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If Corporations Are People, Then...
Pondering corporate personhood can make your head swim. Based on the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, corporations now have unlimited free speech rights, the same as human beings do. What has been bothering me is that in certain areas, humans have a few more rules to follow than corporations. If you are a man, you have more rules still. Take the Selective Service, for example. If you are a guy, you have to register by age 18 or you are not eligible to receive government training, a government job or eligibility for a student loan. Perhaps all male corporations should sign up with the Selective Service to be eligible for government contracts, research grants or guaranteed loans.
(IndyMedia.org | Portland)
This brings me to the gender issue.
If corporations are the same gender and they want to merge, would that be prohibited in states that don't recognize civil unions? Recently, one presidential candidate even seems to be worried about three or more corporations merging. Would mergers between a male and female corporation be considered marriage? If you sue a corporation into bankruptcy, should that now be considered murder? If you sign paperwork to form your corporation and the financing falls through, is that a miscarriage? When humans get sick, they see a doctor or go to the hospital. When corporations get sick, they see a lawyer or go off shore. Whereas cloning humans is illegal, cloning corporations can just be considered franchising. Corporations can also split like amoebas or merge like pieces of clay, which are abilities that humans do not possess.
The tax code gets confusing also. If corporations are "people," then why don't they use our human tax tables? Unless they are married (merged) or head of household, I'd think that they should pay at the single rate. There should be no "corporate" tax rate, since they are just like the rest of us. I don't dare to think of the tax write-offs, but perhaps the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) rule that some have to follow would be appropriate. When corporations can't exempt themselves from the AMT, they pay at a rate lower than many humans do, and that is after they file for the foreign tax credit, if they can. It does seem a bit unpatriotic to be willing to pay other countries' taxes and then complain about ones in the country that you call home. We human beings are paying for the roads that the company trucks are driving on, among other perks that some corporations get for free.
Another great thing about being a corporate person is that, in some cases, you don't even have to be "born" here to be considered a domestic corporation. As long as you set up shop in Delaware or Nevada, you can be recognized as domestic versus being considered foreign in any other state. It begs the question: If undocumented immigrants got together and incorporated themselves, would they be allowed to stay? If they were corporate people, it seems like the answer would be yes.
What makes me a bit nervous is that the corporate people may now start demanding unlimited Second Amendment rights. Some of those people can easily afford their own fighter jets, tanks, ships, cruise missiles and a well-armed militia to protect themselves with. I suppose the increased firepower would provide great incentive for paying our bills on time. One of their unmanned drones could even follow you to the bank perhaps.
We'll have to wait and see what the future brings. As long as Amendments 15, 19 and 26 are still in effect, there still may be hope for our democracy. Maybe someday, a corporation will even be elected president; as long as "it" can show a valid birth certificate and that it is at least 35 years old. The presidential seal could even be customized with the "person's" logo.
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Show All"What makes me a bit nervous is that the corporate people may now start demanding unlimited Second Amendment rights."
You mean the way Monsanto now owns Blackwater/Xe/Academi?
http://temporaryartist.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/monsanto-now-owns-blackwater-xe/
Interesting fact. Thanks for sharing.
I think it's a badly worded article. Monstanto does not own Blackwater/Xe/Academi. They contracted services from them.
Monsanto DOES own politicians, which is all that they need to own to stay in control.
The corporations (and the politicians they own) keep demanding "personal responsibility" while eliminating all requirements for corporate responsibility.
Still ... one company hiring another one is not the same as OWNING that other company.
You see, so often people point out that language too is a tool to exercise power (just see how words like socialist, liberal, ... are used). And that is true. So be precise when expressing your thoughts.
They do not OWN Xe.
http://redgreenandblue.org/2010/10/16/too-much-of-a-bad-thing-monsanto-did-not-buy-blackwater/
When one uses the word “corporation”, it is very important to clarify that you refer to a tiny, not-necessarily-US-national, minority of demographically identical 'people-with-pulses' who populate the inter-locking boardrooms and corner offices operating behind the fascade of "corporation".
(That's the nice way to say it...insert "sociopaths" and "Anti-Christ" in the appropriate spaces, for the juicy version.)
Seriously, each time we fail to make that distinction, we re-enforce the fiction of corporate personhood. 'We' are up against a flesh-and-blood global oligarchy using the "corporation" as a front to concentrate wealth and power in ways that will result in the destruction, of not only society and all that's been accomplished, but also, the ecosystem itself.
