I don’t want to brag (Well, in fact, I do want to brag; what’s the alternative? Showing you my Banker & Tradesman paycheck? Yuck.), but I was on the ABC news show “Nightline” once, back in the old Ted Koppel days.

I had written something mildly sympathetic to the American corporations that had toddled off to places such as Bermuda to make a new home, get a good tan and revel in the mysteries of a low-tax, low-regulation environment.

My position was shared by about 1.2 percent of American politicians and pundits, so when the time came for Nightline to chime in on the escape of the sneaky corporations, I was more than just another pretty face.

My opinion – shared by many amoral, bloodless economists and business professors – was that corporations are not people; that they don’t have to smile or join the Rotary Club or feel any special affection for a particular neighborhood, city, state or even country.

No, I suggested, a corporation is in truth a piece of paper filed with some secretary of the state (preferably, Delaware) that sort of promises to make some money, coddle the shareholders and well … that’s about it.

The corporation is certainly free to be friendly, perky and charitable, like some kind of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream colossus, if the marketing guys think that’s a good idea. But, if strategic planning suggests being sullen, focused, below-the-radar, and always checking on ticket prices to Bermuda – well, that’s OK, too.

To be sure, Americans have tilted toward wanting to bestow personhood on its corporations. That’s partly so the Great Unwashed can bestow blame on something other than an office building, but it’s also to appeal to the “good heart” of businesses that cough up big bucks for United Way and the like. Even the levers of government are often willing to humanize a corporation, as a matter of law.

As the “Schumpeter” column in The Economist magazine suggested in March, “…for the most part, the Supreme Court has been generous in extending the rights of flesh-and-blood people to artificial persons (which include trade unions and other collectives, as well as corporations).”

The Human Touch

Speaking of artificial people (this column is like a well-oiled machine), what prompted my memories of my appearance on Nightline was the recent comment by Mitt Romney on the campaign trail in Iowa that “corporations are people.”

This bit of philosophy was greeted with all matter of derision and jokes – but, in fact, Romney touched on an interesting bit of public policy and public relations murkiness.

Mitt, being Mitt, was all over the place, defending what he had said, including turning the Cohen thesis on its head, but still coming to the same conclusion. Romney explained that because corporations are so people-like, when taxes get too high, “people are going to move to go places where taxes aren’t too high.” Hello, Bermuda.

Mitt hardly committed an extraordinary sin by bringing corporations to life, but at the end of the day, the corporations are better off not passing themselves off as living, breathing, money-grubbing humans. No, corporations as lifeless profit and service machines are less inviting as hyperbolic targets, which is a good thing – especially at a time when we wish they would start hiring the real humans and put them to work.

This argument achieved its most interesting visibility when economist Milton Friedman (who would go on to win a Nobel Prize) insisted that corporations were at their best (for themselves and for all of us) when they pursued their economic self-interest – and left the goody-goody stuff to nonprofits and government.

Needless to say, among those in the public discussion about such things, the mantra of “corporate social responsibility” has won the day. What’s so interesting about the Romney approach is that, in bringing corporations to life (literally), he focuses not on their ability to do good, but on their fragile sensibilities and how important it is that we understand them.

“Businesses are people,” he insisted again in New Hampshire. “What do you think they are? Little men from Mars?”

Hmmm. Maybe an editor or two.