Antipreneur

Hmmm...

http://www.antipreneur.org/

An "anti-corporate" corporation? Can something like this actually succeed without going the way of Animal Farm?

It's important to realise that corporations are not truly "evil by definition," although they are pretty close. I saw the documentary "The Corporation" a while back, and if I recall correctly they mentioned something about corporations in the United States being bound by law to do what will make their shareholders the most money. I'm not sure if that is entirely true or not. I can imagine a situation, however, in which a corporate charter explicitly states that ethical conduct is of a priority and that investors buy into the company with the understanding that eithical conduct will come before profit margins and investment returns. I can also imagine where such a corporation flops, not only because "non-ethical" corporations out-perform it (which I don't believe is inevitable--there are certain forms of efficiency that come with ethical practices and are generally under-rated), but more-so because most investors (having little conscience) choose not to support such a corporation.

I am reminded of an incident at work, a couple of years ago now, where we had an investment advisor came in one afternoon to talk to the employees about setting up mutual funds. One guy asked if they had any "ethical" investment options, and the investment advisor not only told him "I can't recommend any," but even visably scoffed at the suggestion of such a thing. The attitude, clearly, was that only a fool would choose ethics over investment returns. The system in place is such that one simply forks their money over to big investment firms and doesn't question how they manage to grow that money.

As for Antiprenuer, well, I really like what they are trying to do. Hell, I will probably even support them by buying some of their products. But I don't expect them to become a force in the marketplace, and if by some chance they do manage that, they will almost certainly sell out and become what they were fighting against in the first place. It's so obvious that either of those things will happen that it makes me wonder if they are really even serious to begin with.