The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning

by Jeremy Lent

A crucial moment occurred in 1886, when the Supreme Court designated corporations as “persons” entitled to the protections of the Fourteenth Amendment, which had been passed to give equal rights to former slaves enfranchised after the Civil War.22* When we typically think of a corporation, we tend to imagine it as composed of human beings, whether executives, board members, or employees. However, a corporation is utterly different from the people who are part of it. In contrast to people, who are capable of empathy and generally care for others beyond themselves, corporations are abstract entities usually created with the single mandate of maximizing financial returns for their shareholders. They are theoretically immortal and cannot be put in prison, and the larger multinationals are not constrained by the laws of any individual country.23 With equivalent rights to human beings but with the incalculable advantage of their superhuman powers, corporations have literally taken over the world. They have grown so massive that fifty-three of the largest hundred economies in the world are corporations. Along with their vast power, corporations have imposed on the world a set of values, arising from their overriding objective to maximize financial returns, at odds with many intrinsic human values.