Write an essay on Forms of Business Ownership
Write an essay on Forms of Business Ownership
Review the assigned material on the forms of business ownership, including sole proprietorships, partnerships, and corporations (pp. 116-133) from uploaded textbook. Forms of Business Ownership.
Watch the first six chapters (the first 42 minutes) of the documentary, “The Corporation:
The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power.” The remainder of the film, starting with the
chapter “Monstrous Obligations,” is interesting, but optional.
Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCahIgg3kjLVwvGyQbjbxYAA
Respond to this question with a minimum of 400 words and 2 scholarly sources.
Here’s the discussion question
Briefly discuss how the assigned portion of the film helps (or doesn't help) create a better
understanding of the corporation as a form of business ownership, compared to the sole
proprietorships, partnerships, limited liability companies (LLCs), etc., that are described
in the book.
Then, in more detail, describe any change(s) that you would recommend to the current
forms of ownership, why those changes are needed and what those changes would
accomplish. If no changes are needed, defend the current forms of ownership, focusing
on the corporation, indicating why changes would make the current form worse rather
than better
Here are some additional details
1) The film and the assigned material from the Read section meet the requirement for
two scholarly sources. Additional outside sources may be used, but are not required.
2) ”The Corporation” is a long documentary by the Canadian filmmaker Joel Bakan.
Focusing on US corporations, the film traces their evolution from “a government-
chartered institution meant to affect specific public functions, to the rise of the modern
commercial institution entitled to most of the legal rights of a person.”
Bakan makes a case that the corporation is incapable of acting responsibly or ethically.
Instead, he argues that the behavior we see is consistent with the way corporations are
legally defined – as rational, immortal, non-human persons charged with the primary goal
of creating shareholder wealth. It is interesting that the legal definition of corporations as
a “non-human person” was based on an interpretation of the 14th Amendment, an
amendment that was not written to impact corporations but to ensure individual rights,
specifically the rights of freed slaves.
Bakan sounds anti-capitalist later in the film but the assigned portion mostly argues
against what corporations have become, rather than against free market competition.
There’s a lot to think about, plenty to disagree with, and it’s always interesting to see how
the US is viewed from the outside.
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APA 555 words