The corporation

Various forms of institutionalized collectivity, colloquially “the corporation,” constitute structures of social life constitutive of the contemporary, yet underexamined and barely theorized within the critical social sciences. For over a century, however, the corporation has been theorized by legal scholars, often relying on economics: the corporation is really _______.” Such theories fall into recurrent types. Various policies and capitalist behaviors are said to flow from, and are therefore legitimated as, expressions of the “true” nature of the corporation. Thus, the contested nature of political economy results in the continuous renewal of “theories of the firm.” Cultural anthropology could play several useful roles in such discussions. Conversely, cultural anthropology could benefit from closer attention to the explicit discourses of institutional political economy, that is, the law.