Consciousness and the Dragon

It may be said that whether or not a corporation is "alive" is a matter of definition. I find it quite easy to make the necessary adjustments. But we are still left with our doubts about the analogy. We expect a living thing to be "like" us - especially to have something we call consciousness.

Consciousness is a slippery idea. For most of us, it refers to the experience we have of inhabiting the world. It is subtly connected to the phenomenon of attention. A vast amount of my behaviour is obviously controlled by my brain but not in a conscious way (I don't need to think about how to walk down the street, drive a car or decipher letter patterns while I read). Consciousness (attention) is about what I do need to "think about".

This distinction is made in "The Ravenous Brain", a very readable source for those looking for an update on the current status of research into how the brain works. In summary, the function of "attention" or "working memory" is to deal with anything unusual by either labelling it as something previously experienced (and moving on) or by "chunking" the new experience by categorizing and pattern recognition, then "filing away" the new "chunks" for future reference. As someone with computer background, I think of these "chunks" as active "apps" - objects that allow for extensive generalization. We used to call these "subroutines", but now the best word might be "types". In any case, the result is that our "chunks" allow us to "think" quite extensively without our interactions with the world entering into "working memory". They are automatic but definitely not "static".

I contend that it's easy to characterize a corporation as being alive and "thinking" in an unconscious manner. This involves running "on automatic", following set rules that admit to no exception. Considered as a live thing, the corporation is very stupid. When we look for an analogue to human attention and consciousness in a corporation, we must admit that it comes from the human beings that control the corporation - especially those in the corporate suite. These people actually pay attention to circumstances and draft new rules to be buried in the corporate mind in the same way that a human learns to ride a bike, then never needs to think about it again. This is especially evident in the case of the military, where some level of creativity is permitted at each level, while the entire organization is designed to operate as a machine with the generals dealing only with exceptions and unusual aspects of the particular situation. The extreme case comes when a human being (President of the United States) decides to initiate a nuclear attack, which will happen entirely automatically about four minutes after his decision. The fact that is entirely automatic (intelligent but automatic) is an essential element of the terror it is designed to provoke in the enemy.

The creative accounting procedures used by ENRON before it blew up were the conscious creation of identifiable human beings, but the "mind" of ENRON extended far from the deliberations of these few individuals. For the vast number of ENRON employees, it was simply a matter of going to work in the office and working out the details. Aside from a few perversions of basic business practices, ENRON was just another corporation.

Swimming With the Sharks

In Swimming With the Sharks, Joris Lewindijk provides a stellar inside look at the "City", London's financial industry. His work is remarkable in that he manages to tease out the differences between matters on a human scale and what happens to the system as a whole. He focuses on "perverse incentives", a key mechanism of "assimilation" whereby ordinary people surrender their humanity to the impersonal machinery of the investment banks.

The book should be read with "The Real World of Technology", which describes the phenomenon of assimilation in an industrial society in general (not just banking).

"Swimming" is a modern classic, to be compared with "The Corporation". At its heart we see acceptance of the fallacy: money as a proxy for value.

"Swimming" presents the clearest case I know of how the "Dragon" created by the common efforts of very smart people takes on a life of its own. But the whole is so much less than the sum of its parts. The "mind" of a Bank is stunningly stupid. "Swimming" points this out by quoting the repeated rhetorical question of bankers in the industry, Why would the banks want to destroy themselves?

The answer is quite simple and it's not that different from the similar question you might ask about stupid armies. On the evolutionary time scale, they are a new life form. Their behavour in their environment is relatively untested. Physics imposes no natural upper limit to violence, so the "survival strategy" of an army (to destroy all other armies with maximum violence) will end with the destruction of all armies along with the humans that make them up and support them. In the case of banks, the blindness resulting from mistaking money for value puts them in a death spiral that sucks all the real value out of the world, leaving only money (and uncollectible debt). "Swimming" shows how close we came in 2008 to destroying the worldwide "real" economy.

