Kumbya The Borg?

I'm all for reaching common ground. But I think it behooves us to realize that, for some people, there is no such thing as common ground.

I believe in paying attention to the concerns of people who oppose your policies. I even believe in helping them out where your policies might hurt them egregiously.

But believing that a "common ground" always exists between any parties in a dispute is the essence of "Kumbaya".

And really, we're not talking about finding "common ground" with other people (the leaders of corporations). We are talking about finding "common ground" with non-human entities (the corporations themselves). Our current business culture is set up to encourage the idea that business leaders must adopt the soulless aspect of the corporation if they are to meet their fiduciary duty to the stockholder. It is a system tailor made to strip whatever vestiges of humanity still exist in business leaders (not for anything has negotiating with corporate leaders been compared to negotiating with The Borg).

Thus, finding "common ground" with some business leaders would be like negotiating with aliens who want to eat our brains. There's not a lot of "common ground" there.

If we want to end this vicious cycle then we must end the idea that corporations have any inherent rights. It is that idea that makes it so difficult to make reasoned decisions about the economy.