Corporations depend on a fiction that nobody individually believes

Evidence

“In an ‘individualistic’ period,” Dewey argues, which he defines as “an era chiefly concerned with the rights of private property and contract,” the identification of a corporation as a legal person “might even enlarge its rights, privileges and immunities.” Regardless, when it comes to arguing between the existence of corporations as persons against the belief they are not, “each theory has been used to serve the same ends, and each has been used to serve opposing ends.” Corporate personhood, for Dewey, is ultimately an incoherent idea without ontological grounding, an idea that can only be grasped through the specific ends that equating corporation and person performs. The corporation–as a legal entity–is always, to some extent, a “person,” because it is only through legal understandings of personhood that a corporation can be given legal rights and responsibilities but also be punished for violating these rights and responsibilities. It is a necessary fiction: a corporation is not literally a “person,” but it is a person in the same way that other fictional legal entities are. — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 383 (#expands, via linked claim)

The role of capitalist ideology is not to make an explicit case for something in the way that propaganda does, but to conceal the fact that the operations of capital do not depend on any sort of subjectively assumed belief. It is impossible to conceive of fascism or Stalinism without propaganda – but capitalism can proceed perfectly well, in some ways better, without anyone making a case for it. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 29 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Capitalism cannot function without its ideological disguises and myths — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 96; Corporate personhood is an incoherent but necessary legal fiction. — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory: A Marxist…, 383; Corporations count as legal agents even though they lack subjectivity (+2 more)

Related

• Corporate personhood is an incoherent but necessary legal fiction. (similarity 0.88)
• Corporations resist ethical chastisement because they are not human individuals (similarity 0.83)
• Corporate personhood is a legal fiction defined by its consequences, not ontology (similarity 0.83)
• Capitalism functions without anyone believing in it, unlike fascism (similarity 0.80)
• Capitalism has no center, only entities incapable of responsibility (similarity 0.79)
• For Smith, corporations are legal state-created bodies distinct from entrepreneurs (similarity 0.79)
• Machen held corporations exist as real entities without inherent personhood. (similarity 0.79)
• The Corpocene inverts corporate personhood so people adopt corporate structure and function. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Corporate personhood is an incoherent but necessary legal fiction. #expands (0.92) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 383
• Capitalism functions without anyone believing in it, unlike fascism #expands (0.88) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 29
• Corporations count as legal agents even though they lack subjectivity #expands (0.85)
• Financial wealth is fictitious yet real because shared fictions govern social reproduction #expands (0.80) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 42