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Steve-
"They are competing in an aggressive economy that doesn't favour the weak. They are being forced to innovate, be more productive or die. "
You speak of corporations as if they were scentient entities. They aren't. They are tools, playthings, arenas for competition among the people who are trying to build, bilk, or dismantle them. There are some corporations like Beretta which are thousand year old family businesses. And others like LLBean (not so old, but tightly held) that have the same goals of a thousand years of proftiable employment to come.
But that's the old school, the "mercantile" or the general store of the 1800's run by Mom and Pop perhaps. That's not business in the US, or the world, today. Does a CEO want to "build" his company today? Often not. He may want to conquer the world, or prove his manhood is bigger than the next CEOs, or count coup by buying out more businesses and plowing them under. Or, he may simply want to run the stock options up so he can leave fast with big bucks. Does he really give a damn about the business itself, or whether it survives his reign or plunder? Most often, not.
Small businesses, niche businesses, and a short list of vendors we've all dealt with aside...Look at GE, claiming to be proudly be the "Eco-Imagination" leader, after negotiating a deal to leave the Hudson River contaminated with toxic PCBs for hundreds? thousands? or years to come.
That's not pride, that's profit. Like the many corporations that have declared bankruptcy and reorganized, paying out billions to the higher management while neatly asking the courts to terminate the retirement and medical-for-life promises that they made to their employees. Those promises were binding--if I were the court, I'd say they get paid first, and the high-priced saviors who want to make eight figures "saving" the corporation? They get fired first. If that means the corporations close--but the obligations are met--that's fine too.
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