We don’t have “freedom of corporation” the way we have freedom of religion. The bishops in Jonestown may deliberate in hoods over guttering candles, but in North America, both registered nonprofits and for-profits have to name certain officers and must follow certain checks and balances such as outside audits.
On August 24, in his piece Drucker Drift, famous entrepreneur Seth Godin (Link) blogged:
… Corporations are a cultural fiction, something we created and permit to exist because it serves the community. In exchange for leverage and insulation, the corporations are expected to be of use and to improve conditions for those they serve—not to be a tool to enrich a few shareholders. …
Godin’s essay begins:
QUOTE
Peter Drucker argued that the purpose of a corporation is to serve the customer. It turns out that organizations that focus on this do well.
Milton Friedman argued (mistakenly, in my view) that the corporation doesn’t need to care about customers, unless this helps increase the value of the company to shareholders.
UNQUOTE
Godin’s blog gives “social validation” to my essay last week about Reaganomics, and what brings about the science fiction world of the main character in the eponymous Friday. An excerpt:
QUOTE
…Some valued “market fundamentalism” over governmental decency.
Our new 1980’s ideology of Reaganomics and “trickle down” meant companies no longer had to balance the interests of various stakeholders, such as “the community.” Now business managers could ease their conscience by explicitly giving sole allegiance to “stockholders.” As best I recall, some Americans demanded executives be less ethical than citizens and politicians.
American executives of multinationals became closer to European blue bloods, who’s wives and lives ignored national borders, than to plain Americans with a flag on their porch. This while big corporations had a bigger budget than many countries…
UNQUOTE
To expand on Godin’s point, I would examine Friday’s world (as shown in the Robert Heinlein science fiction novel of last week’s post)
Her name, Friday, is dreadfully symbolic. You may recall that Robinson Crusoe devalued the indigenous origin of his “employee” by naming him Friday. Just so is Friday “used” by a corporation by being named for the day she came to their crèche: In the British sense of creche, not the US religious sense—although we should be in awe of every child, never treating them as a number on the factory floor.
As for children, you may remember that under Bismarck, German children were taught only enough of the 3Rs to be good workers. In the novel, young Friday, as ignorant as any normal person, tells her story in the first person, therefore one can only guess as to what formed her world. As I see it, just as today on campus the C-minus students don’t see themselves as scholars, so too did an entire generation, in the world before Friday’s time, “I only live here,” not see themselves as citizens.
Without people feeling allegiance and responsibility from their government, as a two-way street, the power which flows to money has flowed to the corporations. When executives had their hearts shrunken to care only about stockholders—make that owners, make that the elite one per cent… their ethics adjusted accordingly, their hearts shrinking still more. Like in Russia, under oligarchs, where elections exist in form, on paper, but not in substance. “Russians are depoliticized.”
In last week’s essay I used Boy Scouts to symbolize character and ideals. I might add now that part of the reason the Boy Scouts, like the knights of old, secretly did someone a good turn every day was to keep their hears nourished. Not dried up like Ebenezer Scooge, an executive who saw himself and his peers as fine fellows.
In Friday’s the world the corporations are as cruel, to my modern eyes, as the guilds of old Italy. While multi-national executives might not stay in a fixed tower or city to be threatened with “gunboat diplomacy,” the cities of the little nation-states are vulnerable to The Bomb. Someone says so in the novel, explaining to Friday that when it comes to tools of diplomacy and force, assassination has replaced massed armies. (I think of Putin successfuly using hybrid warfare on the EU)
Too bad the reviews on GoodReads only focus on the “adventures’ of the main character. I find the reviewers missed out on understanding Friday’s world, and they missed understanding how her character is formed. Years away from the cold, money-hungry creche, she finds happiness in belonging in a shared house. Then she has a shock— her favourite roommate moves away, without loyalty, without any sort of wrenching departure, not like Friday herself would feel.
I feel sorry for poor Friday. The theme, I guess, would be that a mentally healthy population starts with a healthy citizenry. Call it a healthy body politic.
I would add, despite what any bishops with their guttering cult-of-leader candles (or folks like MAGA) thinking their “dear leader” is infallible, normal citizens, under the Constitution, nevertheless won’t start increasing the legal power of a leader. (As happened in August)
Two weeks ago, in my Oak Street essay, I mentioned a few thoughts we don’t usually face. Here’s two more: “The price of ‘citizenship’ is eternal vigilance” and “The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed occasionally with the blood of patriots.”
We may claim not to care about Politics, nevertheless Politics cares about us. Let’s not surrender in advance.
… …
… …
Sean Crawford
Calgary
September
2026
Footnotes:
~ Here is a link to Heather Cox Richardson on Youtube. Early on she examines Reaganomics, at around 14 minutes she talks about, as in poor Friday’s world, history being erased; around 20 minutes she explains why Congress, after six months on, despite the Constitution, has not been given permission to examine the Iran war.
~ I’m still amused at how, during a large gathering of test pilots, someone asked, “How many here were Eagle Scouts?” and nearly every hand went up.
