Miller Motte CollegeRaleigh Campus

PL104-3: Business Law

Homework # 2

The Corporation

Essay Question #2: If a corporation is a “person,” what type of person is it?

Joe Badaracco stated in The Corporation that a corporation is a group of individuals working

together to serve a variety of objectives with the principal one being growing large sustainable

profit for the owners of the corporation. Achbar, M. (Director). (2003). The Corporation [Motion

Picture]. http://www.hulu.com/watch/118169. In the world of behavioral health, a corporation is

pretty much a self absorbed, Machiavellian megalomaniac or, a Napoleonic Mr. Scrooge with

psychopathic tendencies. Achbar, M. (Director). (2003). The Corporation [Motion Picture].

http://www.hulu.com/watch/118169. French physician Philippe Pinel produced a term that fits

the corporation perfectly, manie sans delire (“insanity without delirium”), while the American

psychiatrist Hervey Cleckley could describe a corporation as having deep-rooted emotional

psychopathy masked by an outward appearance of robust mental health. 3 The Corsini

Encyclopedia of Psychology (4th Edition). Psychopath, pg. 1355 (2010). Corporations spend

millions or billions of dollars to brand themselves as someone or something you can trust and

rely on to improve your life and all-the-while, the corporation masks its true Mr. Hyde-like

nature.

Ultimately, the corporation’s nature of psychopathy is not in the sense that it is a serial killer or

spree murderer, but rather, because of the harm it does to others as a result of its inability to feel

guilt or remorse while being deceitful and manipulative to get what it wants. 3 The Corsini

Encyclopedia of Psychology (4th Edition). Psychopath, pg. 1355 (2010).

An important question needs to be raised, however. Is the psychopathic nature of the corporation

there because it is a non-sentient legal entity with no body or soul, or is it the people who lead

and manage the corporation who are the true monsters? Although a corporation is an entity

(usually a business) having the legal authority to act and exist as a single person distinct from the

people who own it (Black’s Law Dictionary 311 (9th ed. 2010)), does the inherent psychopathic

1Chris Harden

Homework # 2

The Corporation

nature of the corporation attract those people who are, at their very core, psychologically aligned

with the corporation?

The answer can be found in mob psychology where mob “homogeneity” allows the attitudes and

beliefs of the dominant mob members to contaminate the rest of the otherwise innocuous group

thereby causing the restraints that produce conventional behavior to break down in the group. 3

The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology (4th Edition). Mob Psychology, pg. 1009 (2010). There

are corporate leaders whose core beliefs are antipodal to the values the corporation displays on

all of its publicized material. Other corporate leaders will regularly congregate like 18th Century

French Aristocracy to eat drink and be merry. Meanwhile, outside, Rome is burning as distressed

citizens harmed by the corporation’s tyrannical nature demonstrate one single ideal: “Enough!”

Apparently, when people feel invulnerable behind the “corporate veil,” they find it easier to act

out their impulses because of the difficulty legal authorities have in singling corporate leaders

out or even reaching these leaders to make them responsible for their actions. 3 The Corsini

Encyclopedia of Psychology (4th Edition). Mob Psychology, pg. 1009 (2010). The corporation

begins as a “bad seed” that maturates into a despicable monstrous force of unstoppable need for

more money and resources. The people who lead and manage this monstrous force may join the

“collective” as saints with good intentions, but slowly and surely become transmogrified into

denizens of Hades.

2Chris Harden