 
                        20030716.00

     A new view of political theory

     A realistic appraisal of its function dictates that one
consider the business corporation to be a branch and an
agent and indeed an integral part and expression of
government; if only in consideration of the degree to which
the business corporation controls the life of the individual
who is dependent on it as customer or client; and the degree
to which the business corporation controls the life of the
individual who is dependent on it for his livelihood as its
employee.  The corporation serves to integrate the
individual into society.

     The classical paradigm is the relationship of master
and servant.  The ultimate (worldly) master is the king, the
monarch, whose authority is countered (neutralized) only by
the (protestant) God who appears (?ex machina) as the
champion of the individual against the wicked world (die
boese Welt).

     A different perspective makes it inescapable that the
business corporation is also essential to the effective
functioning of society.  Pure democracy does not work.
Opinion polls provide remarkably accurate reflections of
voter sentiment.  Opinion polls give persuasive support to
Plato's distrust of democracy.  The business corporation is
inherently undemocratic; it is an indispensable counter-
force to democracy.  It provides human activity with the
rationalization of which democracy is incapable.  The
democratic aggregate of individuals cannot in fact be
trusted.  It can be trusted neither to want "the good", nor
can it be trusted to "get things done."  But the business
corporation has no alternative: its telos is defined by its
nature.  The goal for which, if it is to survive, it must
aim, is the creation of wealth; To accomplish that end, its
functioning must be efficient.  The profit motive, whatever
its rating (Rang) on a scale of idealistic values may be, is
an effective adaptive mechanism to the realities of social
and political existence.

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Copyright 2005, Ernst Jochen Meyer
