Corporations prefer to control how they are recognized. This gives them the power to cultivate the image that suits the profitable marketing of themselves and their products. But sometimes the imperative to control forces them to become more conspicuous than they would like, revealing more of the corporate mind than they would like to make known.

Consider, for example, Catalyst Paper. This corporation, which operates mills in Campbell River, Powell River, North Cowichan and Port Alberni, has been trying for several years to reduce the local taxes it pays. The communities have tried to cooperate but this means an onerous shift of taxation to other businesses and residential properties for increases of as much as 30%. Campbell River has dropped the tax load on its mill from 35% in 2002 to 26% in 2008, with additional savings of $542,000 in 2009. But this is not enough, contends Catalyst. It insists that its total of $23 million in taxes for the four communities be reduced to about $1.5 million each. So, in a reversal of due process, Catalyst has decided to set its own level of taxation, based not on traditional assessments but on the value of services it calculates are provided by each community. If the communities do not comply with this "consumptive tax model", Catalyst has threatened to close one of its four mills – a corporate version of Russian roulette for the communities. To underscore the seriousness of its threat, Catalyst has issued layoffs for 127 employees from its Powell River mill, unemployed hundreds at its other mills and closed indefinitely its Campbell River mill.

The calculated ruthlessness of Catalyst Paper contrasts with the slick generosity of Plutonic Power. This corporation is leveraging public approval for a $3.5 billion investment in a run-of-river hydro-electric project on the remote rivers of Bute Inlet by wooing the support of local First Nations. A $600 million project at Toba Inlet – already under construction – has garnered this support with construction jobs, career training, education, road access to traditional territories and thousands of dollars in various donations and sponsorships, plus the promise of other long-term benefits.

In another revealing example of corporate behaviour, the salmon farming industry on BC's coast continues to push for even greater production despite the mounting evidence that their open net-pens threaten the viability of entire stocks of wild fish by transferring devastating lice infections to vulnerable smolts. This dogged stubbornness is made even more evident by a candid admission from Norway's richest man and the principle shareholder in Marine Harvest, one of the largest salmon farmers on BC's coast. John Frederiksen, an avid angler, confided that he was "concerned about the future of wild salmon" and reportedly offered the opinion that "fish farms shouldn't be allowed near wild salmon runs because of the pollution and disease they spread in the open ocean" (Macleans, Feb. 16/09).

These three examples illustrate the confusing array of behaviours coming from the corporations that dominate a rising proportion of the world's economic life. Fortunately, history and psychology provide us with some insights into the corporate mind.

Created in the 1890s by America's industrial barons, the modern corporation is designed to be an instrument of pure business – its only legal obligation is to perpetuate itself by maximizing profits for its shareholders. While law gave it the legal rights of a "person", the legislation was unable to imbue it with either soul or heart. As such, the corporation is inherently devoid of ethical values, an amoral and asocial "being" possessing the two general attributes that identify the profile of the psychopath.

Like psychopaths, corporations can function relatively well within society when they are constrained by prohibitions and punishments. And like psychopaths, corporations are often energetic and ambitious, qualities that can benefit society with necessary commercial activity. However, in an effort to find profitable business opportunities, corporations will readily exploit regulatory loopholes, push the edge of legal limits and surreptitiously lobby for self-serving changes to laws.

The most outrageous behaviour of corporations can be constrained by the ethics of the people who run them. But, as corporations grow larger, the relative ameliorating effect of people who are sensitive and responsive to community concerns is easily diluted so that multi-nationals may function with an absence of empathy for anyone or anything but their own interests. And even ethical people, working within a corporate structure, can be co-opted by the powerful momentum of business as pure business.

Corporations share other attributes with psychopaths. Both are inclined to have grandiose aspirations and to show little concern for consequences beyond their own narrow interests. Both can also be opportunistic, exploitive and manipulative.

The public's best response to both the corporation and the psychopath is caution. So, in any dealings with either, beware of ulterior motives, examine details carefully and don't trust promotional hype. Expect behaviour that can range from chillingly calculated to syrupy smooth. Gifts, charity and generosity invariably come with attached conditions. The vigour with which both pursue an objective is directly proportional to the rewards they anticipate so their enthusiasm measures the degree to which the public's collective wealth may be exploited. Take time to carefully weigh all the social, economic and environmental costs and benefits of their proposals. Always be suspicious and always resist their haste.