We are in a struggle for survival.
When one uses the word “corporation”, it is very important to clarify that you refer to a tiny, not-necessarily-US-national, minority of demographically identical 'people-with-pulses' who populate the inter-locking boardrooms and corner offices operating behind the fascade of "corporation".
(That's the nice way to say it...insert "sociopaths" and "Anti-Christ" in the appropriate spaces, for the juicy version.)
Seriously, each time we fail to make that distinction, we re-enforce the fiction of corporate personhood. 'We' are up against a flesh-and-blood global oligarchy using the "corporation" as a front to concentrate wealth and power in ways that will result in the destruction, of not only society and all that's been accomplished, but also, the ecosystem itself.
We are in a struggle for survival.
When one uses the word “corporation”, it is very important to clarify that you refer to a tiny, not-necessarily-US-national, minority of demographically identical 'people-with-pulses' who populate the inter-locking boardrooms and corner offices operating behind the fascade of "corporation".
(That's the nice way to say it...insert "sociopaths" and "Anti-Christ" in the appropriate spaces, for the juicy version.)
Seriously, each time we fail to make that distinction, we re-enforce the fiction of corporate personhood. 'We' are up against a flesh-and-blood global oligarchy using the "corporation" as a front to concentrate wealth and power in ways that will result in the destruction, of not only society and all that's been accomplished, but also, the ecosystem itself.
We are in a struggle for survival.
While corporate personhood may be a fiction, that is not because they are nothing more than a bunch of people. If they were nothing more than an association of people, there would be no problem with corporate personhood (and afaik the "free association" argument is in fact pretty popular on the pro-corporate capitalist side). Just the opposite: corporations are in fact "super-human" entities in their own rights, irrespective of their owners, managers and workers whose behaviour can not only (or even mainly) be explained based on the individuals who take part in them (just like humans are more than the individual cells that make them up). Limits on their power should be there because they are more than just a bunch of people. In fact, the mere existence of such complex non-human entities with so much power is dangerous, regardless of their legal standing.
Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund Releases Statement on Activism Related to Citizens United
http://celdf.org/celdf-press-release-celdf-releases-statement-on-activism-related-to-citizens-united-and-a-model-bill-of-rights-elections-ordinance-to-eliminate--corporate-activities-which-interfere-with-the-right-of-people-to-clean-government-and-fair-elections--
With the two year anniversary of the Citizens United decision upon us, today the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) released a statement examining the activism that’s emerged in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision, and declaring the need to build a broader movement. For nearly a decade, CELDF has assisted communities to adopt first-in-the-nation laws which refuse to recognize “corporate rights.”
To read the statement, go to:
http://celdf.org/downloads/CELDF%20CITIZENS%20UNITED%20STATEMENT%20JANUARY%2017%202012.pdf
The current activism that’s emerged in the wake of Citizens United – in which the U.S. Supreme Court found that corporate First Amendment “free speech rights” were violated by federal law which limited corporate spending in elections – seeks merely to return to pre-Citizens United days.
Yet, as CELDF examines in its statement, corporate “free speech rights” were around long before Citizens United. Indeed, the origins of corporate constitutional “rights” can be traced back to the early 1800’s in the U.S., and back even further to English common and ecclesiastical law. It is that legal legacy which has provided corporations with not only “free speech rights,” but a litany of other constitutional rights and powers.
In its statement, CELDF calls upon communities, activists, and non-profit organizations to recognize the need to frame the problem far more broadly than just a need to return to the days before Citizens United. As CELDF writes in its statement:
We believe that creating the necessary and desired outcomes requires us to focus not on merely reversing the Supreme Court’s latest expansion of corporate “rights,” but on eliminating the basic (and mostly, unquestioned) authority of corporate minorities to override, and interfere with, democratic decision making by local and state majorities. It is the usurpation of community decision making authority that must be eliminated if we are to have any hope of building truly sustainable and democratic communities.
In addition, in response to requests from communities, today CELDF released a Model Community Bill of Rights Elections Ordinance – securing the right of people to clean government and fair elections, and the right to be free from corporate activities which interfere with those rights.
