I bet he didn't think they were so evil when he cashed his advance check...

You've got to love artists. Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin spouts off here about how shareholders are "the great evil of this modern world."

Let's see, buddy: are these the same shareholders who fronted the money to provide a forum, record your tracks, stamp your CD's, give you access to a marketing and distribution system, and subsequently account for and distribute your royalties to you? Do you really believe you don't owe them anything in return? This is about the time we here the airy calls for full government funding of the arts...

The other day I read a review of the new Michael Moore-style documentary Corporation that seems to espouse the same kind of anti-corporate philosophy. It appears that a large part of the commentary comes from Noam Chomsky, who believes the corporate entity itself is inherently evil.

What was most telling in the sections quoted was the sheer ignorance of how markets work to match people's wants with their needs, and how much focus/fetishizing there is of the simple idea of the corporation. Chomsky suggests that the corporate structure itself be abolished, and that people would be better off contracting on an individual-to-individual basis! Specialization of labor, economies of scale, comparative advantage - how can anyone hold themselves out to be a public intellectual on the subject of 'political economy', for want of a better word, and not even have a passing familiarity with these concepts?