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  • From: Karim Nassar <karim AT karimnassar.com>
  • To: internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] DOW "HELP" FOR BHOPAL A HOAX
  • Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2004 09:56:47 -0500

Much as we at Dow may care, as human beings, about the victims of the Bhopal catastrophe,
>>we must reiterate that Dow's sole and unique responsibility is to its shareholders, and Dow
CANNOT do anything that goes against its bottom line unless forced to by law.

To me, this is the embodiment of what is wrong with libertarianism.
this corporation *is* responsible. well, union carbide is, and now
that it is a part of Dow, Dow is responsible for these people's deaths
and illnesses, yet they are standing my and paying lip service by
saying how sorry they are, yet do nothing to back that up.

So what is a libertarian to do? let market forces work everything out,
because if enough people think dow is responsible that they'd boycott
and force a change? hah. like thats even possible.

How about holding voting shareholders liable for the actions of the companies they own? I guarrantee that if the shareholders had faced the possibility of criminal liability for this, they would have pressure DOW to settle rather quickly... and they probably would have taken greater care in examining and correcting the practices of the company before this disaster happened.

Treating Corporations as "people" causes a lot of problems like this.

The problem with the Libertarian worldview is that its agenda is most often evaluated piece-meal. Certainly a strict market is unworkable without other, equally important reforms such as equality in Justice, an educated populace, and a dismantling of the artificial corporate support systems that have been erected over the last 100 years to compensate for the psuedo-market system that we have.

In practice, Libertarianism may well be unworkable, but its values of individual responsibility and individual freedoms are, IMHO, important to advocate, especially in the modern environment of abdication of responsibilities.

--Karim

PS: New to the list. Hi Everyone.




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