Questions answered after viewing The Corporation on HULU.

1. Miller Motte College
Raleigh Campus
PL104-3: Business Law
Homework # 2
The Corporation
Essay Question #2: If a corporation is a “person,” what type of person is it?
Joe Badaracco stated in The Corporation that a corporation is a group of individuals working
together to serve a variety of objectives with the principal one being growing large sustainable
profit for the owners of the corporation. Achbar, M. (Director). (2003). The Corporation [Motion
Picture]. http://www.hulu.com/watch/118169. In the world of behavioral health, a corporation is
pretty much a self absorbed, Machiavellian megalomaniac or, a Napoleonic Mr. Scrooge with
psychopathic tendencies. Achbar, M. (Director). (2003). The Corporation [Motion Picture].
http://www.hulu.com/watch/118169. French physician Philippe Pinel produced a term that fits
the corporation perfectly, manie sans delire (“insanity without delirium”), while the American
psychiatrist Hervey Cleckley could describe a corporation as having deep-rooted emotional
psychopathy masked by an outward appearance of robust mental health. 3 The Corsini
Encyclopedia of Psychology (4th Edition). Psychopath, pg. 1355 (2010). Corporations spend
millions or billions of dollars to brand themselves as someone or something you can trust and
rely on to improve your life and all-the-while, the corporation masks its true Mr. Hyde-like
nature.
Ultimately, the corporation’s nature of psychopathy is not in the sense that it is a serial killer or
spree murderer, but rather, because of the harm it does to others as a result of its inability to feel
guilt or remorse while being deceitful and manipulative to get what it wants. 3 The Corsini
Encyclopedia of Psychology (4th Edition). Psychopath, pg. 1355 (2010).
An important question needs to be raised, however. Is the psychopathic nature of the corporation
there because it is a non-sentient legal entity with no body or soul, or is it the people who lead
and manage the corporation who are the true monsters? Although a corporation is an entity
(usually a business) having the legal authority to act and exist as a single person distinct from the
people who own it (Black’s Law Dictionary 311 (9th ed. 2010)), does the inherent psychopathic
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Chris Harden

2. Homework # 2
The Corporation
nature of the corporation attract those people who are, at their very core, psychologically aligned
with the corporation?
The answer can be found in mob psychology where mob “homogeneity” allows the attitudes and
beliefs of the dominant mob members to contaminate the rest of the otherwise innocuous group
thereby causing the restraints that produce conventional behavior to break down in the group. 3
The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology (4th Edition). Mob Psychology, pg. 1009 (2010). There
are corporate leaders whose core beliefs are antipodal to the values the corporation displays on
all of its publicized material. Other corporate leaders will regularly congregate like 18th Century
French Aristocracy to eat drink and be merry. Meanwhile, outside, Rome is burning as distressed
citizens harmed by the corporation’s tyrannical nature demonstrate one single ideal: “Enough!”
Apparently, when people feel invulnerable behind the “corporate veil,” they find it easier to act
out their impulses because of the difficulty legal authorities have in singling corporate leaders
out or even reaching these leaders to make them responsible for their actions. 3 The Corsini
Encyclopedia of Psychology (4th Edition). Mob Psychology, pg. 1009 (2010). The corporation
begins as a “bad seed” that maturates into a despicable monstrous force of unstoppable need for
more money and resources. The people who lead and manage this monstrous force may join the
“collective” as saints with good intentions, but slowly and surely become transmogrified into
denizens of Hades.
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Chris Harden