A corporation was originally designed to allow for the forming of a group to get a single project done, after which it would be disbanded. At the end of the Civil War, the 14th amendment was passed in order to protect the rights of former slaves. At this point, corporate lawyers worked to define a corporation as a “person,” granting them the right to life, liberty and property. Ever since this distinction was made, corporations have become bigger and bigger, controlling many aspects of the economy and the lives of Americans. Corporations are not good for America because they outsource jobs, they lie and deceive, and they knowingly make and sell products that can harm people and animals, all in order to raise profits. Corporations in the United States have proved time and time again that they are all about profit and not about what is good for America. One example of this is the fact that many corporations have factories in other countries, or buy from other corporations that do. Nike (an athletic shoe and clothing company) produces most of their shoes and apparel in factories in other countries, including Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, China, Vietnam and Malaysia. According to Nike’s factory disclosure list released May 2011, only 49 of it’s over 700 factories are located in the U.S. (Nike, Inc.) This means that thousands of jobs that could be filled by needy Americans are instead being filled by workers in other countries. This reason that Nike and other corporations outsource is very simple, it is very cheap to do so. In an excerpt from Jeffrey St. Clair's book “Born Under a Bad Sky” the author describes the vast differences between Nike’s production costs and retail prices. “In Vietnam, it costs Nike only $1.50 to manufactu... ... middle of paper ... ...d The Corporation. Dir. March Achbar. Zeitgeist Films Ltd., 2003. DVD. Frank, T.A. “A Brief History of Wal-Mart.” Washington Monthly Apr. 2006. ReclaimDemocracy.org. Web. 3 Sept. 2008. DVD. Nike, Inc. Factory Disclosure List. Nike, Inc, 1 May 2011. PDF. St. Clair, Jeffrey. "Why Organic & Justice-Minded Consumers Should Boycott Nike & Other Multi-National Brand Products." Born under a Bad Sky: Notes from the Dark Side of the Earth. Petrolia, CA: CounterPunch, 2008. Organic Consumers Association. Web. . Teather, David. "Nike Lists Abuses At Asian Factories." The Guardian (2005). YaleGlobal Online Magazine. Web. 26 Oct. 2011. .
Sam Dillion wrote “What Corporate America Can’t Build: A Sentence” for an audience of college students, employees and corporate people. In his article, Sam points out that companies are spending a lot of money annually on remedial training. According to Sam, the writing problem appears in e-mails, reports and texts. He is informing his audience to brush up on writing skills before entering the corporate world, in order to avoid remedial training. Companies like to hire employees with excellent writing skills but many of employees and applicants fall short of that standard.
Large corporations such as Nike, Gap, and Reebok and many others from the United States have moved their factories to undeveloped nations; barely pay their employees enough to live on. Countries such as China, Indonesia, and Haiti have readily abundant cheap labor. There should be labor laws or an obligation of respecting workers to provide decent working conditions, fair wages, and safety standards.
At first glance, it seems implausible the word democracy isn't written in the United States Constitution, or in the Preamble of the Constitution, or even in the Declaration of Independence. One would assume a concept so paramount to modern American culture would surely be derived from one of its oldest and most endeared documents. Alas, it is not. The Constitution only specifically mentions two entities, the government and “We the People”. Defining government is an easy enough task, but who are “We the People”? Originally consisting of only white male property owners, eventually adding in other races, income classes, women, and astonishingly, corporations, the definition of “We the People” has evolved numerous times. Corporation is another key term the architects of our government failed to define for us, perhaps that is why it found its way into the phrase “We the People”. A grave dilemma lies in this fallible defining of terms. Granting corporations person-hood legislatively shifts the power of democracy from human interests to corporate interests. This corrosion of human interest can clearly be noted when examining the battle over corporate power highlighted in the court cases of Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, and United States v. Sourapas and Crest Beverage Company.
American companies control factories that span the globe. Shoes, textiles, automobiles and many other products are produced in countries such as Mexico, Indonesia, and Korea. In fact, the American based Nike shoe company makes no shoes in the United States (Moore, The Big One.) These factories could employ the American unemployed and homeless. 17.3 percent of the people in Flint, Michigan are unemployed (Moore, Pets or Meat.)
The role of corporation has a large impact on 21st century society. Coporations place in modern society is omnipresent, consumers are conditioned by the corporate advertising. In Rushoff’s Once Removed: The Corporate Life-form, corporatism is defined as “a way to suppress lateral transactions between people or small companies and instead redirect any and all value they created to a group of investors” (p. 1). Corporatism in today’s modern society is becoming more and more present, as large businesses have seemed to continue taking over smaller “mom and pop” businesses. Everything we own relies on corporation, everything is produced by large companies on global scale. We receive electronics from China, garments from India and Thailand, and oil
“Nike, which began as an import/export scheme of made-in-Japan running shoes and does not own any of its own factories, has become a prototype for the product-free brand. Inspired by the swoosh’s staggering success, many more traditionally run companies…are busy imitating Nike’s model, not only copying the company’s marketing approach…but also its on-the-cheap outsourced production structure.” (from “No Logo” p203) Wacom Wacom thankfully still has one factory in Japan and owns their own factories, but outsourcing work is still a problem. It becomes more difficult to guarantee the quality of products and address problems and solutions. Moreover, if Wacom is relying on cheap labor, the marketed value of their products should actually be affordable and not so outlandish. When similar products are at a much affordable range, it consolidates the claim that Wacom is merely selling their
The Bill of Rights is a weapon that seems to be used against us more often than not, while it’s easy to look at the landmark social justice cases ruled by the Supreme Court that have helped push America forward, but there have been far more conservative abuses of legal power than leaps forward. This occurs because the Bill of Rights is interpreted by each state, instead of it being nationalized we have open interpretation allowing the inequality in the judicial system to continue unchecked in certain cases for decades. The evolution of the First Amendment changes over time with way of the world as it should, however, there have been multiple rulings by various Supreme Court judges that define “persons” or “person” as a “corporation”. Slowly over time, our Bill of Rights have extended the same and/or better rights to corporations that have been interpreted as people.
