The Corporation Dilemma

Wade Rowland joins a growing crowd of writers anxious to prosecute and convict the modern business corporation for a multitude of crimes against humanity. His provocatively titled book—Greed, Inc.: Why Corporations Rule Our World and How We Let It Happen—echoes themes raised by critics such as Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein and Linda McQuaig who decry the global spread of corporate values and consumerism.

His argument is close to that made by University of British Columbia law professor Joel Bakan in The Corporation (which led to a popular documentary film of the same name). Bakan’s work took a legal slant: corporations, he argued, are required by law to elevate their own interests above those of others, and governments have abetted this process by freeing them from many legal constraints. This has allowed them to despoil the environment, victimize individuals, even harm their own shareholders, as we saw in the recent Wall Street...