Source: Ian B. Lee
Has corporate law created a monster? This article explores three recent indictments of corporate law that suggest that the constitutive law of corporations is responsible for a monstrous flaw in the institutional character of the Anglo-American public corporation.
Specifically, its exclusive focus on profits. Constitutional lawyer Joel Bakan has argued, in The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power that the law constitutes the corporation as a dangerous psychopath. Bakan follows in the footsteps of Lawrence Mitchell, a corporate law scholar, who a few years ago compared the corporation to ‘‘a golem that can never be called back’’ in Corporate Irresponsibility: America’s Newest Export.
In a relatively unknown work, Reinventing Aristocracy: The Constitutional Reformation of Corporate Governance, constitutional theorist Andrew Fraser characterized the corporation, less colorfully but no less disparagingly, as an uncivilized power.
Read More: Is There a Cure for Corporate Psychopathy?
Cartoon by Bob Moran