In addition, Nike is a worldwide known company and it is among the top empires just as Adidas and Puma. It has more than 900 factories which are located in an estimated 50 countries, they also have more than 660 000 workers which most of them are women. However, although they have a lot of factories around the world, their main manufacture factories are located in China, Indonesia, and Vietnam which are basically countries with the most minimum salaries rate given to the workers. Nike chooses these locations for their production of their merchandise because of the cheap ...
Many global companies like Nike, Inc. are seen as role models both in the market place as well as in society in large. That is why they are expected to act responsibly in their dealings with humanity and the natural world. Nike benefits from the global sourcing opportunities, therefore areas such as production and logistics have been outsourced to partner companies in low-wage countries like China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand. As a result the company is limited nowadays to its core competencies of Design and Marketing.
With the increasing awareness and publicity of poor working conditions in subcontracted factories in East Asia, Nike has stimulated an uprising of activist and watchdog groups working toward seeing these conditions changed. With Nike in the negative spotlight, various organizations have revolved around generating a negative outlook on Nike’s practices of social irresponsibility. Certain campaigns such as the “National Days of Consciousness” and “International Day of Protest” were organized to educate people on the deplorable working conditions in Nike’s Asian manufacturing plants, and were designed to get more people involved in global employment issues.
Corporations are large companies around the world that are legally recognized as people. Because corporations are legally people, we can consider them to be like the modern plantation owners; the plantation consisting of the planet, and the workers being synonymous to slaves. We citizens, as consumers, are indentured to corporations; we “need” the goods they provide in order to meet our basic, and not-so-basic, needs. Everything we own has been tainted by a corporation - the food is imported, the goods are shipped internationally, the energy that is used to drive cars, and so forth; it is all provided by a corporation. According to the source, workers are 'insecure' and live in a constant state of fear from their
Economics is a very broad yet complex subject. Sometimes, in order to get a better view of the picture as a whole, it is useful to make an up-close and in-depth analysis of the elements which make up an economy. Examining the details of this topic can offer a revealing look into what composes a complex society such as that of America. Two very basic elements to be reviewed are ‘producers’ and ‘consumers’ and the relation that exists between the two. More specifically, as in the article I have chosen to review, how it is that a producer reaches its consumer, how their market is defined and what effects marketing has on both the targeted audience and third party members. Advertising takes on many forms in the world of business but a company’s ability to tune its methods and localize the market to which it wishes to peddle its goods may very well determine whether or not that company will prosper. Corporations are a very good example of effective mass advertising simply because of their size and high profile positions. Still, despite the enormity of these organizations, if they wish to continue their success among competitors they must adhere to the same rules as their smaller counterparts or suffer a nose dive in revenues. Things like cost and return must be considered in any marketing campaign that wishes to be successful. Anheuser-Busch is a super power in the world market. Primarily a manufacturer of beer, this corporation like many others has expanded into a variety of other markets to include, but not limited to: retail, tourism, foods, and theme parks; to name a few. For this investigation I shall take an in-depth look at this company’s stake in one of the world’s biggest sporting matches, the Super Bowl- a significant event and relative smorgasbord of advertising that reaches millions of consumers simultaneously.
It is known that corporations play a large part in making the world go around. Many times we read, hear or see stories on companies and why something was done a certain way. The film “The Corporation” has given a whole new insight to not only how businesses operate but what motivates them and their decisions that they make to keep their businesses thriving.
The “need” for these products is pushed heavily on society through advertising, with a particular focus aimed at young, hip audiences. Companies create the “need” for the logo. With the need for the logo in high demand, in what better way, for the companies, is there to gain huge profits off of their products than having them made in countries such as: Taiwan, Vietnam, and Thailand? Yet that is not the sole reason for production overseas, there are other reasons that companies, such as Nike, produce in countries such as these, which can include the following: the ability to severely underpay their employees, and having them work long hours in hazardous conditions that would not be legal in places such as the United States. Companies are consciously operating under conditions such as these, which help to create further inequalities, while also contributing to pollution in the areas where the production is
When the problem became serious two main views formed: the “narrow” view and the “broader” view, based on different ideas. The “narrow” view is based on the proposition that corporations have no social responsibility and they have only one main purpose, to make a profit (Friedman, 1970). So corporations should remain socially independent and all conflicts must be solved through the individual responsibility concept. On the contrary the “broader” view states that corporations have social obligations as all existing participants of market, persons and entities are tied together and are mutually dependent. So corporations cannot ignore some serious events or problems, which take place, and must help society, as profit is not their single purpose.