[Oso]

I attended a town meeting up here in Vermont, sponsored by our senator Bernie Sanders about if corporations are really people, and should they be granted constitutional rights.

There is a movement to amend the constitution to prohibit corporations from having person-hood status.

Almost all of the problems we are having in this country stem from the Person-hood status granted to corporations. Any thoughts?


Here is a link to a group trying to change it.

"We the corporations" | Move to Amend

[newarts]

I believe the "corporation as person" concept, which was derived from the notion of associations of citizens having rights, has gone too far.

In my view, corporations as persons enjoy many privileges of persons while escaping many responsibilities of persons, for example in their member's freedom from liability.

Corporations can not fairly speak to our political process as many of their employees, shareholders, and clients are not citizens. Further, their employees, shareholders - if any, and clients are effectively removed from the day-to-day corporate decision making process.

Because I buy a corporation's product or am employed by that corporation does not imply that corporation speaks for me.

Perhaps someone schooled in the law will comment on the need for an amendment to the constitution to remedy the situation.

[wizofoz]

Corporations as people?

Are you guys totally insane or does it just appear that way from the outside?

Enron made a fine upstanding citizen. BP for governor of Alabama maybe? Goldman Sacks should probably run the Treasury?

Perhaps Foxtel as propaganda minister makes more sense.

[jolepp]

No. Seems like a legislative convenience originally used to take advantage of the similarilty of financial / contract responsibilties with actual people, which makes sense. The analogy breaks down, when thinking about human / civil rights as such or the idea of a limited liability corporation in particular.

[Coeurdechene]

corporations as persons enjoy many privileges of persons while escaping many responsibilities of persons,

Totally right..that's why high stakes crime and fraud is made trough corporations...it guarantees most of the people participating in the crime safety and impunity...
When an economic, fraud scandal comes to the surface there is less people that take the fall that for example with drug trading or petty crimes.

Here in europe corporations have "personalidad juridica" they are recognized as a subject with some rights and obligations but the limit is very clear between fisical people and juridic organizations.
I think some people do not understand (don't want to, really) the abismal difference between recognizing something as a subject to the law and granting it personal rights like those that people have.
In some cases the organization itself has the ability to act in situations related to the defense of people right's because they are the result and medium through wich those rights are exercised, for example with unions....but to get granted the people status is a big leap.
In fact what is needed now is some obligations particular to the corporation and to those who manage it...there is a deep need of responsability. That's obligations, and obligations that can dissolve the impunity of those who manage the corporations in cases where they didn't follow those obligations.
An example of this is the fact that the Bank of Spain warned about the financial crisis 5 years ago when the banks were making huge profits out of risky operations...at the time they advised to make some of those profits into provisions for the later years because they were, very likely, going to get into solvency problems....the day arrived, the crisis came, and the state payed with our taxes their negligence, what should have been done is to disolve the patrimonial barrier and make those who got the profits responsible for the situation with their own assets.
I know this is very difficult because of the way money moves around, "fuga de capitales"...but maybe if those directly in charge were made responsible (in a criminal charge of criminal negligence) they would be more cautious in the future (they should be treated as the thieves they are and get no particular privileges in the penitenciary system...this world is still that place where the rich gets away with the worst while the poor faces a very harsh destiny...).
What is needed is more responsability, not more rights.
The problem is that our system is crooked, and no politician wants to challenge those who handle the economic power...and there in the states it's worse because of the way campaigns are financed..in fact here too there is taht problem to some extent, the year i mentioned before was the year a lot of political partys got their debt condoned (oh! what a coincidence).
At the end it's possible that all finishes, in relation to corporations, like in Gibson's "the neuromancer" (good book by the way).

[Phil1]

Much like labor unions. Both tend to work against the non-participant common citizen

[shooz]

Much like labor unions. Both tend to work against the non-participant common citizen

Nowhere near the same rights. Unions are much more regulated and lack the funds to outright buy politicians, let alone set up the kind of marketing and PR programs of any major corporation.
That's why people who have never been in one still hate them. It was one of Bernays original negative PR campaigns.
Plus they have that messy democracy component.

[GeneV]

It depends a lot on the corporation. Usually this subject comes up with constitutional rights, such as free speech. On another forum someone argued (as I believe was argued in the Supreme Court) that the corporation reflects an assmbly of individuals with constitutional rights. This is probably an accurate way to view a labor union or about 90% of the small corporations and LLCs I have formed. They are individuals, families or small grouops of individuals who want some separation between their own finances and those of their business.

However, the public corporation, i.e., entities whose stock is publicly traded, are a whole different animal. Their stockholders are not just citizens. They many not even be primarily people. They are held by other corporations, funds, trusts, pensions, governments (in the U.S. and abroad), foreign nationals, and on and on. Here the assembly and free speech of stockholders argument breaks down.

