Corporations as Persons in Society

Have just finished a book called A Declaration of Interdependence: Why America Should Join the World and just watched The Corporation.

Both are thought provoking works which bring the question of what a Corporation and its role / responsibility in society should be. In the most widespread capitalistic conception of society in which most of the developed world resides in, corporations form the basic type of business and are given tremendous rights as a legal person. In fact, the very notion of corporations as legal persons stem back to the American 14th Amendment which was originally mooted to provide basic and equal human rights to the slaves but had been successfully "hijacked" by corporate lawyers to allow corporations to also be enjoy these rights. In short, our society confers on these businesses, almost identical rights as any real human person. Except that corporations are effectively immortal, emotionless and are made up of tens to thousands of employees.

Given that, could we expect corporations to act in accordance to the social norms which the rest of us do? Legally, perhaps there is some pressure for companies to toe the line but these pressures ultimately are economic ones, threating bad conduct with financial penalties. How many companies have already begun to weigh the risks and penalties of bad conduct against the potential gains to be had. Ultimately, legal costs have also been calculated in the bottom line analysis, compliance is given only when it suits the bottom line.

Greater profits yearned by shareholders drive the market.

That is the truth of the matter in all things within a capitalist economy. Products for which there are demand will be created in the most profitable manner to gather the most returns for the shareholders of the company. Stakeholders (everyone else in society, or even other species in the biosphere) aren't in the equation for profit.

And it will not be until we can turn this situation around and by some means, render corporations to become "better-behaved" societal citizens that we can hope to achieve the continued growth, in mroe than just economic terms, for planet and humanity as a whole.