Conceptions of the Corporation and the Prospects of Sustainable Peace

Abstract

I begin this essay with a brief overview of the corporation in legal discourse. In this overview, I draw upon current corporate law scholarship, considering the notions of the corporation as (1) property, (2) person, (3) contract, and (4) community. Following this overview, I explore the particular significance of legal language, detailing some of the central ways the law constructs the world in which we live. The law plays this constructive role by constituting and transforming our understandings of "character," "culture," and "community." Examining the ways in which our basic corporate conceptions contribute to our understanding of these three central elements of the business environment brings into view how legal language can structure the sensibility and vision we bring to corporate law problems. Each conception of the corporation presents it in a certain light, giving to the corporation a certain "character." Each character thus presented is in turn intertwined with a culture - "a set of ways of claiming meaning" - that can justify a greater or lesser sense of community. My conclusion is that while the notions of the corporation as property and contract predominate in current corporate law scholarship, the conceptions of the corporation as person and community offer better prospects for the goal of sustainable peace. They do so because of the way they enlarge our sense of corporate responsibility for the harms associated with corporate undertakings. Because this greater sense of corporate responsibility works to eliminate or minimize such harms, it contributes to the corporation's ability to foster long-term cooperative relationships among all its stakeholders. Thus, if we wish corporations to contribute to the creation of a more peaceful world, legal discourse can help by revitalizing one of its old notions, the corporation as person, and more fully embracing a new one, the corporation as community.