From: "Tobin Nellhaus" <nellhaus-AT-gwi.net>
Subject: BHA: Re: Collectives
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 10:55:27 -0400


I've been struggling with the problem of collective or "corporate" agents and
their relation to individual agents for a while too.

Regarding the State, I don't think I can agree with Colin's assessment (a
rare event).  Vast, complex, crucial, and (usually) discombobulated as the
State is, it nonetheless has the powers to decide upon and execute action. 
Social structures don't: they are systems of relations, the relata being
agents and resources (of all sorts).  Structures can't make decisions, they
only "set the stage" for agents, who can.  So it seems to me that treating
the State as a structure also veers toward reifying structures.

I also don't understand, Colin, how one can view the State as a structure and
as a "legal person" at the same time, since the latter presupposes that the
"person" is an agent.  I recognize that capitalist law (at least in the U.S.,
but I think elsewhere) treats corporations as legal persons, and there's
definitely something suspect in that, but I think it's the identification of
corporations as *persons* (i.e., as legally identical to individual humans). 
They are agents, but not people.

It seems to me that the problem of treating collectives as organisms with
minds of their own arises mainly for collectives that are identified
categorically (such as a class, an ethnicity, etc).  But insofar as
organizations have ways to make decisions and act on them (whether we're
speaking of a single person, a batch of policy-makers, or a democratic vote),
in a sense they *do* have minds.  Now, we need to be a bit careful about
"minds" here (and now I'm more directly responding to Howard's original
questions), because corporate or collective minds are *not* personal minds,
they have different powers, liabilities, and modes of operation.  But insofar
as collective agents are able to recognize their situation in the world
around them, produce some sort significance from it or discourse about it,
and then (re)act by doing something (or, as the case may be, choosing not do
something, or even finding themselves unable to choose among the known
options, which, after all, individuals do too), I think we have to treat them
as having minds.  I'd hesitate to say they have "selves," but there is such a
thing as an "office culture" etc.

Reasons are causes, whether they're my own reasons, those of my family, my
employer, my government, whatever.  I don't agree with the U.S. government's
position toward (say) Cuba, but its reasons led to laws that will effect me
directly if I ever want to visit there, and do effect me indirectly no matter
what (through available imports, etc).  The ontological status of reasons is
their semiotic or discursive character.  "Buy recycled paper in order to
reduce waste" is reasoning, whether I say it to myself or a multinational
corporation says it to its employees.

I've only read a little Harré, but to me it seems confusing to identify
"social agents" and "causal forces."  Structures are definitely causal in
Bhaskar's schema.

PS: Howard, I think Wilde *did* live for meetings, but at the time, some of
the ones he wanted were illegal.

---
Tobin Nellhaus
nellhaus-AT-gwi.net
"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce



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