C is for Corporation
By:
February 20, 2012
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.
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