Corporate Psychopathy - Essay Example

The Supreme Court has endowed corporates as persons that can be held responsible for any possible misdeeds that have serious ramifications to other corporates or the society as a whole. Ullman (2004) alleges that psychopaths are mainly individuals that demonstrate high magnitude of lack of empathy and emotions and are always willing and ready to sacrifice any person’s life that comes on their way if that will mean achieving the best out of the situation. He presents that corporations tend to be lifeless and only tend to attain their perceived psychopathic tendencies due to the personnel that it creates. This implies that most people in the corporate cultures tend to thrive long within the industry by becoming emotionless. For instance, most corporates have manifested this personality when those individuals managing the corporates have failed to maintain the ethical standards. This has often benefited a few individuals who become rich while those at the bottom end up being thrown on the streets when the corporates begin a downward spiral. The corporate governance is in dire need of regulation if the rights of the citizenry, as well as the integrity of the state are to be maintained. This is particularly important due to the fact that psychopaths have a tendency to taint nearly all the circles that they come into when establishing a contact. This implies that psychopaths can taint the state too, which is charged with the responsibility of establishing the extent of ethical and legal limits of the corporate behavior. This contamination of the state may occur in myriad ways. For instance, the intense corporate lobbying, in addition to the financial donations that corporates tend to extend to the state among other spheres of social influence, they may sometimes influence those in charge of making and overseeing the implementation of the law. To fully understand the link that likens corporate governance to a psychopath, Ullman (2004) provides diagnostic criteria for the same. To begin with, he points out that just like a psychopath; corporates tend to fail to conform to the set social norms and regulations that pertain to the practicing lawful behavior. This is commonly indicated by their repeated acts that pose clear grounds of arrest. This is mainly manifested through the ability of corrupt corporations to find their ways into powerful and key areas of the state using ways that go beyond the social norms. Some of these ways include seeking loopholes in the law to establish their claims, stock shares manipulation and offer favours to influential politicians, in addition to practicing illegal accounting practices to endear themselves to more shareholders. Even amidst these malpractices, when caught by the law, the shareholders and the junior employees, usually become the main victims of the corporations’ acts since they lose their shares and jobs respectively when the corporations are deemed bankrupt and inoperable. Subsequently, Ullman (2004) further elaborates that corporations also resemble psychopaths through the nature of their deceit in quenching their personal pleasures and perceived profits. This may be indicated by their repeated pure lie and the use of aliases when advertising themselves to new audiences. Based on the set societal norms, lying, whether deliberately or inadvertently, may be regarded as an instrument that psychopaths use to establish a foothold with their victims. In most cases, the lies are usually decorated with cunny words and wit, with most corrupt corporations capable of maneuvering government or other third party agencies in the pursuit of their goals. Similarly, psychopathic tendencies in the corporate world may be manifested through the corporates’ lack of remorse, normally manifested by rationalising their acts that might have hurt another party. Nevertheless, the individual who manages these corporations can only feel the consequence of their actions when stringent government laws and regulation are applied, which may end up confronting the individuals with tragic consequences. Ullman (2004) further contends that the effects of corporate psychopathy have far more reaching effects on the state because corporations are found at nearly every level of social branches ranging from the business world, political sphere as well as the professions. By leaving them govern themselves, the corporations can cry havoc in the society’s moral standards and the environment as a whole The state through its various arms has become the main machinery for propagation of the effects of the psychopathic tendencies manifested by the corporate world. Ullman (2004) mentions that the legislature, the judiciary and the executive sometimes function to spearhead the interest of certain corporations driven by greed. In particular, corporations have managed to reach out to the judiciary through their endless lobbying for certain members of the Congress through generous financial contributions. Doing this will serve to ensure that the particular member works for the corporate’s interest at all cost. Ullman (2004) posits that the recent legislation enacted to lower the cost of drugs may be deemed as a way of insuring the constant huge profits of the drugs firms. As such, most pharmaceutical corporations have often engaged in corruption, with some influential legislators influencing even a physician’s choice of drug. In this regard, there is need for the enactment of laws that would limit corporate lobbying, as well as the amount of the campaign funds that individual corporations are allowed to lobby for a particular politician. On the other hand, the judiciary has also propagated the heinous acts of corporate psychopathy through the levying of fines deemed as recidivists because of their undesirable effects on the perpetrators. Most corporate leaders charged in court for alleged corruption crimes tend to receive sentences that are incommensurate to the damage caused. Most of the corporate crimes are normally complex making it difficult for litigation. This is usually facilitated by the insufficient resources for prosecution, which makes it rather difficult to handle every referral case. This, therefore, calls for the regulation of corporate laws to allow for the prosecution of corporate offences and offenders to set an example to the rest of the corporate world. Corporate regulation is particularly important, especially in the reduction of agency problems among the various stakeholders ranging from the shareholders to the employees, both the senior and junior workers. This is usually done by limiting private benefits and expropriation by controlling the owners. Laire and Krusemark (2012, p. 133) affirm that better corporate regulation and governance means better monitoring of management that can translate into high performance of the state as a whole, with a trickling effect on the individual members of the society. Regulations are important in the corporate world because they tend to bring the actors to notice that they are subject to a behavioral standard. References Laire, H.A, and Krusemark, J.L. Research Handbook on the Economics of Corporate Law. Northhampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012. Ullman, M. CORPORATE PSYCHOPATHY. 2004. [online] Available at: http://siivola.org/monte/papers_grouped/uncopyrighted/Misc/corporate_psychopathy.htm [Accessed 1 March 2013] Read More