Public corporations in America, are corporations, artificially created by state apparatus, that are considered to be perpetual entities. Most people, don’t seem all that concerned about this, but recognize that Apple, as of December of 2021, has a market capitalization of over $2.8 trillion, and has cash on hand of over $200 billion. Those numbers in and of themselves, are absolutely staggering, and though corporations are made up of human managers, executives, and workers; each of those human elements is replaceable, and given enough time each of these humans will be replaced by another; and having been replaced, we find that the corporation itself, will still remain in operation, in perpetuity, because unlike human beings, the corporation is essentially immortal.
While there probably are lots of great and sound reasons, why corporations should and need to be perpetual, there are, as might be imagined, many great and sound reasons, why corporations should not be perpetual. The problem with perpetuity when it comes to a for-profit corporation, is that the stock market is a very unforgiving place; for those that invest in equities, primarily want their investment, to make them money; and that typically means that the underlying corporation so owned, needs to both grow its business, as well as to grow its profits, year in and year out. This thus signifies that as large as a company might grow in regards to sales, profits, and market capitalization, the investors of that stock, need this to keep on growing; and because the highly paid executives at these corporations are well aware of this, there is going to be more than a strong tendency to do whatever it so takes in order to increase that company’s sales, profits, and market capitalization, forever.
As multi-national corporations get ever bigger, their sheer size, gives them an incredible amount of undue influence upon public policy; and further to the point, those with a lot at stake, aren’t going to go down quietly when they don’t get their way. Rather, they are going to stay focused upon doing what they need to do in order to keep as well as to extend their power, thereby essentially necessitating that they will in one way or another, co-opt or corrupt government, or the government will have to co-opt or dismantle them.
What good governance so represents as well as its inherent duties to the general welfare of the people, is not the same directive as a corporation which is primarily driven by profit, above all. These two entities, then, while having some objectives in common, are also going to be at odds one with another, and even rivals in some respects. When that government, of, for, and by the people, somehow, idly sits by, permitting these mega-corporations to get ever more powerful and ever bigger, each and every year, thereby reaping more and more money from the pockets of those that conduct business with them, then it seems that, in effect, this isn’t a government of, for, and by the people, at all; but rather there is a shadow government, run primarily by these mega-corporations and their enablers of such, that are running the show, caring not a whit whether what they do or don’t do is good for the whole of the nation, but rather just concentrating on the only thing that really matters, which is getting that money.