ATDTDA (5): The American Corporation

[Paul Mackin]

On Apr 2, 2007, at 4:52 AM, Dave Monroe wrote:

> Not to step on anyone's (John's, Paul's, whoever's) toes here, I HOPE,
> but, while circling back to The Vormance Expedition, this again caught
> my eye ...
>
>   "'Evolution.  Ape evolves to man, well, what's the next step--human
> to what?  Some compund organism, the American Corporation, for
> instnace, in which even the Supreme Court has recognized legal
> personhood--a new living species, one that can out-perform most
> anything an individual can do by himself, no matter how smart or
> powerful he is.'" (AtD, Pt. II, p. 147-8)
>

My thoughts on the passage would be more or less as follows:

1.  This "evolution" Pynchon is describing is of course more "weird  
science."

2. The real-world situation being referred to is simply that of  
several "natural persons" banding together to act as a single entity  
under state (and sometimes federal) law in the legal system in ways  
similar but by no mean identical to the way a natural person can  
function.  If this  is the granting of "personhood" to a corporation,  
so be it.

3. As to the 14th amendment  (equal protection under the law) , the  
obvious presumption would be that if it's illegal to deny protection  
to natural persons for reasons of race, color or creed, it would be  
problematic to deny protection to groups a such people.

4. To go along the the joke, if common sense (with a little marginal  
help from the 14th amendment) conspired to confer civil liberties  
upon synthetic persons known as corporations, it is also true these  
rights since the late 19th Century have been gradually eroded away by  
federal law (Sherman Antitrust Act, etc, etc.) though not nearly  
enough so in the opinion of most p-listers.

P..