I was already familiar with many of the social ills and critiques leveled at corporations and capitalism in general; I was hoping to learn more about the legal form from this documentary than I did. So, I will focus on some aspects of “personhood” I found interesting.
In regards to anthropomorphizing corporations, perhaps what they are often thinking of and responding to is the branding, especially lifestyle branding. They see the corporation itself as being the kind of person that the company’s advertisement promises its product will make of the consumer. For example, one of the interviewees suggested that Nike, as a person, would be young and energetic, which is exactly what is portrayed through Nike’s advertisements as well as products (I was disappointed that Nike was not, however, identified as female, being named after a goddess).
While I think many of the observations made in the process of “diagnosing” corporations as psychopaths are accurate, the analogy is flawed, or at least, contradictory to other ideas put forward by the film. The film argues that corporations as “people” are unique in that they lack morals, opinions, or politics beyond those of its members, but simultaneously argues that they suffer from a personality disorder. The criterion of an “incapacity to maintain enduring relationships” in particular seems like a stretch, because these “relationships” are not in the nature of an interpersonal bond, and are not viewed as such by either party.
So far, I do agree with these observations, if not the analogy, and would locate the problem in the legal requirement of prioritizing profit. This raises some questions for me: is that legal requirement present in other forms of organizing business? What if a company is “private” – can any corporation be private, or are all corporations publicly traded (having stocks)? What of social enterprises?
In short, I need the next few weeks to start to understand the structure of companies. I know the problems, but not the nature of businesses.
