Political systems are impotent to stop the massive interference in ecosystems by international corporations. The simplest and most direct way to give the earth a voice in the development of the earth by humanity is to incorporate the earth following international law. The entire planet, with its biochemical cycles and nonhuman communities, would become one legal body. Since corporations are human constructs, however, humans would have to represent ecosystems and their wealth of living organisms.
In early civilizations, the advancement of the state was expected to contribute to the welfare of its people. Corporations are recent devices created by states for public purposes. Most early American corporations, for example, were concerned with travel (turnpikes and inland waterways) or safety (fire insurance); they resembled public agencies more than profit-seeking associations. In fact, the exclusive privileges and political power granted to corporations were based on the implicit promise of social services.
The association of economic development with national wealth allowed incorporation laws to be broadened. The corporation was given the constitutional rights of an individual. A corporation is a legal entity, independent from its founders, with its own rights, privileges, and liabilities. It is, however, required to obey laws and pay taxes; and it is accountable for its deeds in courts of law.
Unfortunately, as private good became identified with public good, corporations became larger, more acquisitive, and less concerned with social services. The quest for profit now has the effect of violating social amenities, such as clean air and clean water, instead of ensuring them. No responsibility is taken for environmental degradation since no right of contract or fair use of property has been breeched.
Changes in societies, from rural to urban, from sparsely to densely populated, from culturally diverse to monotone, have transformed corporations and the societies themselves. Business corporations now provide the bulk of goods and services in many states. The scale of these corporations, the processes of production, and the size and needs of human populations, have altered and degraded many ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles.
Successful modern corporations create an identity based on their purpose in providing goods or services; they define their business in terms of profitability, growth rate, cash flow, and competitive position; they develop a corporate vision, with specific objectives and strategies, including long-term vision, collection of ideas and creative implementation, aggressive manufacturing, and reliable finance.
The purpose of a corporation often transcends simple financial gain; the corporation seeks to maintain its own existence, before profit. Financial objectives (sales, assets, profits) exist to sustain its existence. The goals that most motivate corporate managers are survival, independence, self-sufficiency, and self-fulfillment. Yet, these motives are consistent with the financial objectives of the corporation: to maximize corporate wealth. The responsibility of managers is to maximize the value of the company. Furthermore, because corporations are long-lived, that value should last a long time--a good reason for looking beyond the ten-year monetary horizon and the lives of its managers.
Although current wisdom (Milton Friedman et al.) holds that a corporation's only responsibility is to its stockholders, corporations are being pushed to include social purpose in their strategies, again. Alas, they are doing poorly at it. They do not know how much responsibility to take, or where to put limits, or whether to pursue policies that diminish their profits. Corporations have proved spotty in doing social and environmental good. It would be more appropriate to have them deal with the environment as a corporate entity concerned with maximizing its own values. Of course, that would mean no more "free" resources or environmental services.
The important advantages to incorporating the earth are the same as for incorporating a business.
The earth incorporated would focus on a core business: to ensure the integrity and continuity of life and all its connections and to secure the opportunity for development free from undue interference. It would operate to optimize values, like any good corporation, but the values would be ecosystem values (fungus values and earthworm values, as well as human values).
A temporary Board of Directors (the undersigned) would adopt bylaws, elect working officers, approve stock certificates, open accounts, and arrange a stockholders meeting. The stockholders would elect new directors, possibly from United Nations representatives or directly from elections, and decide on dividend declarations.
Stockholders, as citizens of independent nations, would turn over common and national property to the Earth Corporation, which would issue stock certificates to the stockholders. The corporation would allocate the purchase price of stock to capital at par value. Most of the shares--the percentage to be determined by the board as necessary to the operation of ecosystems--would be treasury shares. Anything more than par value would go to capital surplus, and only capital surplus could be distributed as dividends. Stockholders have the right to receive these dividends equitably, without resort to traditional distributions of wealth.
Stock certificates denote ownership of the corporation. Although the stockholders own the corporation, they do not own the property of the corporation, the earth, which is owned by the corporation itself. Stockholders, as individuals, groups, or nations, could make agreements about how business would be conducted, about what resources would be used or traded.
The elected board of directors would make decisions of distribution and limitation. Percentages would be deducted from the interest for the operation of the corporation and for equitable distribution to nations less favored by chance with biological or geological wealth. Furthermore, since the dividends would be distributed among people according to net ecosystem productivity and resource availability, no advantage would be gained by nations having large populations.
The basic functioning system would be considered capital, thus limiting the amount of human use of resources and probably the size of human populations. Interest would accrue in the form of net ecosystem productivity and diverted percentages of materials, such as gold or water.
The earth incorporated would solve the problem of having to value ecosystems in monetary or quantifiable terms; its systems would be untouchable capital. The human value of resources like copper, air, or water would be equated to the technological cost of recycling or producing them.
Raw material and energy are only two facets of the capital of a corporation--another is human ingenuity. Thus, human wealth would not be limited by restrictions on the availability of resources, but rather by a shortage of ingenuity.
An incorporated earth would be instrumental in conditioning international corporations to their social responsibility and in internalizing all costs. This corporation and governments could use traditional means, such as credit access, low interest rates, and setting priorities on equity issues, to evoke public interest in smaller and healthier human endeavors.
The suggested articles of incorporation are:
FIRST: The name of the corporation shall be The Earth, Incorporated.
SECOND: The purposes for which the corporation is formed shall include: The protection of functioning ecosystems and their living beings from destructive interference.
The conduct of inquiry into the operation of such systems and the role of humanity therein for scientific and educational purposes.
The taking of appropriate legal steps to carry out these purposes.
The maintenance of all real common property, including all lands, seas, and atmosphere, subject to the restrictions and limitations hereinafter set forth, to use only the interest from income therein, reserving the principal thereof exclusively for the aforesaid purposes, it being intended that the corporation be organized and operated for preservational purposes and not for pecuniary profit.
The corporation is organized as a voice for nonhuman beings and systems. No part of the income of the corporation, if any, shall inure to the benefit of any trustee or officer of the corporation or to any private individual having an interest in the corporation (except for reasonable compensation) and no trustee or officer of the corporation or any private individual shall be entitled to share in the distribution of any of the assets of the corporation.
The corporation shall not be authorized to carry on propaganda, influence legislation, participate in any political campaigns, or discriminate against human cultures.
In furtherance of the foregoing purposes, the corporation shall have the following powers:
THIRD: The operations of the corporation are to be conducted on the surface of the earth but the operations of the corporation shall not be limited to such territory.
FOURTH: The principal office of the corporation is to be located in the United Nations, currently in the City of New York, State of New York, United States of America.
FIFTH: The number of directors, who shall be known as trustees, of the corporation shall be not less than 30 (a minimum number associated with major ecosystems), nor more than 3,300 (the number of independent cultures associated with biogeographical provinces and subprovinces).
SIXTH: The names and residences of the persons who shall be trustees until the first annual meeting of the corporation, are:
C. J. Hagen, Seattle, Washington
L. G. Nieman, Viola, Idaho
V. L. Reason, Wilmington, Delaware
A. E. Wittbecker, Nashua, New Hampshire
M. H. Wolfe, Cambridge, Massachusetts
SEVENTH: All of the subscribers of this certificate are of full age; all of them are residents of settled places on the Earth.
In witness whereof