Nice article.

Why do they act like jerks? Two possible explanations:

1) Because near the top of the foodchain, you'll often find the sociopaths - and it doesn't help that the corporation, having a clear goal but no capacity to feel, has a certain tendency to "act" like a sociopath anyways.

2) Niklas Luhmann might help us here. For him, complex systems like a corporation perform a process called autopoiesis. They basically constantly regenerate and revitalize by "talking to themselves". Communications from the outside are disturbances to this process. The more complex the system becomes, the simpler (or rather, more universal) the code of communication needs to be. "Pay / Not Pay" has proven to be one of the, if not the most universal code we've come up with, so far. The corporation as a system simply doesn't understand communications that can't be coded as "Pay / Not Pay".

"Dear Mr. Corporation, please, I just got laid off and my wife needs her medication. Can't you please [...]"

"DUH?! PAY / NO PAY???!!!"