Paul Krugman quotes Charlie Stross in 2010:
Corporations do not share our priorities. They are hive organisms constructed out of teeming workers who join or leave the collective: those who participate within it subordinate their goals to that of the collective, which pursues the three corporate objectives of growth, profitability, and pain avoidance. (The sources of pain a corporate organism seeks to avoid are lawsuits, prosecution, and a drop in shareholder value.)Corporations have a mean life expectancy of around 30 years, but are potentially immortal; they live only in the present, having little regard for past or (thanks to short term accounting regulations) the deep future: and they generally exhibit a sociopathic lack of empathy.*
“I like it; it’s fun (although William Gibson said much the same thing, I think); but it’s so 1960s, if you know what I mean. … That was then.
“These days, we’re living in the world of the imperial, very self-interested individual; the man in the gray flannel suit has been replaced by the man in the very expensive Armani suit.”
“These days, we’re living in the world of the imperial, very self-interested individual; the man in the gray flannel suit has been replaced by the man in the very expensive Armani suit.”
—Paul Krugman*
20210210T2054−08*
*a link; see a note on notes and links; see also a disclaimer / … and maybe browse or search the post archive*