From: James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Date: Thu Nov 12 1998 - 01:45:19 MST
Hi.
I was watching the news tonight regarding the massive damage in Central
America caused by the last hurricane.
The news reporter mentioned something very interesting: Most of the aid
relief sent to Central America has been directly from corporations,
particularly American ones, with business interests in the region. Not
only that, but that the response from companies was much quicker than the
response from governments.
On one hand, this is counter-intuitive, since we normally associate
disaster relief with governments. OTOH, it does not surprise me that
companies are much quicker and more efficient at providing disaster relief
than governments. Additionally, the one time that I was in a disaster
region, the most prominent efforts *were* private entities.
Not to drop a grenade in a crowded room, but doesn't this fly in the face
of commonly held beliefs regarding the moral dispositions or "goodness" of
large corporations? I've often thought that corporations have been
unfairly maligned as group due mostly to a relatively small number of
anecdotal stories demonstrating their "evil" natures. I would counter that
corporations are generally very good, since unlike governments, they are
neither expected nor particularly obligated to provide disaster relief
(indeed, from the standpoint of the stockholders/owners this is bad).
Comments?
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
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