The Benefits Of Corporations During The Civil War

Certain modern corporations are "monsters trying to devour as much profit as possible,” these are known as bad apples. The system of corporations has developed throughout history to the point where it is at today. When corporations first started, they only thought of how to help the public good instead of thinking only of the profit the owners could pocket. During the Civil War, corporations grew and evolved in a way that would lay the base out for the way modern corporations go about business. Corporations used the Civil War era to gain more freedoms and rights for themselves. The documentary The Corporation goes over the growth and wrongdoings of the modern business. In the modern age, corporations act purely to gain profit, without stopping

These lawyers fought laws and the government in order to grow their business. When a railroad company was questioned about owning certain land or building railroads in certain places, their lawyers would argue a way to get the government to allow the corporations to build "legally". Corporations looked for many loopholes that they could use in order to gain more profit, no matter the consequences using those loopholes could have. When the Civil War ended, the United States government put into law the 14th amendment. The lawyers that worked for corporations saw a great opportunity to expand the power of corporations. Under the fourteenth amendment, corporate lawyers argued that a corporation is a person that has their rights protected, and therefore had certain rights that the government could not take away from them. The courts agreed with the corporations, and the power of corporations was significantly increased. In the time period from 1890-1910, there were 307 cases brought in front of the Supreme Court that were over interpretation of the fourteenth amendment. Out of the 307, there were 18 cases brought by the intended protectees of the fourteenth amendment, freed slaves. The other 289 were brought forth by corporations and their lawyers. Corporations saw opportunity in a law that was supposed to help freed slaves, and used it to maximize their own

Companies have outsourced factory work to developing countries where they can pay the workers pitiful wages since the citizens of these countries are desperate to earn any money that they can. Whenever the citizens are no longer “desperate”, the company will just move their factory to another country. This is because corporations are unable to keep meaningful relationships. Even though these corporations want to seem that they are helping the citizens in these countries, they really do not care about these workers. Many of the corporations have harmed people in order to turn a profit. Companies have known that their pesticides and fungicides could cause cancer and birth defects, but have still used them. These companies acted to gain money without any thought given to the people who they were harming. When some of these companies were accused of not stopping the use of the harmful agents, many settled, but not many admitted or felt any guilt for the actions that they took. Corporations have no feelings other than their drive to gain profits, and many companies harm people for their own personal