Large corporations tend to violate human rights and get away with it. What can be done to ensure the protection of victimized individual?
Its other features are that it is amoral, lacks empathy and displays a lack of conscience & concern for others because profits take precedence over these other more humane traits.
If an individual were to have these same characteristics, then they would be diagnosed as a sociopath or a psychopath. In my opinion, a corporation- in its entirety, is a psychopathic institution.
With this background, one must understand that psychopaths are strictly motivated only by Rational Utility Maximization. So, there’s only one effective key to engaging with a corporation. We must make it so that their Utility is maximized only when they are ethical and humane. This can be done by raising the costs of pursuing alternative non-humane courses of action.
They can be made to internalize their externalities, or they can be forced to be broken up in case of a monopoly. Increasing the necessary percentage of CSR is another way. Most importantly, election campaigns must be completely insulated from corporate influence in every way.
No appeals to emotion, ethics or humanity will ever be effective over the long term here. Only raising costs of non-desirable actions can protect victimized individuals.
By Krishanu Ranwan
New College
University of Toronto
Very nicely written covering every aspect of the topic.
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