Following Maslow - an outline theory of motivation for the individual firm

Bakan (2004) likens the characteristics of a corporation to those of a psychopathic human being. This idea of comparing the corporate entity to a human individual recognises the progression of the corporate form from Thoreau's 'conscientious men' in 1849 to a single legal persona 50 years later. The legal doctrine of corporate personality was established through a series of decisions including Pembina Consolidated Silver Mining (1888) and Salomon (1897). This status has been reaffirmed by the application of the First Amendment to defend the rights of the corporation to make political donations (Schiff 2012). Our new quasi-human companion is a kind of clumsy monstrous child, operating on an equal legal footing alongside human creatures of a vastly inferior size and power.