Abstract

This article argues that corporate law has become the legal platform upon which is erected a social process impeding society’s capacity to lucidly reflect on its primary ends; in this sense, corporate law is in conflict with social autonomy. This process is described here as a social feedback loop, in the structural centre of which lies the corporation which imposes its own purpose as an irrational social end, i.e. irrespective of its potentially catastrophic social consequences. The article argues that resolving the conflict between corporate law and social autonomy is impossible, because it presupposes a change of social paradigm towards one where corporate law as business organisation law has no obvious fit. This questions the social legitimacy of corporate law, signifies its non-permanence and thus opens up the field for seeking radical alternatives in the future.

Highlights

  • Even the keenest ‘black-letter’ admirer of existing laws would accept that social institutions ought to be open to change, in order to adapt to evolving social goals

  • Corporate law is a legal structure for this social process which has become so pervasive that it hinders society’s reflective capacity in relation to its objectives. This capacity is the essential basis of social autonomy, since an autonomous society is founded on the recognition that social goals are endogenously fashioned and subject to social scrutiny without predeterminations

  • In spite of corporate law’s social impact discussed here, we have established that social paradigm change is after all inevitable, since our social order is subjected to the radical imaginary’s creative forces and can never be eternally set

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Summary

Introduction

Even the keenest ‘black-letter’ admirer of existing laws would accept that social institutions ought to be open to change, in order to adapt to evolving social goals. By providing the legal foundation for the proliferation of the bureaucratised business organisation, the structural core of the feedback loop, corporate law serves as an institution rendering our society essentially heteronomous, i.e. a society founded on the belief that its primary ends are exogenously and eternally determined. This way, material accumulation acquires eternal validity as a primary social end and its consequences are ignored or marginalised. In the light of these findings, the concluding section summarises the basic parameters of future reform for restoring the social legitimacy of business organisation

Part 2. Corporate Law as the Legal Infrastructure of Large‐Scale Capitalism
Part 3. Structuring the Social Feedback Loop
Part 4. The Possibility of Autonomy and the Uncertain Future of Corporate Law
Findings
Conclusion
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