While reading the news on economic protests yesterday and pondering the entities being protested, it suddenly occurred to me that I cannot think of a suitable test to distinguish corporations from living beings.
Not in a biological sense, of course, but in the gritty sense of defining life--carrying on metabolism, reproduction, internal repairs, responses to external stimuli--I cannot think of a useful tool that excludes a corporate "life form" from a biological or cellular life form. In fact, the more I examine this concept, the more I perceive that humans are to corporations what cells are to humans: and in the sense that we cannot share any intelligent communication with our cells (or the reverse), so we also cannot communicate with corporations (or the reverse). The degree of separation between these life forms is too great to allow any appreciable exchange. To finish my thoughts about the protesters, I realized that the impetus behind their protests came from this inability to communicate. Invisible and silent as individuals, they formed together to create a corporate body--a protest, in America; revolutions in the Arab world this spring--because these bodies were capable of speaking to, and acting upon, other corporate bodies.
Almost before finishing this thought, I realized that the concept had to be expanded past corporations, of course: what I am truly identifying is an Organization. Corporations in the American sense of the word are economic Organizations, but all Organizations bear the same lifelike characteristics, from governments to religions to school yard gossip circles to barbershop quartets. Similarly, we cannot limit the scope of our view to human participants: herds of cattle are as much an Organization as a school board. The two differ wildly in terms of coordination and capabilities, of course (one hopes), but they are Organizations nonetheless that bear "life," in the truest sense of the word. In general, it appears that the complexity of an Organization reflects the relative intelligence or complexity of its "cells," but I wouldn't hang my hat on that rule.
The reach of this idea is too much for a hastily scrawled blog note, but I thought it bore mentioning, at least in passing. I may tease out some of its implications in later posts. In the mean time, I'm curious--what reaction do you feel, in response to the idea that, in every way we know to define a "living being," humanity is not truly the most advanced life form on Earth?
what about souls? at least as christians think, we have an eternal destiny. can we say the same for corporations?
ReplyDeleteI don't think spirituality is a necessary element of simple life--for example, cats and flowers are alive, but probably don't have spirits.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I think Christianity's understanding of the Church fits into this model flawlessly--the Bride of Christ attains salvation, but what is she if not the summation of each individual (cellular) Christian?
Hey Peter, I agree generally with your idea that organizations can be considered as "life-forms", and to a large extent they are. Aren't corporations considered mostly as "persons" under US laws? They essentially have "human rights." Applying the same model to other forms of organizations is unlikely a new idea.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, listing the existence of organizations as "most advanced life forms on Earth" is something I'd probably disagree with. I think on many (most?) occasions that people organize together, they tend to get collectively dumber, or at least have a more difficult time functioning as "life". I think that's even more true the larger the organization becomes and the more varied its members. There's a C.S. Lewis quote I wish I had written down, but it was something about how there's no more ugly or maddening or stupid sound than the voice of a crowd. Now, I'm not saying I think organizations are useless, but they may be more useful in terms of communication with other large entities, as you pointed out, and less useful in terms of other basic functions of life. Anyway, I'm basically just saying in general I find it hard-pressed to identify an organization that's *more* advanced in life than the capabilities (and accomplishments of a large number) of regular individual human beings.
But on the whole, I think your analogy/identification is correct and certainly deserves further thought and long-term consideration.