I would love to hear more about your definition of corruption and why it is inevitable. From what I can tell it is that an organization with “morals”, meaning some sort of code restricting their possible actions, will be out competed by an organization without “morals”, whatever that might be. I think it is compelling at face value, but I’m not sure I see a world of wolves out there. Maybe I’m naive.
I want to argue that the rule of law is one moral system that applies to all organizations. Sure, some overstep and may gain some advantage due to that. But in principle and hopefully on average the result should be net negative. In democratic countries the laws are more or less directly the will of the people, about as egalitarian as we can get, no? Anyways, following the rule of laws should lead to “morally sound” corporations as defined by the people. Corporations can go further than what is legally required, too. That is often used in marketing.
Finally i think the same principles apply wherever humans (or other species) compete. Humans on the whole are not entirely cruel barbarians, we try to care for individuals who are not able to care for themselves etc. Whether “true” altruism exists is another discussion, but it certainly looks like it. So if that’s how people act, why should corporations be more corrupt than the bodies that make them up and govern them?
Have you looked at sports federations (especially in Europe, not in US). They're primarily funded by membership fees, some survived over century, and while they have some governance issues (like conflict of interest due to wearing two hats – regulatory function and event organiszing one), it would be a strong claim to say that they're corrupted by their roots/nature.
In fact one of my close friends is a co-owner of the Kraken
Sports teams and leagues are primarily owned by billionaires - like the amount of discussion around who is the owner is a significant portion of sports reporting
The only exception I know off the top of my head I believe is the Packers are community owned but even then I would be skeptical as to how the power dynamics play out in practice
I think it’s a weak form of a mutual cooperative - which unfortunately doesn’t have the ability to defeat a state-billionaire backed corporation in the market.
I guess I don't know what you prefer, I'm guessing anarchy in the academic sense?
But I want to add, that workplace democracy would be turning the billionaire owned companies into democracies themselves. That is the goal of economic democracy at least, changing the fiefdoms into democracies can't be a worse system.
At the most basic biological level the human species can’t organize action larger than a few hundred people in any kind of coherent way.
There are no coherent organizations that are larger than a few hundred people.
It is a biological impossibility for the human species to maintain long lasting (thousands of years) groups that can have social structures that last long enough to encode genetic fitness changes at the rate of environmental change.,
We do not have the ability to comfortably maintain coherent heirarchies, and subordinated structures, around a coherent epistemological grounding.
Humans are not eusocial.
I just fundamentally don’t see any future for the species level organization whatsoever
I have always been in favor of changing the definition if incorporation to ensure that over time ownership transfers slowly but increasingly to the employees of the corporate entity. How that would work, though, would require detailed thought by experts more knowledgeable than i :)
> Sports teams and leagues are primarily owned by billionaires
My question was about sports federations, and not about leagues and commercial clubs (and definitely not in US). Take FIS (International Ski and Snowboard Federation) for example, or smaller European national and regional federations.
You could point to any organization smaller than 1000 people is being reasonably coherent I don’t think that this is relevant for the context we were discussing the Amish also doing a pretty good job and maintaining stable community but they are irrelevant
What context are you discussing? Parent comment talks about "all organisations".
You know what, forget it. I thought you have some interesting/insightful framework and thoughts about power/structures in organisations and happy to share it.
I want to argue that the rule of law is one moral system that applies to all organizations. Sure, some overstep and may gain some advantage due to that. But in principle and hopefully on average the result should be net negative. In democratic countries the laws are more or less directly the will of the people, about as egalitarian as we can get, no? Anyways, following the rule of laws should lead to “morally sound” corporations as defined by the people. Corporations can go further than what is legally required, too. That is often used in marketing.
Finally i think the same principles apply wherever humans (or other species) compete. Humans on the whole are not entirely cruel barbarians, we try to care for individuals who are not able to care for themselves etc. Whether “true” altruism exists is another discussion, but it certainly looks like it. So if that’s how people act, why should corporations be more corrupt than the bodies that make them up and govern them?