In “On The Origin of Species” Charles Darwin explains the theory of Evolution. Animals more successful in obtaining food, he says, or avoiding predators, or resisting disease will survive to have more offspring than those less successful. If these superior traits are inherited, then those offspring will possess them more frequently than others of the same species.
For example, if somewhere in Africa more slow antelopes are eaten by lions than fast antelopes, then more fast antelopes will survive to produce baby antelopes. Over generations, antelopes will get faster. In this case, the trait of speed is said to be “selected for”. This is survival of the fittest.
Darwin observed that finches in the Galapagos islands had different shaped beaks depending on which particular island they lived. The shapes and sizes, and specific locations of seeds and insects and other finch food items varied from place to place, and, over time, finch beaks changed to match.
Were Darwin alive today, he would observe a similar process occurring within large corporations. They likewise experience evolution, natural selection, adaptation and survival of the fittest.
Details differ of course. Unlike animals, corporations do not have generations nor do they grow old and die. They do however have behaviors that could help or hurt their money-making ability and thereby affect their survival. These behaviors can change over time and are thus subject to evolutionary pressures.
Corps are non-human, but are run by humans. Company decisions are human-made. Decisions can be good, bad, or on occasion fatal for the company. These human decision-makers can learn from their mistakes, enhancing the fortune of the company and themselves. Or they can fail to learn, causing the company to suffer loss and putting their own jobs in peril. Either way, this learning process drives natural selection in the corporate realm.
Here are some common corporate behaviors:
- Produces products desirable to buyers
- Modifies its product line as consumer demand changes
- Undersells competitors
- Has enough money to undercut a competitor’s prices, even taking a loss, until the competitor goes out of business.
- Disposes of wastes more cheaply than others, sometimes surreptitiously, thereby lowering the cost and thus the price of its products.
- Makes false, misleading or incomplete financial statements, making it easier to borrow money, and potentially increasing stock price.
- Fools consumers and regulators about the components of their products, making them appear more effective or less dangerous than they really are.
- Pays bribes to government or corporate buyers.
- Persuades governments of third-world countries to use their armies to suppress local resistance to their operations.
Some of these are respected business practices and some are criminal acts, but all are potential money-makers and so play roles in corporate evolution.
Suppose company A and company B compete by producing similar products.
If company A is better at number 1 in the list above (more desirable products) than company B, then A has the advantage. But what if company A is better at number 7 (false advertising)? Same result. As long as company A doesn’t get caught, it gains advantage and crime pays.
A crime requires a human to commit it, but of the many humans available to perform a particular task, whom does the company choose?
Over time, the selection process works inside corporate hierarchies as it does in nature. Companies unwilling or incapable of committing a crime, that is, companies who fail to employ individuals who are willing to participate in the crime, will have a competitive disadvantage. These companies are the slow antelopes.
This internal pressure pushes a company toward criminal behavior. Corporations don’t have feelings, and thus cannot experience guilt or shame, but humans do. Among the humans available for the job where a crime could be committed, there is a range of potential for that guilt and shame. Those who are less likely to have regrets and thus more willing to commit the crime that will increase company fortunes, will be the ones selected for.
Note we are not talking about conspiracies or secret plots, or a cabal of corporate decision-makers. Those exist, but this isn’t that. This is a natural automatic process, inherent to the nature of corporations, occurring in the background, informing all corporate activity.
To summarize: if companies can get away with committing illegal acts, then companies who refuse to do so will have less business success then their less principled competitors.
So the adaptation that occurs in plants and animals also occurs in corporations. When the environment changes, organisms, struggling to survive, change in any manner available to them. In the corporate realm it is individual employee decision-making that undergoes the change. This process goes unnoticed by the employees. They may recognize misbehavior in themselves and others, but are oblivious to the forces that lead to its inevitability.
Those who participated in the Enron energy price-fixing fiasco in the early 2000’s or in the Wells-Fargo account fraud scandal a decade later certainly knew they were up to no good. But they likely weren’t pondering the nuances of corporate behavior. Likewise, the antelope sprinting across the savanna, outrunning those shaggy would-be diners, is escaping death. Though unfamiliar with the internal spiritual lives of antelopes, I’m pretty sure that in this situation, survival is the only thought.
So corporations have environments, just like plants and animals do. Corporations change over time to adapt do their environments, just like plants and animals do.
When corporate misbehavior goes unpunished, it continues. But if misdeeds are routinely discovered and punished, causing the company financial distress, change occurs. This is an alteration to the companies’ environment, and the organism, ie the company, responds to protect itself.
Anticipating fines or worse, corporations will more carefully screen potential employees and monitor behavior of existing ones. This increases the likelihood that employees will follow the rules, and be less likely to cause the company loss. This is adaptation.
Therefore, if we citizens, as represented by our government, would like to prevent undesirable corporate behavior, then we must be willing to make the rules strict and clear, and deliver punishment swift and sure. Natural selection in the corporate realm will do the rest.
But remember: when it comes to policy-making, the corps have a seat at the table, and they talk big. They will resist rule changes and enforcement with all the tools at their disposal. Early in America, corps were kept out of politics, but they wormed their way in. You of course, as a citizen, have a seat at the table too, but yours is in the kiddy section.
Once we have eliminated corporate personhood, the balance of power between flesh and blood citizens and corporations will change. Corporate misbehavior will be monitored and sanctioned. It’s fine to start, operate, invest in or be employed by a company and make money. Even lots of money. Have a ball. But activities harmful to the general public will be proscribed. See movetoamend.org for more.
- Share
