Are Organizational Entities are Alive?
When we ask weather Organizational entities are alive, we first need to ask what are they? We know they are for-profit and non-profit corporations, businesses, governments, and other companies, but that is all legal mumbo-jumbo, what are they really?
Organizational entities are of course collections of people, that collectively create agreed upon values, and work together to create products and services. They are also are the buildings, cars, and real-estate that they own like a store or a restaurant. But we could also say that they are the energy, gas, and electricity that they use, as well as the computers that compute and store their information.
So now that we have a clear picture of what an organizational entity is, lets apply the definition of Life as the Balance of the Great Elements and see if corporations meet the mark.
First does a corporation have a body? Well its made up of buildings and computers, and those are made from the Earth, so it does have a body.
Second, does a corporation have liquid? This one is a little harder, but if you extrapolate that corporations are made up of people, and people are about 60% water, so you could say that the flow of people in and out of buildings constitutes a flow of liquid water. Also most buildings have water piping and since those buildings are corporation, then they also have water flowing thorough the buildings themselves.
Third, does a corporation breath? Well the people breath, but more importantly buildings have air ducts and air conditioning/heating and push air in and out of the buildings, so you could say that corporations breath.
Fourth, does a corporation have fire and sprit? You could say that branding give the corporation its essence of sprit, as all corporations, and the collective mentality that make up its actions seem to take on a mind of its own. Also corporations have electricity and burn gas.
So do corporations balance all of the Great Elements? Lets at least say that some corporations do better than others, but to a certain extent they all meet the mark in a weird non-traditional way.
So under the definition of Life as the Balance of the Great Elements, Corporations are Alive, although their life form is very different than anything else we have ever seen and certainly needs better research and study.
If you open your mind a bit and look at a corporations as a life form, you will realize some very interesting things. First of all, it is obvious that corporations and organizational entities have a mind of their own. The person supposedly running them, does not control the corporation itself, in some ways it is the other way around, the corporation controls the CEO. Corporations can be born and die. Also, corporations are as dependent on humans for their survival, as we are dependent on them for ours.
In a historical perspective, a very interesting thing happened when we invented corporations. From the first corporation onward, business no longer had to be passed on within a family, it could now exist separate from the people who made it. This invention created the ability for corporations to live indefinitely, and to become bigger than just a few hundred people. When people first invented the idea of a corporation, they had no idea what it would become, and in many ways you could say that had no idea how dependent we were going to be on them in the future.
Some people worry about us inventing machines that take over the world and destroy the humans like what happens in Terminator, Battlestar Galactica, and many other movies. What we have to consider is that maybe, unknowingly, this has already happened. We created corporations 200 years ago, and they have taken over the entire world, and we are now just beginning to realize that they were the machines we should have feared to begin with. That it is already too late, that we have lost the war before it has even begun. Yet the key factor to remember, is that corporations are as dependent on us as we are on them, and that symbiotic relationship can be built upon if play our cards right.
Lets say we do actually admit that corporations are life forms. They already have rights as people in the legal system. Although corporations do deserve rights, they should probably be a little different than peoples, but that is a start. Yet corporations are completely cut from the political system. The US went to war against the British because they were being taxed with no representation. If corporations are alive, and they are taxed, then they should get voting rights and representation as well, of course in a different branch of government that has balance of power. Maybe that would take care of the ridiculous lobbyist mess we have in Washington, where corporations have no choice but to pay billions of dollars on lobbyists to try to persuade politicians to represent their needs since they have no ability to represent themselves even though they are taxed and affected by government laws.
What’s good for corporations, could also be seen as good for people because people are directly dependent on corporations for their livelihoods, food, transportation etc… In the same way, when there are problems for organizational entities, there are also problems for people and vice versa. We need to look at solutions that are good for both organizational entities and people. These solutions will be the easiest to implement and be the most efficient and effective way to transition our society into one that is balanced and harmonious with the Earth. But before we go into solutions, lets look at some of the problems facing both organizations and people.
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