Why are people so suspicious of Big Business in the Western world ?

[notyoueither]

The point of bringing up Bhopal is to provide an example close to home for aneeshm to see some of what corporations can be responsible for/blamed for, and assure him that Bhopal was not unique and things like it are among the reasons why few people in the West are blindly trusting of corporations.

Family owned or not makes little difference to many people.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by notyoueither
The point of bringing up Bhopal is to provide an example close to home for aneeshm to see some of what corporations can be responsible for/blamed for, and assure him that Bhopal was not unique and things like it are among the reasons why few people in the West are blindly trusting of corporations.

Family owned or not makes little difference to many people.

The problem with the Union Carbide/Bhopal example is that it tries to make an exception out to be the norm. Because (at least in my experience ) large corporations have a conservative (read cya) culture and resources to ensure proper safety & environmental controls, unlike in my experience small mom & pop start ups who by their entrepreneurial nature are willing to take short cuts and generally don't have a plethora of resources available.

Unfortunately for the residents of Bhopal the local management treated their facility as if it were a mom & pop shop rather than the multimillion dollar methylisocyanate facility it was.

That however should Not be a reflection on corporations IMO though as the incident rate is much greater in smaller ventures.

[Arrian]

Ogie,

I've seen haz waste/pollution messes created by both small and large companies. The "mom & pop" shops were often lax and/or poorly educated on proper procedure, yes. But the big boys were often deliberately filthy. "Oh, we didn't know that if you put a bunch of highly toxic waste into an unlined earthen pit to 'settle' that it would seep into the groundwater! We're shocked. Shocked, I tell you!"

-Arrian

p.s. As for incident rate... very difficult to tell, because of course lots don't get reported (prolly mostly by the little guys).

[Odin]

Originally posted by St Leo

Originally posted by Patroklos
I think the propblem is that for some ungodly reason people assume buisnesses have social responsibilites.

There sole purpose is to make profit within the confines of the law. Alot of distrust is because recently they haven't been doing so in many cases (like .0001% overall). Buisnesses are only beholden to workers for what an employment contract says. If you sign one with a pension, you should get it. If you sign one without it, how is that the companies fault.

Quite the opposite, my dear Patroklos. Businesses are part of society and thus beholden to society's interest. They have duties just like any other member of society. If they want to stick around for the long haul, they have to co-operate. If they don't, they have to be watched very, very closely.

Unfortunately, in the 1980s a disease of precisely your mode of thought swept the US business world. Sensible business management was replaced with next-quarter-trumps-everything, all-divisions-must-be-self-profitable, try-to-turn-all-costs-into-externalities-so-that-someone-else-pays lunacy that's absolutely suicidal in the long run.

Worse, because managers now get business degrees instead of humanities and sciences degrees, the corporate world is increasingly being run by the blind who are relatively ignorant of both history and of physical realities of our world. Bah.

Best post in this thread.

The Neo-Liberal madness needs to stop.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Arrian
Ogie,

I've seen haz waste/pollution messes created by both small and large companies. The "mom & pop" shops were often lax and/or poorly educated on proper procedure, yes. But the big boys were often deliberately filthy. "Oh, we didn't know that if you put a bunch of highly toxic waste into an unlined earthen pit to 'settle' that it would seep into the groundwater! We're shocked. Shocked, I tell you!"

-Arrian

p.s. As for incident rate... very difficult to tell, because of course lots don't get reported (prolly mostly by the little guys).

We've had this discussion before. My experience seeing on the ground operations in both small and large companies leads me to believe that the larger companies by and large have their act much more significantly together than small mom and pop shops who most times don't even know regulations and more often than not don't care. Heck most small companies don't have environmental or safety officers.

Now that is not to say that large corps due to their resources don't use every dirty legal trick in the book to avoid penalty.

[Arrian]

No real disagreement on that, Ogie. Especially nowadays.

Back in the olden days (1950s, 60s, to some extent the 70s) things were somewhat different in that much of the law concerning environmental liability (such as CERCLA) hadn't been passed yet. So there was less pressure on those large companies w/good risk management to, well, manage that particular risk.

Probably the worst group is the mid-sized companies... small enough to act like a small company (ignore regs, not have risk managers/compliance officers) but handle/generate/dispose of large quantities of nasty stuff.

Anyway, the bigger companies make good examples b/c when they do screw up it tends to be pretty dramatic. Thousands of mom & pop drycleaners spilling small quantities of perc here, there and everywhere over the course of decades... boooooring.

-Arrian

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
The problem with the Union Carbide/Bhopal example is that it tries to make an exception out to be the norm. Because (at least in my experience ) large corporations have a conservative (read cya) culture and resources to ensure proper safety & environmental controls, unlike in my experience small mom & pop start ups who by their entrepreneurial nature are willing to take short cuts and generally don't have a plethora of resources available.

Com'on Ogie, you know that's just not true. I will show you the example of the Exxon Valdez. Sure, the direct cause is probably Hazelwood was drunk, but running single-hulled tankers through those waters was really a disaster waiting to happen.

[Zkribbler]

Yeah and see my Erin-Brockovich/PG&E reference earlier in the thread.

Big corporations can mean mega-arrogance.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Com'on Ogie, you know that's just not true. I will show you the example of the Exxon Valdez. Sure, the direct cause is probably Hazelwood was drunk, but running single-hulled tankers through those waters was really a disaster waiting to happen.

You realize of course that single hulled tankers don't actually affford much if any protection.

You also realize the extraordinary efforts Exxon (now granted the CEo was a public relations nightmare) attempted to provide resources for cleanup only to be rebuffed and thwarted by local Alaska efforts. It makes a very compelling read of how corporations actually try to do the right thing only to be shafted by the government.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Arrian
Back in the olden days (1950s, 60s, to some extent the 70s) things were somewhat different in that much of the law concerning environmental liability (such as CERCLA) hadn't been passed yet. So there was less pressure on those large companies w/good risk management to, well, manage that particular risk.

After re-reading this, I think you have hit the nail on the head, but probably not the way you intended.

Simply, large corporations try to shrug off as much social responsibilities as possible until the society gets pissed enough to make laws to force them large corporations to do their bit.

[Arrian]

Um, that's precisely what I intended, UR.

-Arrian