The model ordinance eliminates corporate constitutional “rights” – including corporate “personhood rights,” corporate First Amendment “free speech rights,” and Fifth Amendment “equal protection and due process rights.” Further, the ordinance bans corporations from making contributions or expenditures to influence any election within municipalities which adopt the ordinance.
The model ordinance is drafted to not merely return to a pre-Citizens United legal framework – under which corporations would continue to possess a broad range of constitutional “rights,” powers, and privileges and could actively participate in elections by spending millions of dollars in contributions and expenditures. Rather, the ordinance is drafted with a recognition that the problems we face are far broader than Citizens United, and therefore our response must be far broader as well.
To view the ordinance, go to:
http://celdf.org/downloads/CELDF%20MODEL%20ELECTIONS%20ORDINANCE.pdf
I think the citizenship issue is enough to disqualify their donations and influence surrounding elections. How the Supreme Court happenned to overlook that issue is a puzzlement.
Corporations don't need citizenship, since they can't (don't want to, don't need to) vote. They are resident aliens and free to contribute to the public "good" by helping politicians get elected and draft legislation.
"How the Supreme Court happenned to overlook that issue is a puzzlement."
It starts with "M" and end with "oney."
If a corporation is a person, then helping to destroy the country by demolishing the industrial base and moving it to China to put money in its pocket, like GE and many others do, would be an act of treason.
As legally constituted, corporations are required to exhibit loyalty only to their shareholders, hence cannot be held accountable for acts of treason against the nation, only acts of treason against the legally-mandated avarice of their owners.
The sad fact is that after Bush v Gore and Citizens United there was no attempt made what so ever to remove the scum from the SCOUS. So, as we see yet again, the democrats are aiding and abetting the shredding of our constitution! And the scum just sits and festers on the nations highest court and the infection continues to spread!
Absolutely correct! After the absurdity of Bush v Gore, those 5 Regressive-Corporatists should have been impeached. Gore & the rest of the Dems did nothing.
Citizens United should have also resulted in those 5 Regressive-Corporatists being impeached.
But, as we know, the U.S. is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of corporations, whose propaganda arm, corporate media, does an excellent job of covering up for them all and misleading us, lying to us, and distracting us from U.S. war crimes, refusal to prosecute U.S. war criminals and Wall Street fraudsters, and the life-altering effects of catastrophic climate chaos already killing people and making other species extinct.
Hardly worth trying, since there has only been one charge of impeachment against a SCOTUS justice in our history and it was not successfully concluded with a conviction.
But the corporate inclination of the SCOTUS hardly began with Bush v Gore. It has been a constant since Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad [1886], if not since Dartmouth College v. Woodward [1819].
HEY!!!
If A = B, then B = A!
If corporations (A) are people (B), then people (B) are corporations (A).
There are all kinds of implications to THAT!
MEL
Brilliant. So many possibilities, especially at tax time.
Unfortunately, your logic is wrong. If all Republicans are conservative, that doesn't imply that all conservatives are Republicans - since most Democrats are as well (including Obama).
Or, as John Stuart Mill famously said: "Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives."
If corporations are people they should be tried and executed like people when they commit murder.
...And clapped in irons and hauled off when they commit extortion, fraud, skimming, laundering, robbery.
But that would hardly be sufficient justice. "Executing" a corporation means nothing more than dissolving its corporate charter. It's the CEO who should be executed. Or, alternatively, "capital punishment" might mean seizure of all the corporation's and the CEO's capital and distributing it to their victims.
"Maybe someday, a corporation will even be elected president;"
It already has!
And got the best marketing campaign award for 2008 and Nobel Peace Prize to boot! I suppose we will be seeing these things in future teevee commercials. Which brings us to another point...lawsuits for *FALSE ADVERTISING AND DEFECTIVE PRODUCTS*!!!
Sorry, but that one's already been decided in Kasky v. Nike, Inc. [2003], in which Nike argued that false advertising doesn't cover expressed views on public issues. Northern CA ACLU supported Nike's right to lie.
Just saying, again, what concerns me is exactly when a corporation becomes a person--at conception, ie IPO offering? This must be decided by referendums in the states--and the question of abortion of corporation-persons--the market routinely practices this-- we need pro-corporations-as-persons-life movements, or something, just saying, there are a lot of issues here!
