C is for Corporation
By: Joshua Glenn | Categories: Read-outs

A series of 26 posts featuring excerpts from Joshua Glenn’s The Idler’s Glossary (Biblioasis, 2008) and The Wage Slave’s Glossary (Biblioasis, 2011). Both books were coauthored by Mark Kingwell, who contributed entertaining philosophical-critical essays on the subjects of idling and wage slavery; and both were wittily illustrated and designed by the cartoonist Seth.

CORPORATION

A legally sanctioned entity, most often used to conduct business, which — though immortal, unless “dissolved” — has its own status and rights like a natural person. Critics argue that granting personhood to an organization with no personal liability creates a Frankenstein monster: a legal entity without any moral or legal responsibility to encourage restraint, yet with the ability and resources to exploit natural resources, co-opt public policy, and wreak havoc on communities. Legal scholar Joel Bakan has described the modern corporation as a “psychopath.”

***

ALSO: Alienation | Big Rock Candy Mountains | Corporation | Dawdle | Employee of the Month | Flazy | Greybearding | Hobo | Inemuri | Jack of All Trades | Knock Off Work | Lazy | Micawberish | Nobbing It | Onboarding | Pink Slip | Quitter | Robot | Stakhanovite | Time and Motion Study | Unemployment | Volupté | Wage Slavery | Xerox Subsidy | Yakuza | Zero Drag

Share

MORE POSTS by

Joshua Glenn is a Boston-based writer, publisher, and cultural semiologist-for-hire. He is coauthor and/or co-editor of TAKING THINGS SERIOUSLY, THE IDLER'S GLOSSARY, THE WAGE SLAVE'S GLOSSARY, and — in 2012 — the object-oriented story collection SIGNIFICANT OBJECTS, and the kids' field guide to life UNBORED. He is editor of HILOBROW and publisher of the science fiction imprint HILOBOOKS; and he is co-founder of SEMIONAUT and the SIGNIFICANT OBJECTS experiment. In the '00s, Glenn was an editor, columnist, and blogger (BRAINIAC) for the Boston Globe's IDEAS section, and he was new media producer for the paper's LIVING/ARTS section. In the '90s, he published the seminal high-lowbrow zine/journal HERMENAUT; was an editor at UTNE READER; and was co-producer of the pioneering DIY how-to website and social network TRIPOD. Glenn produced and co-designed the iPhone app KER-PUNCH. He manages a secretive online community known as THE HERMENAUTIC CIRCLE. He does business as KING MIXER, LLC.