The Cor­por­a­tion and So­ci­ety

Course content

The corporation stands at the center of our contemporary economy. In recent years, the corporation and in society has come under increased scrutiny in the media, the public sphere, as well as from philosophical and social science perspectives. This course provides the students with philosophical, historical and social scientific approaches to understanding the corporation and its role in contemporary society, its historical development and changes to its rights and powers, as well as current approaches to reforming it.

The overall aim of the course is to give the students a contextual and critical understanding of the corporation and its role in contemporary society. The course provides the students with an opportunity to bring together the conceptual philosophical toolbox and skills from other courses in order to critically analyse what has become one of the key institutions of the economy.

Over the last 40 years, the multinational corporation has developed into one of the most powerful economic and political institutions in society. The rise of the corporation has been the driver of economic growth and development as well as crises, recessions and inequality. The rise of the contemporary multinational corporation has big consequences for how we understand the political and economic systems, their central institutions, power (im)balances in the relation to the state, and many other problematics.

Within political, historical and philosophical studies, it has increasingly been acknowledged that the corporation must be understood not as a purely economic phenomenon, but as a political and societal entity which is politically constituted and which wields political power both externally in society and internally over its members. Unlike other types of companies, the corporation is a politically constituted entity explicitly designed and exclusively allowed to separate ownership and control, which has laid the foundation for the possibility of the exchange of stocks.

These developments give rise to questions like: How can we understand the corporation as a political actor? Who are its constituents, owners and stakeholders? How do we as a society hold such entities accountable for their actions? And who should we fairly target: The corporate officers exercising control in the service of interests other than theirs, or the shareholders whose interests are served but not by themselves?

This course aims to provide students with an opportunity to think about and discuss these issues and how the corporation and finance relate to societal changes more generally.