I understand your point. Any undercutting by the argument above would very much be limited to "a wonkish level", which, as you suggest, is far from the level of corporate operations and propaganda.

Corporation are indeed emergent systems driven to act with "interests" not necessarily aligned with those of any human being. This is hard to avoid, given their evolutionary pressures, but different corporate governance structures can make a difference.

What I would like to know is why the law imposes a fiduciary responsibility on boards of directors and company managers that requires them (for example) to poison children with bright, cheery, toxic food dyes? That is, provided that the poisoning promises to increase (wrongly defined) shareholder value, and isn't (yet) prohibited by law. And, of course, this principle may similarly mandate that they lobby against such a law...

Words and ideas I offer here may be used freely and without attribution.