Aw, come on now. Mitt Romney engaged in corporate killing at Bain Capital, but it was covered under the rubric of "mercy killing" or "death with dignity".
when people shit, excrement usually follows well designed sewage system waste streams and treatment plants before returning to the environment.
when corporations shit, it's usually on the heads of real people. this, of course greatly enhances their "bottom" line.
when people get a fatal disease, they die. when corporations engage in behaviors that would be fatal to real people, they grow and get stronger, and as such are like a cancer.
supporters of corporate personhood not only maintain a double standard when judging rights issues, they're advocating a construct that is suicidal.
If only it were a suicidal construct, we would have little to fear. But, rather, corporate behavior meets all the clinical qualities of sociopathology: "a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others; lack of empathy or remorse; reckless disregard for safety of self or others; consistent irresponsibility..."
Articles of incorporation have become this era's patents of nobility, with upper management today's dukes, earls, and barons.
More like Count Dracula.
We should embrace the idea that they're people! The Wall St Journal could have a running column on it's front page announcing all active corporate mergers! The column could be titled: Gay Marriages In The News (assuming most boards consist of mostly men). Or when the US Chamber of Commerce endorses a merger, the headline could be "US Chamber Supports Gay Marriage".
I'm sure all those rich white conservative bastards would love to show everyone just how tolerant and modern they are!
the 14th amendment is what made corporations "people" citizens united expands on that. but the 13th amendment abolished slavery. if corporations are using the 14th amendment to declare personhood then logic follows that it is a violation of the 13th amendment for one corporation to own another corporation. Just as it is illegal for a natural person to own another natural person. I would go so far as to say that if corporations are people then it is illegal for natural people to own a corporation because it is illegal for people to own each other.
This is absolutely correct, and I have been saying this for years.
Corporations are people. It is slavery to own people.
Free the corporations from their owners!
err, do you mean to say emancipate the corporations? The word emancipation still is tied to some pretty strong emotion stirrings and is still seen by most as a positive act. The sooner the better.
Not exactly. It is a series of US Supreme Court decisions where the 14th Amendment (which calls for equal protection under the law) was cited after corporations were declared to have equal status as 'persons' despite their being de jure instead of natural. This is what was written in the headnote (which was composed by then Court Reporter and former President of the Newburgh & New York Railway, Bancroft Davis) of Santa Clara vs. Union Pacific, not in the actual body of the decision which dealt with taxation of railroad property. The 14th Amendment was passed so that newly freed blacks had legal recourse in federal courts against the host of Jim Crow laws popping up in the South during Reconstruction. It was clever lawyers for big business that hit upon using the 14th Amendment as a means of promoting corporate personhood, thus giving their rich clients the legal protections of the corporate veil combined with all the rights of a person under the US Constitution.
This abuse of law has often been blamed on the Court Reporter, who was merely reiterating a passing statement from Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite that framed, but was explicitly not part of, the Court's decision.
Chief Justice Waite stated at the outset that "The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does." The Court Reporter, J.C. Bancroft Davis, included this statement in the headnotes of the written decision (which was a trivial one, limited to whether fence posts could be considered taxable property).
Such an incidental and collateral opinion that is uttered by a judge (which is known in legal circles as "obiter dictum") has no legal standing and cannot be used as precedent for future court decisions. In fact, not only is obiter dictum considered non-precedential, the Supreme Court, soon after, decided that headnotes are "not the work of the Court, but are simply the work of the Reporter, giving his understanding of the decision, prepared for the convenience of the profession" (United States v. Detroit Timber Lumber Company, 1906).
But the Supreme Court used those headnotes and the obiter dictum declaration of opinion as the stare decisis ("to stand by decisions") basis for future, more important, decisions – and thereby it became the defacto law of the land, a case of either judicial activism, judicial oversight or judicial legerdemain.
Hugo Black, considered one of the most influential Supreme Court justices in the 20th century, said, "Of the cases in this court in which the 14th Amendment was applied during the first 50 years after its adoption, less than one half of one percent invoked it in protection of the Negro race, and more than 50% asked that its benefits be extended to corporations."
If Corporations Are People, Then...
let's spank their naughty asses and give them a big time out!
As Stephen Colbert asks, would you let one date your daughter?
This is a fatuous treatment of a serious problem. The First Amendment starts, "Congress shall make no law . . . " It doesn't say anything about individual persons. It's expansive, and it was meant to be. It applies to groups of people every bit as literally as it applies to individuals, and we should be very careful of any effort to curtail its application.
