Our Abusive Alcoholic Corporate Cult
We’re Big Behemoth, Inc., a perfect example of the ideal corporate entity. While no corporation can attain the same degree of perfection as the ideal corporation, they can each in their own way approach it, strive for it even tho they’re only human and can never attain actual perfection. But wait, a corporation’s not human. (See p __, Bloodsucking alien vampire or inanimate machine; just what degree of inhuman are we talking about?)
In our society, we call the ideal entity god. God, whatever you understand god to be (See p __, God), being what some like to think of as the creator of all things, is thought to have created all things according to some god-like plan. Since god embodies all that is good, we humans try our best to imitate god’s preferred way of doing things. So we model our families, businesses, institutions and governments after what we imagine heaven to be like, a cosmic pyramid scheme. (See p __, Multilevel marketing in heaven.) There’s god at the top, then god’s immediate family, then the archangels, a few really special emissaries of god, and a mess of angels under the archangels. And then there are a couple of layers of middlemen celestial types, and possibly the pre-saved, then there’s us, the masses.
But the mass of humanity is divided up just like we imagine heaven to be, however you understand heaven. You’ve got your kings or presidents, then you’ve got your lords or congressional types, and the minions who do their bidding, and functionaries under them, and then you’ve got the rest of us, the masses. But the masses of citizens are further divided into heads of industry, boards of directors, regional officers, vice presidents, senior managers, managers, analysts, technicians, secretaries, mailroom and dockworkers, cleaners and deliverers and stockers. And each one of these is a head of household or a married filing jointly, and are themselves the head of a domestic pyramid.
We never stop to think about it, because it’s not something we’re supposed to question, but there are other models on which to base all of society. We’ve chosen a hierarchical model, where there is a very small center of control over a very large base of service to that control. The reason we don’t think about it is because we believe that god set it up that way, and not only is there nothing we can do to change it, but it’s that way because it’s the only way it can be, and thus, the right and ideal way for things to be. (See p __, The non-hierarchical model.)
Let’s examine the ways a typical corporation adopts the attributes of god.
The Corporation is The Creator
Whether the business is making widgets, generating nothing but paper and hot air, or running the country, it’s a world unto itself. It’s the corporation’s private universe, and its employees people its garden of workaday bliss. The Creator has set up the business in its own image, to serve its needs and to reflect the corporation’s goals and philosophy. The corporation is not about caring for the flock, except for keeping it from being eaten.
It is All Powerful
The corporation can do anything it wants. It chooses its own location, its community, its industry, its politics, its society. It sets its own goals, drafts its unique mission statement, determines its ethics and practices,. The corporation chooses its employees. It chooses the pay and what it likes to call benefits for its employees. It chooses to promote, give raises, downsize, and fire its employees. It chooses its management style, its promotional policies, its degree of diversity, its degree of maturity or hipness. The corporation is a being that is as close to perfection as it is able to come, a shining example of what our glorious way of doing things can produce.
It is All Wise
The corporation has a successful business image. It exemplifies the best way to do business. It makes business plans and projections that seem valid and trustworthy, its policies are thought to be enlightened. The people in the company believe in its leadership, its ethics, its altruistic goals. They believe that the corporation must know what it’s doing; why would they be working there if the company wasn’t a great place to work?
The dark side of this is that the company also reads employee email and monitors phone calls, it strives to make sure you don’t use company time for your own personal business, it violates employee privacy by drug tests and bag checks, background checks and personality tests, violates personal boundaries by making you sit in cubicles with no doors, encourages you to take work home with you, and making sure they can get hold of you at night or on vacation if they need to. It sees you when you’re sleeping, it knows when you’re awake. It hears what you are thinking, so be good for your own goodness sake.
The Corporation Defines Reality
The corporation makes the company rules, sets the employee standards and the business practices, the human resources policies, the standards for hiring and firing, the corporate culture, standards of acceptable behavior. What the corporation says goes, as far as setting work hours and attendance policies, and there are certain things it won’t stand for no matter what the excuse or how valuable you thought you were to the company.
The Corporation is Rational
The corporation is eminently rational and objective. The corporation is rational simply because it is, sum ergo ratio. It’s the star of its own show, so it’s the company’s game, and the company’s rule; so of course the company is right. Everything’s motivated by the bottom line, because what could be more objective and rational than numbers? The intangible, personal things aren’t so important because they can’t easily be included in the balance sheet, therefore they don’t count. It’s a closed system, circular and self-referent. So if authority finds you rational, objective, and stamped good, that is good enough. Even tho rational is only half of the picture, and the boring half as well. The system is not human, therefore it’s possible to actually achieve rationality. Rationality excludes irrationality, which is defined as bad because the corporation defines reality. This is a rejection of the human element by the system.
The Corporation is Infallible
The corporation is right by definition, because the corporation defines reality and it’s a closed system. The way the corporation does things is the only possible way to do things. And things are the way they are because that’s how things are. Infallibility means that when something goes wrong, it’s someone else’s fault by definition. This leads to circular, obsessive, distorted thinking, rationalization, and blaming others. Bad reviews and hiring/firing decisions can’t be appealed because the company defines what’s desirable and what’s unacceptable, and has the right to fire your ass if it feels like it.
The Corporation is Superior
The company is the industry leader, smarter, more cutting edge, in some other way first in its class. The employee are lucky to be working there. The company expects a peppy attitude, a can-do spirit, a hundred and twenty percent, a spirit of friendly competitiveness, and teamwork in achieving company goals. What the company says goes because they know best.
The Corporation is Controlling
Company loyalty, employee reviews and raises, dress codes, face time, tethers, hours overtime expectations, personal business on company time, arbitrary policies, rigid, defensive, judgmental, paranoid, dualistic obsessive
The Corporation is Dependent
Needs employees to exist, needs employees to achieve all its goals. Needs employees to be food and energy and arms and legs, like jabba the hut. Needs loyalty, willingness to work cheap, have no life – willing slaves. System surrounds and engulfs us but we don’t feel like home.
