In 1613, Edward Coke, England’s chief justice, made a declaration. “Corporations cannot commit treason, nor be outlawed, nor excommunicated,” he wrote, “for they have no souls.” In the centuries that followed—from the Luddites to the Marxist critique, from Sinclair Lewis to the Twitterverse—his assessment seemed largely correct.
That is, until the recent rise of the activist CEO. The events following the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol are only the latest crest of this wave. U.S. society may be focused on debating the wisdom of tech companies banning an incendiary president from their platforms, yet a growing number of American CEOs have also taken the curiously soulful action of banning corporate donations to former President Donald Trump and the 147 Republicans who voted to challenge certification of the 2020 election even after the deadly assault Trump directed at the U.S. Congress.
