So my great aunt invested in IBM in the 1930's. She bought IBM stock through the 50's. By the time the 1980's rolled around and she cashed in that stock, she made a killing! She had been a simple bank teller her entire life, but she really did make some great investments, that being the best one. It was like investing in Microsoft in the mid 80's.

That is my IBM story. I also had a great uncle who owned the train that was used in the Petticoat Junction show. I have had some crazy, but very interesting relatives.

One book that stuck with me on this topic is Robert Reich's Supercapitalism.  In it, he implores liberals to give up on the happy dream of corporate social responsibility.  Corporations are set up to make profits for shareholders and, of course, to keep salaries flowing to management.  That's it.  If they think they can make more profits by being green, or good to workers, or by supporting the local opera or marathon, they will.  When those activities cease to serve profits, they will stop.  Heck, this is why we have non-profits -- because it's impossible to consistently do good while pursuing profits.  To do good 100% of the time, you have to be free from the profit motive.

This notion that corporations can care has been advanced by the moneyed elites on the left.  Put simply, people like Bono, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett would all like to believe that they can be rich beyond the dreams of Croesus but make the world a better place as a result.  They certainly accomplish some good along the way but the end result is not so different than a benevolent dictator who justifies his rule by saying, "I love my people."  A few good works don't justify the concentration of wealth and power.

I don't mean to pick just on Gates and Buffett here.  The Democratic party is full of rich people who would like very much to convince the world, if not themselves, that their profit motives are so much more benign than David Koch's.

To bring it back to corporations -- these are legal entities that lack moral agency, nothing more.  They will not be constrained by good intentions, only by regulation.

This comes off like "A noun. A verb. And Nazis" to me. You probably could have made your point better without going out in a massive ode to Goodwin. In essence, I see you asserting IBM should have acted in relation to Germany as Bank of America and Amazon recently did against Wikileaks ... randomly assert national interest to bypass due process and the legitimate role of government. I'm sorry, not joining you on that.

Corporations exist to make money. Period. They have a legal responsibility to their shareholders to do no less. That's how our entire system is designed. Government is supposed to provide the regulation and oversight to ensure profit making activities are aligned with America's interest. The legislature does it by passing laws and then it becomes the responsibility of the executive to take action on those laws and ensure the application benefits American society. Nowhere in that formula are corporations called on autonomously think "gee, screw profits we're in this for the American poor!!!"

The failure isn't in American corporations. The failure is in our corrupt leaders who do their bidding for money. That is why I can't join you in support of a president who is hoovering up their cash as fast as he can promoting conservative corporatist policy ... while pretending corporations are somehow the source of anti-American evil just for doing what they are incentivized to do. They are only able to engage in activities permitted by the executive. Period. Corporations don't owe America good behavior, the government owes America stringent oversight to ensure profit-aligned corporate behavior benefits Americans. I don't call on corporations to magically self-regulate. I call on our regulators to rein in an out-of-control corporate pillage which is facilitated by executive policy.

You appear to be blaming corporations for what is really the failure of Obama (as with both Clinton and Bush before him) to even nominally carry out his duties in this regard. You can extend this to mining oversight - where Massey still rules autonomous after blowing up a bunch of mine workers with barley a slap on the wrist ... or to drilling - where BP's oil well that destroyed the gulf and killed 11 would have been halted by a judge were it not for Obama's intervention to ensure the well was drilled (environmental concerns be damned) and now BP is asking to have damage settlements dismissed ... or to financial oversight - where $900 billion in QE2 facilitates foreign currency manipulation instead of investing that trillion in job creation and 30x+ leverage into synthetic derivatives is where the 0% money they pulling from our discount window goes ... or to military contracting - where our Diplomats and Congresspeople are protected by six-figure mercenaries instead of the traditional honor guard of American Marines dedicated 100% to service of their nation. All of these are executive decisions that have NOTHING to do with 60 votes in the senate or other Democratic bullshit excuses.

Our president is failing to do his job as president. That is the primary reason corporations are able to rape us. Instead he is (arguably) doing his job as a Democrat. This means fucking over America if it advances the party. Donal has endorsed fucking over America to win. Another Trope has. A-Man has. Flavius has. LisB. TMac .... pretty much anyone who identifies first and foremost as a Democrat is willing to screw over any/every one of the interests you correctly observe corporations don't give a damn about in order to advance/protect party personalities and power.

As a Democrat, you are able to accept this is a fair exchange - just as corporate shareholders are willing to make the same compromises to advance their priorities. I'm not seeing a distinction here between the priorities as defined by loyalist Democrats and those defined by corporate executives. Neither group can can claim to honestly place American interests first. Both rely on non-members accepting actions to advance the fortunes of a corporate group *ARE* the American interest no matter how many "tertiary" American policies and population-wide interests must be compromised along the way in order to facilitate it.

An organization willing to compromise American interests to advance their personal goals is an organization willing to bring down America to advance their personal goals. At least corporations are honest about it and have zero responsibility to behave any differently. Democrats OTOH claim to be better and more enlightened than ... well pretty much everyone else in the entire world ... while they argue rape and pillage isn't rape and pillage when THEY get paid to let corporations do it; or at least it's "rape for a good cause".

Talk is cheap. Anyone can claim to support labor while giving a nuanced explanation why it would be wrong to "risk" going to bat for EFCA. Funny how that works. When the elite classes in control are willing to take those sorts of risks, and when the rank and file refuse to accept any less, such a party can claim to support labor. As a national organization, Democrats are no longer such a party. Neither are Republicans. No matter how bad the Republicans suck - it doesn't turn the Democrats into something they aren't. At the end of the day it is counterproductive to blame corporations for what is ultimately an abject failure of the partisan political duopoly to provide effective governance.

Sure IBM, like all corporations, is a soul-less, heartless entity that seeks only to make obscene amounts of money (a modest profit is never good enough), and only cares about people or the environment when there's a profit for them in doing so. But like all businesses they sometimes get their come-uppance, in this case, one of the biggest and costliest mistakes in the history of commerce; letting that Gates kid retain ownership of the MS-DOS operating system, when IBM had the chance to own it outright.  Think of how much bigger and more annoyingly soul-less they might have been.