A Corporation And A Nation Share The Same Logic

In 1882, French philosopher Ernest Renan gave a lecture at the Sorbonne University during which he stated that,

“A nation’s existence is, if you will pardon the metaphor, a daily plebiscite.“

Indeed, a nation is a community of human beings who notably share a set of values.

Ernest Renan – (CC) Ashley Van Haeften

The same goes for corporations.

The difference is that the members of a nation share more common ground – history, geography, and culture – than the employees of a corporation. Like Karl Marx’s proletariat, a corporation has no homeland.

Shared values must therefore be all the stronger in a corporation in order to create a common meaning able to sustain “a daily plebiscite.”