The private-benefit corporation is an institution granted a legally protected right—some would claim obligation—to pursue a narrow private interest without regard to broader social and environmental consequences. If it were a real person, it would fit the clinical profile of a sociopath.
The basic design of the private-benefit corporation was created in 1600 when the British crown chartered the British East India Company as what is best described as a legalized criminal syndicate to colonize the resources and economies of distant lands to benefit wealthy investors far removed from the social and environmental consequences. That design has ever since proven highly effective in advancing the private interests of the world’s wealthiest people at enormous cost to the rest.
The private-benefit corporation uses its economic power to privatize (internalize) gains and socialize (externalize) cost.
Only One Reason to Grant a Corporate Charter, by David Korten.
Just fuel for the fire really, at http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=883#more-883, pasted below.
(Major General) Smedley Darlington Butler, still popular among veterans, continued to speak and write regarding what he referred to as the “racket of war.” Though he was officially a Republican, he spoke openly to publications of any party affiliation, as evidenced by his oft-quoted remarks in a 1935 issue of the socialist magazine Common Sense:
“I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras “right” for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested