Corporations: For Better or Worse?

To start, a few words and phrases: Corporation, corporate offices, corporate law, “Call corporate, they have the answers”,  “Some day, I’ll work for corporate”, limited liability, separate entity.

Corporation: a company or group of people authorized to act as a single entity (legally a person) and recognized as such in law.

Whether or not you have worked for a corporation, it is nearly certain that you have interacted with or been affected by one in some way. After reading through these prefacing remarks, I wonder what thoughts or emotions arise in you. For me, a few thoughts that come to mind:

Safe Haven: A corporation provides structure and benefits for its employees.

Reliable: This type of organization typically has a reliable source of goods throughout the year and we can rely on them for our own needs.

Predictable: The corporation will do what is best for its own survival. Considering it is legally a person makes for an interesting subset of rules and reactions to society.

Global: A corporation has global reach and influence, often affecting millions of people in a complex web of wonderful and terrible actions simultaneously.

Hierarchy: Top down management with the majority of power and money belonging to the few at the top.

The corporations of the world wield great power. That is a fact. Corporations are much like a lion in the wild. They are a keystone species, meaning they play a critical role in the survival of all other species in an ecosystem. All the suppliers, distributors, manufacturers, buyers, customers and community members rely on large corporations in many ways. As much as I hate to admit it, they have a massive influence in any communities considering the amount of money that flows through corporations and the attention they get. As an employee for one of the larger transnational corporations, Costco Wholesale, I have mixed feelings about their existence. I believe in the power of communities and our reliance on one other for our well-being. Time and time again, we see political issues arise over corporate “personhood” and the ability of these organizations to act like a community member and voice their opinion. This stirs my emotions because I don’t believe corporations have the same interests as humans, and yet they carry arguably more weight than each of us in societal decisions. On the other hand, many people rely on their corporate employer to provide a steady income and benefits for them every day. It is clear how quickly this can become a complex issue and how much corporations affect our communities, countries and the world.