"Swimming" hints at several ways that assimilation works on individuals, sapping them of any semblance of a human life. This is useful to Dragon Theory itself, since it provides the reader of a way to understand the dangers that Dragon Theory describes without getting in to descriptions of the monster created by assimilated human beings:

• Perverse incentives. Built-in rewards, short term goals, removal of accountability.
• Alienation. 
• Destruction of loyalty. Anyone can be fired on a moment's notice. Every man for himself.
• Economic pressure. Loss of a job can involve a drastic step down in lifestyle, especially impacting on hopes for children (expensive private schools etc.)
• Compartmentalization. Nobody is asking whether the system as a whole benefits anyone.
• Competitiveness. Focus on "winning" the game while forgetting that the game is harming everyone. "Dog eat dog", zero-sum situations.
• Physical exhaustion. A key element of brain washing in every context. No time or energy to ask what is happening to one's life.
• Reduction of "value" to "money", then "money" to "status". For many (not all), it's a blood sport whose reward is status.
• Excitement. The challenge is a reward in itself, even though he "problem" solved is just another way to cheat or deceive.

"Swimming" also documents what is lost when people are assimilated.

• Time. The most fundamental thing of all. Life itself.
• Health.
• Relationships.
• Self-esteem.
• Camaraderie and team spirit - the "social" aspect of "work".
• Security.
• "A life both broad and deep", no time for hobbies, interests, projects outside of the job. Life closing in around the never-ending emergencies of the job.

It is useful to compare "Swimming" to "The Corporation". "Corporation" sees the "Dragon" from the outside as a pathological "person". "Swimming" sees the "Dragon" from the inside in terms of the way it absorbs individual human beings. In both sources, it is abundantly clear that the behavior and goals of the Dragon are utterly different from the behavior and goals of the people that make it up. The people are interchangeable and expendable, made abundantly clear in "Swimming".

Finally, it should be said that "Swimming" documents the particularly nasty world of investment banking. Most of what is said can be said of corporations in general. In particular, the "person" created by a public offering of shares means that the people working in the corporation don't bear the risks that the corporation takes. In fact, senior management is perversely incentivized to maximize risk. If the risk pays off, they are handsomely rewarded. If the risk destroys the company, management can usually walk away unscathed. The goals of the corporation are narrowed solely to making a short term profit. Competition between corporations for shareholders guarantees that the scramble for profits will be ruthless and unforgiving.

Belling the Cat

The Web is buzzing with cannon shots at the "evil corporations", fired by the twin Generals of the Generalization: Bernie Sanders and Chris Hedges.

OK, so what's the plan? Abolish corporations? Seriously?

Lets face it, we need some way to organize people and capital to get things done, even small things like building a sidewalk. It's not the "corporation" that are the issue - it's the way they are treated as people with rights. Big mistake.

Generally speaking, a "person" created by a bunch of real people results in a "person" with intelligence of the lowest common denominator and ethics of a sewer rat. This "person" is a psychopath and should not be granted any rights at all.

When we granted the "right" of free speech to corporations, we admitted a 100 ton gorilla to the legislature. That gorilla buys votes with the money taken out of the salaries of its employees, or added to the prices it charges to its customers. The political power of these gorillas has out-weighed that of the ordinary voter time and time again. We are all sick of it.

But we can't just stop at taking away human rights from "corporations". We need to look at "free speech" rights given to all other groups, such as the NRA and even trade unions. Somehow, the "rights" we take away must be handed back to the individual humans that make up these groups and it must be done to eliminate the current "one dollar one vote" system in favor of "one person one vote". One way to do this is to limit individual contributions to the group and make them both public and optional - for example, not every union member wants to support the political stance of his union.

"Corporations" should be barred from political contributions or advertising for campaigns entirely. There is no such thing as "interests" of a corporation. The "interests" belong to human beings, who should be free to donate and campaign as they wish.

If we must live with PAC's, there should be a contribution limit per person and a public list of donors, in a similar way that people now sign a petition. Corporate donations to PAC's should be banned. We all have a right to know who "Citizens for X" really are and what they really are after.

All this would drastically cut funding available for political campaigns and free our elected representatives from an endless round of boot-licking to lobby groups, who, after all, would have nothing but advice (but zero money) to offer.