It is convenient to have some group of people whom one feels licensed to hate, without reservation. For some folks it's Islamic terrorists; for Islamic Terrorists, its Jews. For my esteemed Keloland colleague, Cory Heidelberger, it's Chuck E. Cheese's and all the other evil corporations. So we get this bit of overcooked pepperoni:
Corporations have no worldview. They don't value human life the way either Christians like you or secular humanists like me do. They don't believe in God's salvation or man's inherent goodness. Corporations, these artifical entities that our courts blasphemously endow with personhood, are driven by profit, period. Not patriotism, not religion, not truth, nothing but profit... Don't be fooled: those CEOs defending free trade with China aren't motivated by principle; they're motivated by the very selfish, materialist desire to keep their access to a market of 1.3 billion well-controlled Chinese workers and consumers.
Cory is surely right that corporations defend trade with China out of economic interest rather than some "world view," but for the most part that is a very good thing, isn't it? I am very comforted that Microsoft only wants to strip my computer of any informations string that is not under its control. I would be utterly terrified if they started caring about "God's salvation or man's inherent goodness." We have seen such corporations in the past: the Spanish Inquisition comes to mind.
Cory has a stunted conception of "the corporation." The Sierra Club is a corporation, after all. So is the ACLU or the Obama Campaign. Are non-profit corporations morally better than for-profit corporations? One's view will like depend on the congeniality of the cause. The National Abortion Rights Action League? The National Right to Life Committee? The National Rifle Association? But the idea that for-profit corporations are uniquely selfish and soulless is flat wrong. When teachers unions vehemently oppose merit pay or vouchers, they may claim all sorts of high minded motives, just as business corporations frequently do. But what the teachers unions are in fact committed to are the interests and privileges of their constituents.
Likewise, individual farmers may be forgiven if they care more about the federal subsides for ethanol than they do about the food crisis in the developing world. Cory may think that if only we got rid of capitalism, all this selfishness would go away. Well, we tried that. The Soviet Union is history, and Mao is selling tee-shirts.
More entertaining than my friend's jaundiced view of corporations is his view that corporate personhood is a "blasphemous" mistake. Corporate personhood just means that a corporation can be considered as a legal person in court, and that it can bear liabilities and obligations, as well rights and privileges. It has been part of western law for centuries, and for very good reasons. Corporations emerge when individuals pool their resources and talents and act as a body. Treating those corporate bodies as legal individuals is the only way that governments can effectively regulate them. But if you are going to expect corporate bodies to pay debts and accept responsibility for their acts (oil spills come to mind), you have to grant them a corresponding set of legal rights. Otherwise they will be pillaged out of existence, which may of course be precisely what Cory wants.
What applies to Exxon will also apply to the Sierra Club. When someone gives money to the latter, who does it belong to? It belongs to the corporation, which can own property the way Cory and I can. Can government seize the Sierra Club treasury at a whim, or does the organization have a legal right to the money? If you say so, you are endorsing corporate personhood.
But I am being a little unfair to Cory here. The "corporate personhood" question is more narrow: granting that the corporation is a legal person, does it have all the rights that are enjoyed by "natural persons"? Natural persons would be individual human beings, and maybe dolphins; I will have to check. That is the significance of the Supreme Court case he cites. Now I think enemies of "corporate personhood" have a point here. Surely some things in the Bill of Rights do not apply to corporate persons. I don't see how Chuck E. Cheese Inc. can enjoy free exercise of religion. But what about freedom of speech? Well, does the Sierra Club or the National Organization of Women enjoy such a right? If so, then you can't pretend that you are opposed to corporate personhood in the narrow sense either.
Corporations are groups of people. That's all. Individually and collectively, people are sometimes selfish and sometimes not. It is piece of idle fancy to believe that any political reform will change such facts.
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