For-profit corporations are like people for certain legal purposes. They can hold property, enter into contracts, and sue or be sued. But it’s an analogy, not an equivalence. It’s not close to an equivalence. They exist to maximize their worth, their net present value. That’s a financial calculation, including current balance sheet information, as well as all expected net income discounted over time. The further in the future the income is, the less it’s worth in the present.

For-profit corporations are neither good nor evil. They’re amoral. They exist to make money and by definition have limited liability. Like children, they are not fully responsible for the consequences of their actions. Like children, they need to be supervised. Using a discount rate of 10%/year (the rate that the Social Security administration uses), setting aside a dollar for your children a generation from now is worth less than a dime to corporations. It’s worth even less after factoring in uncertainty to further devalue the future. The consequences of poisoning your water, draining your aquifer, or flooding your home aren’t part of their calculations unless we make it so. The question isn’t whether to regulate corporations, but how. Children need guidelines and rules. So do corporations.

Like for-profit corporations, we live for today. However, we dream, hope, and plan for the future in a very different way. The net present value of our children is a big negative number. So is caring for our elders. Our principles as “natural people,” to use the legal term, include seeking money. But our principles go much deeper than that. Our ongoing challenge is to keep our financial actions in balance with our other principles.