It’s very old news that corporations have demanded the rights of people and largely gotten them. But what kind of personality does a corporation have? Many jurisdictions have said that shareholders rights must triumph over every other aspect of a corporation. This makes a corporation obsess about its bottom line. This is exactly like psychopath who always chooses what they think is best for themselves. So corporate culture or the corporate playground mentioned in the title is just a bunch of psychopaths interacting. We know humanity is sunk if we all become psychopaths. What does this say about the business world?
But recently, two new kinds of corporations have arisen. They are B corporations and benefit corporations. Because of the close ties, you might think that the B of B corporations could stand for benefit as in benefit corporations. But the world, as is, must realize a difference.
Both types of new corporations try to be of value, not just to the shareholders, but other stakeholders like employees and the community. This is laudable and it’s nice to see non psychopathic players in the corporate world.
The two new corporations differ in how they are set up. The B corporations must maintain standards set out by a third party. Only after they reach this third party standards are they given B corporation status. The benefit corporation is a legal definition. It exists in some jurisdictions. I think it came about as a shelter against laws that maintain the primacy of the shareholder. The corporation begins as a legal benefit corporation and thus the shareholders can’t say at a later date that they want to enforce the primacy of the shareholder. They knew going in that the company was a benefit corporation.
I’m hoping that both type of new corporation can expand their market share and numbers. We keep getting told in capitalism that we can vote for products and services with our money. It’s just that previously meant we only had a choice between psychopaths. This helps democratize our capitalism.
Also, human society wouldn’t be able to function with a majority of psychopaths. Hopefully non psychopathic corporations like B and benefit corporations will become the majority. Then at last the business world wouldn’t be so treacherous.
At the link is a finder such that if you enter your country or province or state you might find some local B corporations. Benefit corporations exist only in jurisdictions that have passed legislation. This Wikipedia article shows the US states that have enacted the legislation.
