Corporations are like people. Corporations can borrow money. Corporations can enter into legally binding agreements. Corporations can even make donations to political candidates, but so far they can't vote. Lawyers and legal philosophers call this anthropomorphizing of corporations “corporate personhood.” The controversial part of corporate personhood is whether corporations enjoy the same rights as individuals in regards to self-incrimination and free speech.

Brands can be like people. Brands, like people, can or cannot be trusted. Brands, like people, can stand for a certain set of values. Brands can have a particular voice, or personality. Strong brands embody the noble virtues of mankind. Strong brands are honest, and sincere, and you'd like to invite them over to your house for dinner and maybe introduce them to your sister with the hope that something romantic might develop.

Some people are brands. Celebrities are brands. When Brittney shaves her head or gets carried to the hospital for mental issues she diminishes her brand value, at least for some segments of her audience. When Sean P. Diddy Diddy Combs, or whatever his brand name is now, pimps for Ciroc vodka, he is lending his brand value to the brand value of the vodka. Sean P. Diddy Diddy Combs has done a remarkable job of changing his brand from urban to urbane, and thereby transforming, or at least expanding the range, of the brand value of hip-hop. Borrowing celebrity brand value can be risky for a product, because celebrity brand values are dependent on the wild card behavior of celebrities. Think how quickly Nike dropped Kobe when he was indicted for rape.

Politicians are brands. Politicians try to associate themselves with desirable values, like honesty, and sincerity, or change. Politicians are especially cautious about joining their brand values with the brand values of other politicians. Most election years a presidential endorsement would boost brand value. This year you don't see President Bush stumping for any candidates. When Dee Margo snuck Rick Perry in the back door of the Plaza Theater to avoid the anti-ASARCO demonstrators on the sidewalk, he was trying minimize the negative brand effects of those who saw an association with Rick Perry as a bad thing, while maximizing the positive brand effect of those already in the theater who admire the governor.

ASARCO is a corporation, and a brand. But because ASARCO produces a commodity, ASARCO has never been too concerned about protecting its brand value to consumers. ASARCO has negative brand value with people who might breath the air near their smelters, and positive brand value with people who might get a job in the plant. ASARCO has tried to preserve its brand value with investors, by complying with its legal obligation to ensure shareholder profits.

In his book, "The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power," author Joel Bakan makes the argument that if corporations were people, they'd be sociopaths. The single-minded focus on profit disrupts other rational considerations, like social consciousness, like humanity, like public health. The main characteristic of a sociopath is disregard for the rights of others.

Corporations sometimes short circuit their long term brand value by pursuing short term profits. For the strongest brands, brand value is sometimes the bulk of the value of the corporation. For luxury goods producers, the brand value can be up to 75 percent of the value of the corporation. For strong consumer goods brands, (like CocaCola, the strongest brand in the world), brand value can be as high as 65 percent.

The brand Sociopath has negative brand value. Associating the brand Sociopath with the brand Corporation is bad for corporations. The name Sociopath has such negative brand value that psychologists are trying to change the brand name to Antisocial Personality Disorder.

I'm no psychologist, but the argument can be made that ASARCO, as corporate personhood, has antisocial personality disorder. ASARCO is currently associated with 20 superfund sites. In the seventies, the El Paso community of Smeltertown was scraped to ground level because of the high levels of lead in the ground and children. Smeltertown sat in the shadow of the smokestack, between ASARCO and the river. The site remains, vacant, desolate, existing only as a tumbleweed farm, isolated by chain link and barb wire, gray brown dirt. Also, the Environmental Protection Agency concluded that ASARCO illegally burned hazardous waste it its furnace. Former ASARCO employees are sick and dying. And ASARCO, and its parent company, Grupo Mexico, shuffle assets and declare bankruptcy in the face of environmental judgements.

Now ASARCO has received permission to begin operating the smelter again. And I ask myself, do we want a sociopath operating a smelter in our city?