SAE Theory of the Company · Prequel: What a Company Is Not / SAE 公司论 前置篇: 公司不是什么

This series asks how a company whose consensus includes "a human being is an end" treats its investors, its employees, its users, its partners and the people its acts reach. The baseline is not crossing the line, not treating anyone as something that can be traded off; the direction is giving conditions; profit is a condition and a return, not the ultimate criterion; and the arrangements that keep this direction are themselves open to questioning. Before the series starts, this paper clears away what a company is not. In early 2009 an American equipment manufacturer saw its new orders fall by forty percent; its CEO at first prepared to lay people off as usual, then asked instead why not let everyone bear a little; the same kind of hard time, in Bluekiln, a town set up in this series, led a porcelain works to shut two kiln lines and lay off nine hundred people. Put side by side, the two events ask where a company places people. A company is not a person: it has no ends of its own and no first person; it is a construct people use to do things together. A company is not the shareholders' property: shareholders hold shares, the rights attached to shares can be held apart, and they produce no ownership of the people in the company; control is a position, and is subject to checks. A company is not a profit machine: profit is the condition for a company to go on doing things and a return to investors; it can be one of the goals, not the ultimate criterion. Nor is a company a family: the series takes from the family its sharing of burdens, not its structure; people can leave a company, and a company does not decide people's own affairs for them. From this the paper gives the definition of a company oriented toward the Kingdom of Ends and the main-line sentence of the whole series: a person has no equivalent; a company buys what people do, not people; the price falls on what is done, not on the person. The source side of the main-line sentence lies in Kant's two passages on price and dignity (Academy edition IV 434, 435). Consensus is identified by where it lands; minds are not read. The other direction is the one in which profit has become the ultimate criterion; the two are directions, not labels, and what is judged is one practice at a time. Finally the paper sets out the three layers, the five parties, how the interior is identified, the narrow sense of "anti-colonization," how examples are used, and the list of papers in the series. This paper states no propositions; the points it clears away are each argued in the papers that follow. 这个系列问的是:一家以"人是目的"为共识的公司,怎样待出资人、员工、用户、合作伙伴和它的施为所及的人。底线是不越线,不把任何人当作可以抵换的东西;方向是给条件;利润是条件与回报,不作最终标准;守住这个方向的安排,自己也可被追问。动笔之前,这一篇先清出公司不是什么。2009 年初,一家美国设备制造商的新订单掉了四成,它的 CEO 起初照常准备裁员,后来改问为什么不让每个人都承受一点;同样的难关,在本系列设的青窑镇,一家瓷厂关了两条窑线、裁员九百。两件事放在一起,问的是公司把人放在什么位置。公司不是人:它没有自己的目的,没有第一人称,是人用来一起做事的构。公司不是股东的财产:股东持有的是股份,股份上的权利可以分置,不产生对公司里的人的所有;控制是一个位置,受制衡。公司不是利润机器:利润是公司能继续做事的条件,也是给出资人的回报,可以是目标之一,不作最终标准。公司也不是家:本系列取家里那份分担,不取家的结构;人离得开公司,公司不替人定他自己的事。由此给出目的王国方向的公司的定义与全系列的主线句:人没有等价物;公司买的是人做的事,不是人;价格落在事上,不落在人上。主线句的出处一侧,在康德讲价格与尊严的那两段(学院版 IV 434、435)。共识按落处认,不读心。另一种方向,是利润成了最终标准;两者是方向,不是标签,判的是一项一项的做法。最后交代三层、五方、内部怎样识别、"反殖民"的窄义、例子怎样用,以及全系列的篇目。这一篇不立命题;它清出的几条,各在后面的篇里论证。 Related works(12) Relation Identifier Scheme Resource type Title References 10.5281/zenodo.19328662 DOI Publication / Preprint How Is Institution Possible: From Inter-Ontological Remainder to Co-Constructive Framework (SAE Foundational Paper 6) References 10.5281/zenodo.23269635 DOI Publication / Preprint To Whom the Ought Is Addressed (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 1) References 10.5281/zenodo.23270384 DOI Publication / Preprint Not Crossing the Line (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 2) References 10.5281/zenodo.23271324 DOI Publication / Preprint Open to Questioning (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 6) References 10.5281/zenodo.23874138 DOI Publication / Preprint Accumulation (SAE Political Economy, Paper 1) References 10.5281/zenodo.23874142 DOI Publication / Preprint Checks (SAE Political Economy, Paper 3) References 10.5281/zenodo.23874150 DOI Publication / Preprint Growth (SAE Political Economy, Paper 5) References 10.5281/zenodo.24021385 DOI Publication / Preprint A Way Out, a Way Forward (SAE Political Economy, Specialist Paper) References 10.5281/zenodo.21252863 DOI Publication / Preprint On the Cultivation and Diachronic Unfolding of Rights (SAE Rights Theory, Paper 6) References 10.5281/zenodo.19396633 DOI Publication / Preprint Kingdom of Ends vs Kingdom of Means: Phase-Transition Acceleration in the Age of AI (SAE Economics, Paper 6) References 10.5281/zenodo.24030393 DOI Publication / Preprint What the Second Enlightenment Is Not (SAE The Second Enlightenment, Prequel) References 10.5281/zenodo.24030395 DOI Publication / Preprint Is It Worth It? (SAE The Second Enlightenment, Paper 1)