Most of us know that the root word in corporation is based on the Latin word for body, corpus. And like a body, today's corporation is considered a legal body. But often it doesn't seem to have a heart.
Maybe it's time to take another look at corporations, and look to see if it's about time for a funeral.
People and/or groups who start corporations need to take on some of the responsibility of these entities. If their "babies" do wrong, they should be punished, just as those of us with real bodies.
Regardless, perhaps the day of the big corporation is on its way out. Maybe many more will be going the route of Circuit City and closing their doors.
About five years ago, Yan Simard posted a novel idea on his blog (http://yanknowwhat.blogspot.com/2004/05/end-of-corporations.html). He predicted that in the near future we would see the end of corporations as we know them today.
Of course, it's now 2008, and many of them are going strong today, and with the partnership they have with our governments, it's very difficult to envision such a day in our near future. Even many small mom and pop grocery stores are incorporated in the USA. Are we predicting hat even small corporations may someday become simply a memory?
I think that Simard when he predicted the end of corporations was thinking of our multi-national corporations that are elephants in our societies in comparison to mom and pop stores, who are more like amoebas.
Why would our multi-nationals fade away?
I compare them to governments and our oldest and biggest institutions, the church.
Of course, governments are always in a constant state of flux. Even empires like Rome and Great Britain have seen their powers ebb and flow through history. One year an empire, the next decade a "has-been" power.
What is the fastest growing churches these days? In my opinion, they are inter and non-denominational churches. People don't like the idea of hierarchy of any type in their lives. A gifted preacher can feel led to preach the gospel, open a storefront church, get the word out there by word of mouth of his magnificent sermons, and soon he's moving into a brand new mega-church. He (or she) has started a new movement, an exciting new movement, one that makes his (or her) members feel that they are in the middle of something that will move the world. In the institutional church, change and excitement comes very slowly, and members will often find themselves sleeping through services, services that are dictated by a hierarchy half way around the world. People just don't respond to big and distant as they once did.
Where I live now, smaller grocery stores that cater to customers who prefer organic food, are experiencing busy cash registers. Their customers are looking for food and services that are on the cusp of change. Many cater to customers who are wanting to eat foods like their grandparents did. They are abandoning prepared, pre-packaged food. They want their food straight from the local farm, and are even leaving the stores described above for the local farmers market. Of course, many farmers have yet to incorporate.
Corporations as we know them are like the churches and fat governments many of us have learned to abhor. Change filters through departments, through CEOs, through a board of directors, and through stockholders before it can become reality.
Conversely, your small businessman or woman may only have a partner to consult with before he or she dives into a new idea, a process or product. Your small business person if he or she has ready funding, can react as societal turns this way or that way. Turn around is quick and often successful.
Corporations were first created to be like individual persons when their assets were in tangible products. Today it has been estimated that in some corporations, up to 85 percent of their worth is tied up in intellectual property rather than washing machines or automobiles.
Individuals are not owned by corporations. They may own the intellectual property of their key employees, but they can't force those employees to stay in their employment. Thus, intellectual property is fluid, possibly moving from corporation to corporation, or even stepping outside of the corporate structure all together, and becoming independent.
Lastly, as overhead continues to get more expensive, especially in transportation and related costs, the power of big could become inefficient. Small businesses, with local customers and neighbors as employees, or better yet, as cooperatives, can fulfill their customers' needs faster and more personally than corporations ever could.
We citizens of the USA discovered long ago that our educational successes went down as we consolidated school systems, when students were bussed long distances before dawn and after dark, where parents no longer felt they were partners with the local schools. Now many of our students are prevented from participating in extracurricular activities because their schools are so far from home, and working parents can't transport them here to there all day and night? Teachers are not members of the same community as the students and their parents. Consequently when our students leave their schools, they are less prepared to go into successful careers in corporate America. As a matter of fact, many corporations are really sweating the lack of potential and quality intellectual property in the years ahead.
Those who are leaving our schools well prepared to meet the challenges of a complicated world out there have been raised to be independent in their aspirations. They don't chomp at the bit to move into the corporate world. Many are ready to go it alone, or with some friends, through whom they can network.
Corporations, churches and governments are unyielding and inflexible. They are looking for profits only. Often they make more money by merging and buying other companies as investments. They get away from their original mission, such as providing quality radios for customers at their doorsteps.
If my country ever initiates a single payer national health care program, fellow citizens will have lost all incentives to work in a corporation here. You will see thousands leaving corporations to start their own small businesses for fellow Americans who also like small rather than big, local instead of global, near rather than far, quick to respond rather than slow, accessible rather than distant.
So, good-bye (someday) to corporations as we know them today! The older I get the more I see that pendulums do swing both ways. In time for our grandchildren, I see the pendulum now swinging from big to small, from impersonal to personal, from global to local. And I think this is good and about time!
What do you think?