Edwin Land, to whom more patents were issued than any American other than Thomas Edison owned and operated a business that created pleasure for customers, put no one out of work, used all the most modern techniques for educating employees, was a model in being located in depressed areas and in training the unemployed. Then one day, it was discovered that Polaroid s nifty process for making ID badges with laminated color photographs was being used as an enforcement tool for apartheid in South Africa. Polaroid went from being the best company in the world to Public Enemy No. 1. Fredric Hayek, the Austrian economist, raises the further question whether society can tolerate corporate functioning beyond the profit maximization definition. In his view, society allows a realm of economic activity for corporations but this realm must be strictly monitored so as not to involve any further infringement on the political liberties of society than necessary.
Corporations involve individuals, property and a legal structure.
Ma Bell was the beloved American Telephone Company for most of the twentieth century. It is tempting to think that a corporation is simply a human, writ large. While human energies and instincts significantly affect the operation of corporations, there are important aspects of their being that cannot be understood anthropomorphically. Nor can corporations be simply understood as machines with an ineluctable mode of functioning. The underlying theme to all of these fields is that they have a connecting characteristic they are based on the existence and functioning of complex adaptive systems.