Corporations are indeed people – psychopaths

In their fine documentary “The Corporation, Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott and Joel Bakan have taken modern law at its word and ask, “If the corporation were a person, what sort of person would it be?” …The American Psychiatric Association classifies psychopaths and sociopaths under the general diagnosis of “antisocial personality disorder,” and to be diagnosed with the disorder, the patient needs to meet three of out these seven criteria:

1. Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest;
   
2. Deceitfulness, as initiated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure;
   
3. Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead;
   
4. Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults;
   
5. Reckless disregard for safety of self or others;
   
6. Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations;
   
7. Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another.
   

The filmmakers find that corporations do indeed behave in these ways, breaking the laws if they can, dissembling and hiding their behavior, sacrificing long-term welfare for short-term profit, being aggressively litigious, flouting health and safety codes, welching on payments to suppliers and workers and never once feeling a pang of remorse. (Raj Patel, The Value of Nothing, Page 41)

I might add that the qualities above are pathological – that is – no matter who is at the helm of a corporation, that person cannot change these behaviors and so is not even aware that these behaviors even exist. For instance, oil, gas and pipeline companies that contribute to global warming have run a propaganda campaign, a highly successful one, to convince Americans that it is not a problem. The CEO’s of these corporations surely know better, and yet cannot change their behavior because they know that if they acknowledge the problem, the group that sponsors the position that the CEO’s occupy will expel them.

It is group pathology, and so cannot remedy itself. For that reason, corporations need to be heavily regulated and subordinated in law to the status of servant of the public, and not a legal person.