A cynical definition of “corporation” (Berry)
November 27th, 2007 | Published in Business, Economics, Quotes, Thoughts, Work | 1 Comment
A corporation, essentially, is a pile of money to which a number of persons have sold their moral allegiance.
–Wendell Berry, “The Total Economy” in Citizenship Papers (2003), p. 69
[Berry is relentless here. A corporation is still made up of people. It's not just a "pile of money." People make and implement the decisions, so a corporation can be as careful or as careless as the people who make it up. In a good corporation, no one has "sold their moral allegiance." Employees can speak their minds and change policies. In fact, with the right people, a corporation can benefit society far more than one solitary person through innovation, implementation, cost-saving, and philanthropy.
If a person has to give up their morality to work for an employer, they're working at the wrong place.]
November 30th, 2007 at 3:52 pm (#)
Hi Josh,
I’m inclined to think that Berry’s simplifications get more at the truth than your simplifications. I’ll try to explain what I mean. For instance, you say if a person has to give up his morality to work for an employer… I think that misses the point that when you work for an employer, you let that employer determine (in large part) what you do and how you do it, inevitably in ways different from what you would have done had you had full autonomy. I just don’t see that ceding authority as employees do can be avoided, on the one hand, or that it’s necessarily wrong. The problem I see with corporations is that the employees (even the CEOs) have practically no autonomy. The owners (the shareholders) look at practically nothing besides the bottom line, so the business/the employees are forced to operate as slaves to the bottom line. If they don’t, they’re either replaced or run out of business. Even the CEO enjoys “autonomy” only so long as his decisions conform very closely to the path of profit maximization, all other concerns be dammned. In other words, a corporation is essentially just a pile of money, right?
I ran into an excellent quote on a closely related subject with a (subcontinental) Indian context earlier today. I’ll have to dig that up for you.