[Coeurdechene]

Unions are much more regulated and lack the funds to outright buy politicians

True...
The problem about unions is not that they work against the "common" citizen, their problem is that they have turned into conservative organizations..."retardataires", they do not fight for change anymore but for conservation of the few things the power has been forced to give us...In that role the unions are just surrendering a step at a time instead of changing and fighting for things to get better, they defend their litle acquired power instead of challenging the neocon turn our societies have taken...
Here in europe the situation is quite desperate since they have turned into a para-estate orgnization, wich only works because of states funds..it has lost all it's autonomy that enabled them to really change and propose new models...old tired bureaucracy... old tired slogans without real content (no democratic component here...just the worse technocracy.).

We formally live in democracies, but a big part of power lies in authoritarian structures, unless we control those and start implementing real mechanisms of social responsability we will continue to see things like the past "rescuing" of the organizations who caused the crisis (it's more accurate to define it as externalization, that's when we as societies pay for the private mistakes of the big corporations.).

[Oso]

The history of corporate person-hood status is very interesting. In the late 1800's a court case involving the union pacific railroad, in a tax dispute with the state of California, went all the way to the supreme court. The judge's ruling, that corporations not be granted person-hood rights, was never read. Instead, the judges clerk, a man who used to work for the railroads, wrote the "head notes" where he wrote that they be granted rights, was then used to grant those rights. (The ruling judge died within a few months of all this) The court itself never ruled on the rights issue, but referred it back to the state. The original issue was never ruled on, and those head notes have been the justification for all court rulings ever since.
Thom Hartmann wrote about it extensively in his book, "Unequal Protection". He was also the keynote speaker at my town meeting.

[Phil1]

"Nowhere near the same rights. Unions are much more regulated and lack the funds to outright buy politicians,....."

The Calif legislature and the Gov is OWNED outright by the state employee unions. It would appear from here the Wisconsin state liberals are also owned by the state employee unions. The ongoing pension scams, and such that have been ongoing for years pretty much back that up. It is of course a picture that changes from where one is sitting. If you OWN politicians in your corporation or union its SOP to point the finger elsewhere.

Calif's Little Hoover Commission Report. The press summary is viewable:
Public Pensions for Retirement Security

[jeffkrol]

"Nowhere near the same rights. Unions are much more regulated and lack the funds to outright buy politicians,....."

The Calif legislature and the Gov is OWNED outright by the state employee unions. It would appear from here the Wisconsin state liberals are also owned by the state employee unions. The ongoing pension scams, and such that have been ongoing for years pretty much back that up. It is of course a picture that changes from where one is sitting. If you OWN politicians in your corporation or union its SOP to point the finger elsewhere.

Calif's Little Hoover Commission Report. The press summary is viewable:
Public Pensions for Retirement Security

The 2008-09 stock market collapse and housing bust exposed the
structural vulnerabilities of California’s public pension systems
and the risky political behaviors that have led to a growing
retirement obligation for state and local governments, the scale of which
taxpayers are just beginning to understand.........Boom and bust cycles are natural, if unpredictable, but political leaders
agreed to changes in the pension system at the peak of a boom, and as a
major demographic event began unfolding – the start of the retirements
of the Baby Boomers.

It was a BUST-IST cycle caused by what???? who?????
for what reason????
Stop blaming the victim, though I'm sure (as in apparently ANY transaction in this country) there was "chicanery...

Unlike WI at least their "reforms" are reasonable........

The Legislature must create pension options for state and local
governments that would retain the defined-benefit formula – but at a...

opp's spoke too soon........

lower level – combined with an employer-matched 401(k)-style
defined-contribution plan.
The 401(k)-style component must be risk-managed to provide
retirement security and minimize investment volatility.

WHO manages the risk and considering the track record of our economy lately, anyone really good at it???

http://www.lhc.ca.gov/studies/204/Executive%20Summary204.pdf
401K's suck........

[shooz]

Seriously?
A right wing think tank?

In what way do unions have the same right to power as a corporation?
I notice that funding for your group is lacking on their site.

Do you know who Ed Bernays was?

[redrockcoulee]

So if unions were totally banned in the States would that change whether not not corporations are people? If not then what does union benefits or a government overturning a contract with its workers have to do with the topic?

If corporations are people why not unions? photography clubs? bowling teams? If corporations are people can they then become citizens? If they become citizens should they have one vote or one for each worker, one for each shareholder or one for each dollar they make?

[Oso]

in citizens united vs. the FEC, corporations are now entitled to use their general funds to finance add buys for or against an issue or a politician, as long as the candidate is not made aware of it, a rule that has been violated here in Vermont during the recent elections for state governor.

So now, the corporations have more money and power and free speech and influence, than does a real person. They are "super-people", and the lot of them Don't pay any taxes here either.

Bank of America, a multinational bank that sucked off the life blood of hardworking American families, uses 172 shell companies in the Bahamas to avoid paying ANY taxes to this country.

Voting machine companies that are contracted by local districts to count votes do not have to show the "programs" to elections officials, because corporations have more rights than people.

Corporations are nothing but creations of the tax code to enhance the ability of an economy to make money and satisfy demand. They are supposed to be regulated to ensure that they maintained their "original" charter of being beneficial to the state in which they were chartered.

When does this stop?