If you're going to write about corporations as actors and don't talk about Bill Klein ....

01/27/2015

If you're going to write about corporations as actors and don't talk about Bill Klein ....

So I'm perusing Do Corporations Have Religious Beliefs? (90 Ind. L.J. 47) by Jason Iuliano and on the first two pages, I read the following:

Do corporations have religious beliefs? In a word, yes. They also have fears, hopes, desires, and worries. Some even love; others get angry. Truth be told, corporations are a pretty emotional bunch. Open any newspaper, and you will see corporate intentionality on full display, such as in the following excerpts:

“Facebook wants to go head-to-head with Google in the fight for small- business advertising.”

Verizon worries that, without instruction from lawmakers, the [FCC] will continue to be pressured to expand its authority in this area . . . .”

“Microsoft fears that Google could become a kind of operating system of the Internet . . . .”

“The Big Ten is angry at Comcast. And Comcast is angry at the Big Ten. The conference needs the cable operator, the nation’s largest, to carry its fledgling network.”

In this Article, I seek to defend the claim that corporations actually possess these emotions. They genuinely do have worries, fears, and other mental states. These ascriptions are not mere metaphors. They are identifications of legitimate intentional states.

If you're me, you're expecting at least a but see cite to Bill Klein's work on reification of the corporation. See, e.g., William A. Klein, Business Organization and Finance 117-22 (11th ed. 2010) (criticizing reification of the corporation); see also G. Mitu Gulati, William Klein, & Eric Zolt, Connected Contracts, 47 UCLA L. Rev. 887, 891 (2000) (“[I]t is dangerous to ignore the reality that firms transact only through individuals ....”).

Of course, that really would't be not enough. Anyone making that claim would have to rebut Klein. And good luck with that.

After all, "Bill was, and is, almost larger than life, one of the abiding figures of our discipline."David A. Skeel, Jr., Corporate Shaming Revisited: An Essay for Bill Klein, 2 Berkeley Bus. L.J. 105, 107 (2005).

But Iuliano never cites Klein. He never even mentions reification. Odd.

Posted at 05:41 PM in Corporate Law | Permalink

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So I'm perusing Do Corporations Have Religious Beliefs? (90 Ind. L.J. 47) by Jason Iuliano and on the first two pages, I read the following:

Do corporations have religious beliefs? In a word, yes. They also have fears, hopes, desires, and worries. Some even love; others get angry. Truth be told, corporations are a pretty emotional bunch. Open any newspaper, and you will see corporate intentionality on full display, such as in the following excerpts:

“Facebook wants to go head-to-head with Google in the fight for small- business advertising.”

Verizon worries that, without instruction from lawmakers, the [FCC] will continue to be pressured to expand its authority in this area . . . .”

“Microsoft fears that Google could become a kind of operating system of the Internet . . . .”

“The Big Ten is angry at Comcast. And Comcast is angry at the Big Ten. The conference needs the cable operator, the nation’s largest, to carry its fledgling network.”

In this Article, I seek to defend the claim that corporations actually possess these emotions. They genuinely do have worries, fears, and other mental states. These ascriptions are not mere metaphors. They are identifications of legitimate intentional states.

Of course, that really would't be not enough. Anyone making that claim would have to rebut Klein. And good luck with that.

But Iuliano never cites Klein. He never even mentions reification. Odd.