Recent Trends in Corporate Personhood and the Overexpansion of Corporate Rights

[TheOneX]

Sorry for going back to page one.

People have Rights, corporations should not.

I disagree with this, corporations should have rights, they should just be very limited. A corporation should have the freedom of speech just like a human, but it shouldn't include political donations, which isn't speech/expression to begin with. If you take away freedom of speech from corporations, then suddenly the government can censor what a corporation says. This means press that isn't an individual working on their own can be censored. Even then individuals would have issues as most of the ways they communicate with the public is through corporation owned mediums that would then be able to be censored. It is just as important for a corporation to have freedom of speech as it is a human. This is true for basically every single right in the bill of rights. It is important for corporations to have rights because those corporations having rights protects the rights of individuals. If Google didn't have the right to privacy then all of the data they collected about you would be free for the government to confiscate without a warrant.

I can only think of two rights that corporations shouldn't have the right to donate to political candidates, and the right to discriminate. I think those rights are forfeit when you gain government protection.

Congress shall make no law.. abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press...

If corporations do not have rights, those rights don't apply because those corporations don't have rights. Those rights can only apply to corporations if corporations have rights. I'm just saying that corporations should have rights, they should just not be as broad as individual rights. If those corporations don't have rights any work that is done for those corporations, or posted through those corporation's medium would not be subject to the same rights as an individual person. As is the only way to have those rights is to be considered a person. If you are not considered a person you do not have rights under the US Constituion. Any rights a non-person has is defined by Congressional legislature, or court precedent.

In my opinion, this needs to change. Instead of giving corporations personhood, giving them all the same freedoms and rights as an individual person, we create a new legal definition that recognizes that corporations shouldn't be considered equal to a person.

[Speaker to Animals]

Read it again.

Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.

It doesn't have anything to do with legal personhood. It's a restricton on government.

[Martin Hash]

WTF?!

Where are the cigarette ads on television?

[Speaker to Animals]

WTF?!

Where are the cigarette ads on television?

FCC regulations.

Good argument to be made that they are totally unconstitutional..

[Martin Hash]

WTF?!

Where are the cigarette ads on television?

FCC regulations.

Good argument to be made that they are totally unconstitutional..

Never-the-less, at this point in time your annoying & childish repetition is incorrect because a law WAS passed that prevented Freedom of Speech for corporations.

[Speaker to Animals]

Unconstitutional laws never get passed??

[Martin Hash]

Unconstitutional laws never get passed??

Yeah, like corps are people.

[atanamis]

I tried to follow this thread, but it was mostly well reasoned statements by StA and a few others met with one line quips from Martin Hash. Martin, if you want anyone to take you seriously on this topic explain what you really mean by "corporations aren't legal persons".

As StA stated, the corporation exists exclusively to BE a legal person. Particularly, a corporation has its own assets and liabilities. I can run a business as a sole proprietorship, but if I accrue debts or get sued I can lose everything. Another alternative model is a partnership, where me and N other people contribute money and have 1/N responsibility for all debts or liabilities (or possibly we can all be individually held liable for all losses until all losses are paid). In either case, investing in a business means risking not just the money invested, but your entire current and future assets (or bankruptcy).

A corporation exists as an entity separate from myself. I invest money into it, and that corporation now has assets. If it buys more than it can afford, the corporation goes bankrupt. The same happens if it incurs liabilities it cannot pay. The corporation is LIKE a person, but isn't me. It is a legal construct, meaning that it has ONLY the rights and responsibilities given to it by the government. It has no "natural rights". I think(?) this is what Martin is talking about in his half-ass way? The government therefore has every moral right to dissolve a corporation at will, which it would not have with a "real" person.

Without a corporation, you are just individually taxing the individuals who own part of a business. In neither case does the corporation have an obvious moral claim to freedom of speech, though without the ability to advertise they are massively hampered. But they are a legal construct, so it would be ok if the government wanted to offer advantages to sole proprietorships or partnerships that the created structure of a corporation doesn't have. The rights and responsibilities we choose to place on a corporation are arbitrary, since it is itself a arbitrary legal construct.

So questions for those opposed to "corporate personhood", are you opposed to shielding investors in a business from being completely financially responsible for its failure? That might make for less risk in business, but the use of the corporate shield has typically been assumed to be a net gain for the economy. Is this about piercing the corporate veil? Or do you just have an issue with specific privileges which the government has chosen to grant these legal constructs? Is this purely a semantic argument about the word "right"?

[SuburbanFarmer]

I tried to follow this thread, but it was mostly well reasoned statements by StA and a few others met with one line quips from Martin Hash. Martin, if you want anyone to take you seriously on this topic explain what you really mean by "corporations aren't legal persons".

As StA stated, the corporation exists exclusively to BE a legal person. Particularly, a corporation has its own assets and liabilities. I can run a business as a sole proprietorship, but if I accrue debts or get sued I can lose everything. Another alternative model is a partnership, where me and N other people contribute money and have 1/N responsibility for all debts or liabilities (or possibly we can all be individually held liable for all losses until all losses are paid). In either case, investing in a business means risking not just the money invested, but your entire current and future assets (or bankruptcy).

A corporation exists as an entity separate from myself. I invest money into it, and that corporation now has assets.

No, a fraction of those assets are owned by yourself. A corporation, by definition, owns nothing independent of the shareholders.

If said corporation dissolves, then lenders are paid first, then shareholders each receive equal shares (based on ownership) of what's left.

So questions for those opposed to "corporate personhood", are you opposed to shielding investors in a business from being completely financially responsible for its failure? That might make for less risk in business, but the use of the corporate shield has typically been assumed to be a net gain for the economy. Is this about piercing the corporate veil? Or do you just have an issue with specific privileges which the government has chosen to grant these legal constructs? Is this purely a semantic argument about the word "right"?

The complete dissolution of personal responsibility, shifted onto a fictional construct - "corporation" is the issue. The shareholders take equal shares of the profits, and should assume shares of the liability as well. Yet somehow, we've decided that anything a corporation does wrong - criminal or otherwise - just 'evaporates' upon dissolution. Ask yourself why the sole proprietorship or partnership places total liability upon the shareholders, but a corporation does not.

This is creating a completely mercenary culture in our society, and is at the root of a great many social ills that we face.

[Martin Hash]

The vast, vast majority of companies are pass-through. In fact, all companies should be pass through. Pass-through companies are transparent shields that provide legal protections businesses need. However, the principle reasons for C corps are to obscure identities, evade taxes & exploit minority stockholders. They are not people.

In Hash Land, there will be no C Corps.