You say that a corporation is not an agent in its own right, only:
> an abstraction of what happens as the result of the preferences of individuals, and choices made by individual people, and their interactions.
But the human mind is an abstraction of what happens as the result of the preferences of individual subagents, and “choices” made by individual subagents, and their interactions. With a multi-agent model of mind, it seems indefensible to claim that an agent cannot be formed out of smaller agents—even when they are (like schemas in the mind) competing with one another. Corporations look like agents so much because that’s what they are, even though it is also a direct result of the complex patterns of individual choice that you are talking about here.
You say that a corporation is not an agent in its own right, only:
> an abstraction of what happens as the result of the preferences of individuals, and choices made by individual people, and their interactions.
But the human mind is an abstraction of what happens as the result of the preferences of individual subagents, and “choices” made by individual subagents, and their interactions. With a multi-agent model of mind, it seems indefensible to claim that an agent cannot be formed out of smaller agents—even when they are (like schemas in the mind) competing with one another. Corporations look like agents so much because that’s what they are, even though it is also a direct result of the complex patterns of individual choice that you are talking about here.