canadian

corporations have been a major conduit through which “wealth is ag-

gregated in a few hands” and “the money power of the country” has

managed to consolidate its own power and importance. Despite the

talk about good corporate citizens, there seems to be an inverse (and

PART ONE: SURV EYI NG T HE SC ENE

20

perverse) relation between the increasing use of such disarming rhet-

oric and the actual performance of corporations and their executives.

In the process, corporations have succeeded in “working upon the

prejudices of the people” so as to convince Canadians that corporate

power not only is no threat to the democratic fabric of society but of-

fers the best hope for continued prosperity and well-being. In short,

even if there is regula r wrong-doing in corporate high places , corpora-

tions can produce the good as well as the goods. e idea of the “good

company” as an oxymoronic ideal is ercely resisted.

Of course, corporations do not have the corner on anti-social or ve-

nal behaviour. Not all corporate executives are immora l or irresponsi-

ble and not all forms of corporate organization are corrupt and evil.

Other organizations, small or large, public or private, are involved in

bad deeds; large private corp orations merely throw them onto a much

larger canvas with greater eects. Moreover, it is as much the broader

social, political, and economic culture in which such institutions and

individuals operate (and to which they contribute) that is at fault. Yet

it would be mistaken to suggest that the organizational theory and

practice of corporate governance has not played a crucial and highly

signicant role in the modern state of aairs. It is more a case of cor-

porate structures enabling and abetting bad behaviour than causing

or requiring it. Without relieving individuals of responsibility for

their acts, it is also essential to consider and criticize the institutional

context in which these people function and attempt to legitimate

their behaviour. Consequently, in the search for the “good company,”

it is important to do more than look at the corrupt activities of cor-

porate executives: there must be a willingness to explore the ways in

which corporations are constituted and operate. It is only when this

examination is done that it might become possible to assuage a Lin-

colnesque anxiety and to protect “the republic” from its own and cor-

porations’ worst excesses. Still, some grasp of the unethical antics of

Canadian corporations and their executives seems a convenient place

to begin this task.