Corporate Fictions
It was new year’s day. Sunny and crisp. I saw the posters from across the road as I walked home. They stood out against the wood’s bright green.
“If corporations are people, than [sic] what are we?”
I crossed over to take a photo.
It’s been about ten years since I’ve known that corporations are legally regarded as people. That nugget of info was gleaned from reading The Corporation and since then I’ve found that it’s one piece of knowledge I cannot unknow (in so far as you can ever unknow anything, unknow just sounds better than forget right now).
Whenever I contemplate the world we live in today that particular piece of information is always there in the background, taunting me. Until we undo what can only be considered a grave mistake, I don’t think we’ll ever get very far in changing whatever system we are attempting to challenge.
I only noticed the typo in that sentence after someone else pointed it out. I felt foolish. Yet there was something about the typo that only seem to reinforce the message’s idea. A genuine attempt at making people think sabotaged by poor proofreading remains a genuine attempt, it’s just that for some — myself included — the typo can’t be unseen, and it scuppers the message. If the typo is there on purpose, is it a critique of how easy it is to protest in our social media age?
My friend answered the question with “corporate fictions.” Cue mental unravelling of various science fiction stories I’ve ingested in recent years about corporations running rampant in dystopian societies.
The corporation is the person. And we are the story. The corporation is real. We are fiction. It’s not such a crazy idea. You only have to consider how little we value human life in comparison to (in)tangible things.
I’m in the subway a day later. A group of elder men and women are standing around laughing. As the doors close and the train rolls on to the next station they turn as one towards the carriage and began to sing a cappella.
I wonder if this would constitute a quality of life offence to the NYPD?
A few days later I see another a cappela group on another line, this time in Manhattan. “And remember, god bless.”
In 2014 it was young kids breaking and dancing on the ceilings, poles and floors of a carriage that seemed to define NYC’s subway. Until the city, its anthropomorphised bureaucracy, decided that such public entertainment cannot be tolerated.
Can the same logic be applied to a group of elderly entertainers?
It who writes the fiction decides.
Recommended listening: Mala ‘City Cyle’
