Business Ethics Resources

Bakan, Joel. (2005) The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, New York: Free Press.

As incisive as Eric Schosser's bestselling Fast Food Nation, as rigorous as Joseph E. Stiglitz's Globalization and Its Dicontents, and as scatching as Michael Moore's Stupid White Men, Joel Bakan's new book is a brilliantly argued account of the corporation's pathological pursuit of profit and power. An eminent law professor and legal theorist, Bakan contends that the corporation is created by law to function much like a psychopatic personality whose destructive behavior, if left unchecked, leads to scandal and ruin. 

Despite the structural failings found in the corporation, Bakan believes change is possible and outlines a far-reaching program of concrete, pragmatic, and realistic reforms through legal regulation and democratic control.

Backed by extensive research, The Corporation draws on in-depth interviews with such wide-ranging figures as CEO Hank McKinnell of Pfizer, Nobel Prize-winner Milton Friedman, business guru Peter Drucker, and critic Noam Chomsky of MIT. (From the flaps of hardcover edition)