Forum Post: Rewrite the "corporate charter"

The notion that the highest duty of a corporation is to profit, regardless of any ethical considerations, must be changed. We are expected to allow people to die of corporate pollution related illnesses, so long as shareholders make money. We are expected to allow the BP's of the world to pollute our waters through oil spills that are the direct result of cost cutting done in order to reduce costs and increase profits. We are expected to allow sociopathic decision making which puts shareholder profts above all other considerations.

Not acceptable. This has to change. It should not be a legally acceptable "excuse" let alone a morally acceptable excuse.

The corporations are human constructs. Originally corporations were structured very differently and were subject to being dissolved by communities if the communities felt they were harmful. 100 years of conservative corporate-friendly judges responding to the preferences of large companies has brought us here.

There is no good reason why people should be expected to literally suffer and die so that corporations and shareholders enjoy profits. There's plenty of greedy reasons and hopeless reasons, but there aren't any GOOD reasons.

It would be better if people were paid better and could actually save their money than our system now where they are expected to "invest" it in order to be able to retire someday. As we saw via 2008, their investments will be sacrificed in order to prop up too-big-to-fail-banks. We should NOT be forced to play the markets and we should not be forced to drink polluted water or breathe poison, or die from nuclear waste that can't be properly stored.

The "corporate charter" must be rewritten.