The Logic of Necessary Corporations

It keeps cropping up in all sorts of places: Corporations are good for us.  Not only are they good, but they are necessary. And apparently in the U.S. they are even people. 

A brief sound bite I heard recently from Joe Rogan got me thinking about the ridiculousness of this new reality. To paraphrase, he suggested that the growing number of laws that are being created to benefit Corporations and that take power away from "ordinary" citizens indicates that there must be a flaw in our democratic system. Why? Because nobody would vote for laws like that. Indeed, who would? Who, in general, would choose to give power to amoral entities and have it stripped from themselves? No one.

In a very simplistic way, I'm going to delve back into the world of logic. And I mean actual, legitimate logic. Not the kind most politicians and pundits use to make hay with their opinions, but real logic.  Because it's a funny thing, logic. When people want to talk about something that they feel is important, something that is more than just conversation, they usually make an appeal to reason or logic. Well, that's what they think they're doing. But they're not. Almost never. 

Here is an example I came across recently: 

"People need to earn a living to be able to enjoy a quality of life and most people earn their living by working for corporations. So, helping corporations helps most people." 

I'm going to restructure the argument into a format that more closely resembles a traditional logical structure, analyze the premises and see how they relate to the conclusion. 

1. The population at large requires a quality of life.

2. Quality of life of the population at large is dependant on earning a living.

3. Corporations make earning a living possible for most people.

4. The goals of corporations are coincident with the goals of most people. 

Therefore: Helping corporations helps the population at large (achieve a quality of life).

The first premise is unstated. But something like it would be necessary to support the second premise. If the population does not require a quality of life, the argument fails. So, for this premise to be true we would need to know what every member of the population does in fact want to achieve. This is sometimes called the fallacy of omniscience. While quality of life is likely to figure into many peoples hierarchy of needs, is there any evidence of it's primacy? 

The second premise weak because I have to assume what is meant by both "earning a living" and "quality of life". I will take "earning a living" to mean "make money" and "quality of life" to mean "happiness". There is no necessary link between making money and happiness. Thus the veracity of the second premise is in doubt.

The third premise has a condition attached to it: "most people".  This premise is appealing to the authority of "most people". This fallacy is sometimes referred to as Ad Populum, or Appeal to Popularity. Remember how Mom used to point it out to us every time our friends wanted to jump off of a bridge? 

The fourth premise is also unstated. If what corporations want and what the population at large wants are not, at least superficially, the same, then the conclusion that "what is good for a corporation is good for people" doesn't follow. This would be the strongest and best point if there was any proof. I didn't find any premises that supported the notion that Corporate good and public good are, in fact, the same.

My conclusion is that without some significant amendments to this argument, the verisimilitude of  the conclusion, that helping corporations helps people, is in jeopardy.

My use of logic here is tenuous. At best, I'm using logic from the position of a dilettante, the arm-chair philosopher. Even still, I bet most people tuned out and lost interest at some point.  And frankly, I don't care.  As much as logic and reason are useful, they can only take you so far.  

One of my favourite, heavily paraphrased, stories from the Buddha is, for me, a perfect parable regarding logic:

A man is trapped on one side of a river. On his side, there is danger and on the far side of the river is safety. There is no bridge, nor is there a ferry to cross over. The man gathers together logs and by his wit fashions a raft. By lying on the raft and using his hands and feet as paddles he manages to cross the river from the dangerous side to the side of safety.

The Buddha asks his listeners a question: What would you think if the man, having crossed over the river thought to himself "That raft has served me well I will carry it on my back over the land from now on!" ?

The monks replied that it would not be a very sensible idea to hold on to the raft. The Buddha continued: What if he lay the raft down, gratefully, thinking that the raft had served him well but is no longer of use?

The monks replied that this would be the proper attitude. The Buddha concluded by saying: So it is with my teachings, which are like the raft and are for crossing over with not for seizing hold of.

If it's not obvious, in this story the raft represents logic. While vital and useful for what it does, once it has taken you where you need to go, of what use is it? You don't need it anymore. In fact, you only need it in very limited circumstances. This is true of logic and this is true of Corporations. They both did what they were supposed to do, but gratefully we should lay them down.