At a recent session on Socio-Economics in Berkeley, I argued that a civic economy would be superior to our current property-based economy because it would include everyone. A participant asked if I thought that civic membership should be voluntary or forced. Given the two choices, I said forced. On further reflection, I think the question was a set-up. A better question is whether everyone belongs to the civic or not.
The conversation about the role of corporations in electoral politics (the Vermont proposal for a Constitutional Amendment that denies the status of “person” to corporations is a recent example) has largely focused on what corporations are not (not persons and not citizens) as a way of getting then out of electoral politics. One can also talk about where they belong by looking at what they are. In Civilizing the Economy, I list four key aspects of corporations.
Marvin T. Brown, Ph.D teaches business and organizational ethics at the University of San Francisco and Saybrook University in San Francisco.
This book is the culmination of 30 years of teaching and writing on business and society from a communicative perspective. Visit workingethics.com for more information.
Adam Smith American Dream Atlantic trade banks biosphere citizen Citizens United civic civic conversations civic economy Civicism civic membership civilizing the economy Commons corporate citizen corporations democracy disagreement economics of property economics of provision Egypt health care reform human dignity invisible hand John Locke libertarianism Libya living wage membership money moral equality property property relations protection Scotland slavery slaves Smith and slavery Smithian economics sports sustainability system of provision the civic tobacco trade Wall Street