Five Ways Corporations Are Literally The Devil

The incorrect use of the word literally in the title is intentional, for ironic effect, to indicate that this piece is not serious analysis. It is an analogy that tries to make a few decent points about what corporations are and what they do.

I think corporations are not good. Or at least, I think they don’t need to be as bad as they are. I make no bones about that. I understand why corporations "exist", and the value they supposedly add to our society, but I also know that they are the concoction of a privileged elite who have always shown that they value wealth over everything else, and whose primary concern is the protection of their property.

I’m both fascinated and infuriated by the idea of the corporation. 

One more thing before I present the list. This is not a debate on the existence of a god. That is not the point. When I write about the devil, I'm using Christianity as my source, because that is where I came to know the subject.

Having lined ourselves up on all of that, let’s get on with it.

1. They are Both Fictions

In law, a fiction is a thing that doesn't exist, but for practical purposes need to be treated as if it does. A court of law cannot outright dispute the existence of either a corporation, or the devil, in the dispatching of its duty.

Just as business law wouldn’t make any sense without the fiction of a corporation, neither would the concept of sin in Christianity without the devil. In this way, they serve a similar purpose.

2. They are Both Evil

The whole idea of evil is deep and wide. For the sake of economy, in this comparison let’s agree that ‘evil’ is a thing, and that religion is the basis for most people’s understanding of it.

“For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil”
--1 Timothy 6:10 (NIV)

Corporations have the single overarching purpose of producing profit. Any purpose a for-profit corporation may claim is subordinate to their primary mission to produce profit, and to grow that profit over time.

If the only aim of a corporation is to create wealth, and the desire to accumulate wealth is evil, then how can a for-profit corporation be anything but evil? 

3. They Both Lie

The devil’s deceptive nature is well-expressed in religious text. I identified more than fifty verses that referenced directly or inferred that The devil is a charlatan. Not just a liar, but one who appears to be one thing while bearing intentions that are totally different.

“And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.”
--2 Corinthians 11:14

Corporations wouldn’t deliberately lie, would they?

“If [cigarettes] are behaviorally addictive or habit forming, they are much more like … Gummi Bears, and I eat Gummi Bears, and I don’t like it when I don’t eat my Gummi Bears, but I’m certainly not addicted to them.”
--James J. Morgan, President, Phillip Morris Tobacco Company, under oath, 1987

Does anyone buy the idea that in anyone who wasn’t living under a rock in 1987 didn’t know intuitively that cigarettes are addictive? So, what else can we call the statement above but a lie? Though I’m glossing over this item for brevity, it’s not a minor point. Lying is not only something corporations do, it can be said that manipulating the truth is one of the things corporations do best.

4. They are Both Scapegoats

Who hasn’t heard the old phrase “The devil made me do it”? In Christianity, The devil still gets the blame for making people sin.

There is a nearly religious reverence for corporations, which includes a tacit approval of their means and motives. People have no problem, it seems, accepting that they should not expect corporations to do good things, or for that matter, to even care much about the negative impacts of what they do to generate their profits, right up to putting at risk the health and safety of their workers, or even the public.

Put another way, corporations get away with things people couldn’t. Things a person might expect from another person; respect for their privacy, their safety, etc., they do not expect from a corporation.

We accept that corporations are apex predators like a sharks. We are saddened but not shocked by news of a shark attack, and we never blame the shark. It’s only doing what sharks do. 

5. They are Both Immortal

The Devil is immortal according to official sources. A supernatural being. That’s pretty cut and dried. 

Corporations are immortal because the law says so. States may have their own rules regarding how often a corporation’s registration needs to be updated, but for the most part a corporation, once ‘born’, will live until its owners decide it is no longer useful.

Corporations are immune to disease. They cannot be killed in a natural disaster or an automobile accident, or even old age. You’ve probably done business, as a customer, with one or two of our country’s oldest corporations; Dupont was established in 1802, making it 220 years old.

So, Basically the Devil, Right?

I have confessed my morbid fascination for the phenomenon of the corporation, and the strange loyalty they create in the mind of ordinary people, particularly those who are motivated to defend their country’s continuing dedication to unconstrained capitalism.

Though the corporations are entirely the creation of people; their decisions made by people, their risks calculated by people, and their profits ultimately collected by people, the investor can rest comfortably, one degree separated from any harm resulting from the creation of the profits they enjoy, by their wonderful friend the corporation. 

Free Stock photo by Vecteezy