When corporations are asked to clean up their smokestack emissions, they lobby to relax the new standards in order to contain costs. The result is that a predictable number of people are expected to become sick and die. In the great majority of corporations, employees are viewed as ciphers, as non-managerial cogs in the wheel, replaceable by others or by machines. This applies as much to firing employees as it does to dealing with the consequences of corporate behavior in the environment or the community. The owners of capital skim off part of the value as profit.
Profit is based on underpayment.
But this arrangement is inherently imbalanced. While the worker makes a wage, the owner of capital gets the benefit of the worker's labor, plus the surplus profit the worker produces, which is then reinvested to produce yet more surplus. They have no commitment to locale, employees or neighbors. The traditional ideal of community engagement is antithetical to corporation behavior. Though individuals who work for corporations may personally love nature, corporations themselves, and corporate societies, are intrinsically committed to intervening in, altering and transforming nature.