In the ‘limited liability’ section of the Unit 1 material, it is suggested that a ‘countervailing consideration’ which arises out of limited liability is the encouragement of opportunistic behaviour by corporations. Although shareholders are meant to be protected by company law, the corporation, when possible, may seek to protect its own interests separate from this group. Expressions of this ‘opportunism at any cost’ (even at the cost of one of the key stakeholders) discussed in “The Corporation” are the metaphorical (or not?) indicators of corporate psychopathy. Narcissism, also discussed in the film, is perhaps a more discrete way of characterizing this – as it is the aggressive and singular pursuit of the corporate interest (both profit and imperial), at the exclusion of all other considerations, that seems to make the ‘evil corporation’ narrative so damn convenient.
At around the 10:30 mark of the film, it is mentioned that when the 14th amendment passed in the US, 288 of 310 suits brought to SCOTUS were done so by corporations, and not by African American former slaves for whom the amendment was designed. This immediately reminded me of how many of the pre-eminent Charter cases which we studied in first year were brought not by individuals, but by tobacco and toy corporations. The Charter was designed as a means of public protection against oppressive or unfair governmental practices, but the entities which were seeking to draw a great deal of this protection were in fact corporations. Both of these examples are consistent with the narcissistic opportunism discussed above.
However, using a term like ‘narcissistic opportunism’ begs the question of anthropomorphizing. These are psychiatric terms, a distinction made abundantly clear by the ‘DSM-IV’ header appearing on the film’s checklist of psychopathic qualities. Is attaching these terms to the behaviour of a corporation helpful? Legal personhood is what allowed for the specific forms of opportunism just discussed, so is it regressive to use that same legal status to permit certain critiques? I don’t have an answer to this question, but I thought the irony in my simultaneously being uncomfortable with corporate personhood and comfortable (or even pleased) with calling Monsanto a psychopath was notable. Perhaps a way of reconciling this irony is to dive even further down the anthropomorphic hole by expecting and even seeking throughout this course a means by which corporations can be held to standard social expectations which all persons should comply with, namely: don’t be an ass. This maxim, when applied to an artificial and many-bodied person like a corporation, can only be more complex than it is in the day to day (where it is also, on occasion, poorly applied).
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