[Joeri]

"The purpose of a corporation by definition is to maximize the bottom line for the shareholder."

No, the purpose of a corporation is to efficiently organize work.

Fundamentally, corporations, and the entire economic system, exist for only one purpose: to create a better human society. Profit is the incentive to get them to work for the greater good, but it's not the end-goal. We've temporarily lost sight of that, but sooner or later we're going to have to redefine corporations so we can keep the good (competitive drive), and discard the bad (profit at the expense of humanity).

Personally, I would be very interested to see minimum holding times for shares (incentivizing long-term behavior), and maximum lifetimes for corporate personhood (corporations should all die at some point, just like other people).

[wallawe]

This is simply the definition I was given in business school. If you type in "purpose of a corporation" on Google, this is what you will get (which is comedically ironic in this situation).

"Efficiently organizing work" is what must be done as a by product or failure is ensured in this survival of the fittest capitalistic system.

I agree that the ethics are not what they should be in the corporate culture today, but that doesn't change the nature nor the purpose and definition of corporation.