Today I heard a commentary on the American public radio station NPR that made my blood boil red. Remarking on the recent scandal and out of court settlement between the US government and SPCS on charges for money laundering, the commentator argued that the bank shouldn’t be held to standard fraud charges because “banks don’t commit fraud, people commit fraud.” Why is this so galling? Because in 2010, the American Supreme Court decided that corporations, unions, and various other groups are people and therefore have a right to free speech through their campaign contributions. In other words, the Supreme Court took a posthuman turn, recognizing the existence of other beings beyond the human (corporations, unions, activist groups, etc). Well enough. We shouldn’t begin from the premise that posthumanism entails what is good. It recognizes reality in recognizing that there are nonhumans with their own interests and that there are “aliens among us” already in the form of intelligent cognitive beings that might depend on humans but which are not themselves humans (a central theme of Kafka’s literature).
So what’s the problem here? On the one hand we’re told that these alien beings are persons (not the same as humans) and therefore are entitled to the rights of free speech through their campaign contributions; while on the other hand we’re being told that when such “persons” commit fraudulent crimes they shouldn’t be held accountable because only humans commit crimes, not banks (which the Supreme Court already defined as persons). You can’t have it both ways. If we recognize a corporation as a person, then they should be subject– whatever the economic cost –to all the same laws and penalties as any other person. We should make the bank go before a court and upon finding it guilty, place a form or document in jail that prevents them from practicing business or any other interactions over the course of their sentence. If a state has capital punishment, we should be able to execute a corporation, union, or any other organization. If they are persons, we should be able to put them in solitary confinement. Indeed, we should be able to examine their mental fitness and institutionalize them, demanding therapy.
If we are to be posthumans, then we really have to be posthumans. We have to consider the ethical machines of nonhuman machines such as animals and corporations, and we must also subject these other machines to our ethical and political machines. We need to have serious discussions about the rights of these various entities and develop our incorporeal government machines accordingly. The worst part of this whole story is that no one will be held accountable. The bank won’t be brought up on charges because the governments fear that it would have too much of an economic impact and “because banks don’t commit fraud, people do”. The bankers won’t be held accountable because it is believed the banks did it. That 1 billion dollar settlement? It’s coming out of the pockets of shareholders. No one that matters is held accountable because we’re playing a double game as to just what counts as a “person” or “agent”. What a world we live in.
December 14, 2012 at 3:22 am
There’s interesting crossover here with the (as-yet mostly nonexistent) discipline of machine ethics: constructing/programming/engineering computational systems to act ethically – or to make (ethical) decisions, obviously esp. in generic, complex, or ideally (in the last instance) purely contingent scenarios.
December 14, 2012 at 3:30 am
Great post. I wonder how we should interpret ‘the corporation’ movie/book within this context? In applying a ‘psychopathic’ diagnosis to the corporation, I always wondered if they reversed the problem and attempted to use human values against corporate ones in a way that inverted their own thesis.
Perhaps the problem also lies in the law itself, as the sovereign decision inherent in judgement is largely indifferent to the process, outcome and participants, so long as it maintains the veil of its own legitimacy. Then to mirror your point, humans are also ‘fictional’ persons under the law – appearing only in ways permissible to proceedings (honest testimony, argumentative oppositions, lawfulness of proceedings) in which their humanity is equally removed.
December 14, 2012 at 3:58 am
The problem with applying the ‘psychopathic’ diagnosis to the corporation is that we are all trying to vilify corporations while avoiding vilification of so-called mental illness. It’s kind of like when Lacanians say that autism-spectrum disorders are a form of psychosis, and then certain people get outraged by saying “how dare you call someone suffering from an autism-spectrum disorder psychotic!” As if labelling something as psychotic is a stigma. The problem here is that we are trying to destigmatize psychosis while still using it (in the pejorative sense) as a slam against corporations. (Note: I realize that psychopathy and psychosis are two separate things, but the point holds…). And of course the problem is also where humanism fits into this, because on the one hand corporations are already “post-human” but on the other hand, they still rely on humanist ideas of “good intentions” and so on — or at least, corporate public relations campaigns do a good job of presenting their vested interests as “having good intentions.”
Basically, I think everyone here agrees that corporations are “bad” when they perpetuate their own hegemonic rule with utter disregard for human life, but it’s hard to frame this philosophically because we’re trying to be “good post-humanists” here. I see the problems thusly:
* How do we attack corporations without relying on humanism? i.e. how do we go beyond the tried-and-true “corporations disregard real human quality of life in pursuit of the almighty dollar” argument?
* How can we criticize “psychopathic” corporations without vilifying mental illness, or relying on some normative idea of what “good mental health” is? That is, if we are trying to destigmatize psychosis, and then I say a corporation is psychotic (or psychopathic — again, I realize these are different, but bear with me) then how do these two stances work together? How can I be both for the destigmatization of psychosis while attacking corporations as psychotic? If I am against the idea that psychosis is an “evil” which must be fought, then how can I also use the label of psychosis or psychopathy in a derogatory way to put down corporations?
December 14, 2012 at 4:54 am
There’s Catch 22 for ya, dr. Sinthome. The Phallus of Language rears its ugly head. Since corporations, animals and other non-human objects don’t speak, they can neither defend themselves in court nor confess their guilt. Therefore, human law is hardly effective on them.
December 14, 2012 at 1:26 pm
[...] Bryant has a new post up on his blog on the pathological double standards demanded for banks. Bryant refers to a recent [...]
December 14, 2012 at 3:13 pm
“Basically, I think everyone here agrees that corporations are “bad” when they perpetuate their own hegemonic rule with utter disregard for human life”
See, I am not even convinced of that. The early corporations were just pools of investment in order to build infrastructure before states had resources. The juridical decisions that shaped the corporation (two primary ones being personhood and the legal requirement to maximize profit for shareholders) made it into the ‘thing’ it is today. Moreover, the differences in law between nation-states also change the impact and effectiveness (evilness) of corporations across borders.
There have been repeated (failed) movements to revoke the charters of corporations that participate in human rights abuses, and thus socially re-embed the legality in alternative social norms. It seems the corporation has an integral posthuman ambiguity, changing and reacting over time, based on decisions and norms, where the ‘post’ part is the most telling, as the nostalgia for a pre-corporate past ignores the present.
December 16, 2012 at 8:10 am
“Because in 2010, the American Supreme Court decided that corporations, unions, and various other groups are people and therefore have a right to free speech through their campaign contribution.” Not so. According to the “Corporate personhood” Wikipedia entry, “The Citizens United majority opinion makes no reference to corporate personhood.” There was no posthuman turn. Or if there was it happened in the 19th century, in actual rulings on corporate personhood.
It’s the opponents of the ruling who want to recognize corporations as ontologically distinct. Proponents want to see them as simply associations of individuals such that a limitation on the speech of the corporation is the same as a limitation on the speech of those who form it.