Recent decades have witnessed environmental, social, and economic upheaval, with major corporations contributing to a host of interconnected crises. The Corporation as Technology examines the dynamics of the corporate form and corporate law that incentivize harmful excesses and presents an alternative vision to render corporate activities more sustainable.
The corporate form is commonly described as a set of fixed characteristics that strongly prioritize shareholders' interests. This book subverts this widely held belief, suggesting that such rigid depictions reinforce harmful corporate pathologies, including excessive risk-taking and lack of regard for environmental and social impacts. Instead, corporations are presented as a dynamic legal technology that policymakers can re-calibrate over time in response to changing landscapes.
This book explores the theoretical and practical ramifications of this alternative vision, focusing on how the corporate form can help secure an environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable future.
Industry Reviews
"Read this book before you despair of the possibility that modern corporations can be usefully enlisted in the effort to address urgent global social and environmental problems! Professor Bruner has reimagined corporations as a set of governance levers that modulate accountability, power, purpose, and risk-taking by business people who organize themselves into publicly-traded corporations. He takes us on a sweeping tour of the use of the corporate form, over
time, countries, and industries to make the case that the levers can be adjusted and recalibrated to make this old and venerated institution better address contemporary problems." -- Margaret Blair,
Professor of Law Emerita, Vanderbilt University Law School
"This refreshing book shows that the corporation is not defined by a uniform set of characteristics, but that there are seven malleable dimensions constituting the 'technology' of corporate law. These 'levers' can be used for different ends. Bruner successfully tests this framework against current challenges such as sustainability and inequality and concludes that corporate law can help us address them. The book will be of interest both to those who wish to
understand corporate governance and those hoping for change." -- Martin Gelter, Professor of Law, Fordham University School of Law
"In this eloquent, well-argued monograph, Christopher Bruner demonstrates again his leadership as a U.S. corporate law scholar who understands the broader context within which corporations operate and the role of corporate law and corporate governance in securing a sustainable future. Although no book can provide the final answers at this stage, this volume outlines the direction in which the important debates must be had." -- Beate Sjåfjell, University
of Oslo Faculty of Law