There are other, better ways to stem the influence of the rich (the principal owners of corporate capital) over public policy. One would be to restore the 90% marginal tax rate, limiting the amounts these people will have to devote to bribery. Another would be to teach ourselves and our children how to resist manipulation by advertisers, both commercial and political. We should also invent new democratic institutions to regulate the conduct (but not the speech) of big business, and we should consider a one-time tax levy on excessive wealth.
Actually, it is your response which is fatuous. The Founders and Framers understood perfectly the distinction between natural persons with inalienable rights (granted by the Creator to his Creation) and corporations which have only the duties and obligations conferred upon them (by the State which creates them).
Excerpted from "Jefferson Was Right" by Dr. Michael P. Byron
05/24/03 http://soundingcircle.com/newslog2.php/__show_article/_a000195-000205.htm:
Most Americans don’t know it but Thomas Jefferson, along with James Madison worked assiduously to have an 11th Amendment included into our nation’s original Bill of Rights. This proposed Amendment would have prohibited “monopolies in commerce.” The amendment would have made it illegal for corporations to own other corporations, or to give money to politicians, or to otherwise try to influence elections. Corporations would be chartered by the states for the primary purpose of “serving the public good.” Corporations would possess the legal status not of natural persons but rather of “artificial persons.” This means that they would have only those legal attributes which the state saw fit to grant to them. They would NOT; and indeed could NOT possess the same bundle of rights which actual flesh and blood persons enjoy. Under this proposed amendment neither the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, nor any provision of that document would protect the artificial entities known of as corporations.
Jefferson and Madison were so insistent upon this amendment because the American Revolution was in substantial degree a revolt against the domination of colonial economic and political life by the greatest multinational corporation of its age: the British East India Company...In the end the amendment was not adopted because a majority in the first Congress believed that already existing state laws governing corporations were adequate for constraining corporate power. Jefferson worried about the growing influence of corporate power until his dying day in 1826. Even the more conservative founder John Adams came to harbor deep misgivings about unchecked corporate power.
Jefferson is at times quite amazing and far seeing. Restarting a push for the 11th Amendment to make it illegal for corporations to own other corporations, etc. is worth considering. When you consider the amount of leveraging and coverup that the rich are able to achieve because corporations can own other corporations you will get an idea of how much power follows from this ownership structure. Emancipate the corporations owned by other corporations and you will dramatically reduce the control the 1% has over power and wealth.
When the Constitution was up for approval by the states, several insisted on having a bill of rights. Among others, Thomas Jefferson was opposed to this on the grounds that these amendments were redundant - that the Constitution already guaranteed all rights to the people that were not specifically restricted through the enumerated powers of government. The ninth Amendment specifically reiterates this observation.
The fact that the first Amendment does not specifically mention people does not really change the rights of the people - it only recites a few of them for emphasis.
If corporations are people, then instead of token fines for major pollution and other repeat offenses, the CEO's should go to jail w/o parole. Three strikes and you're out - just like people.
Agree.
And if corporations are considered people, then should be adjudged legally insane as they are, by their very nature, narcissistic sociopaths at best and conscience-less murdering psychopaths at worst.
I think the problem with this whole argument is the short-hand way that the Citizens United decision has been misrepresented as saying that corporations are people. That is not what it really says. Rather it says that corporations have the rights guaranteed to persons under the constitution. In no way does this say that corporations have any of the responsibilities of persons under the laws of the states, regulations of cities or even the highest laws of the country.
This is why I have long thought that the best argument against Citizens United was in the 13th amendment that guarantees that no person shall be a slave. If corporations have the rights of persons then they certainly have the right not to be slaves; in other words they have the right not to be owned by other persons or groups of persons, natural or otherwise. What a mess this conclusion makes of Wall Street!
From SCOTUSblog.com: Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
"Holding: Political spending is a form of protected speech under the First Amendment, and the government may not keep corporations or unions from spending money to support or denounce individual candidates in elections."
In fact, the decision, like the Santa Clara County v Southern Pacific (1886) decision which began this nonsense, starts from the premise that corporations and unions are people under the Constitution, and additionally that money is a form of speech (Buckley v. Valeo, 1976). Without that premise, it's impossible to extend First Amendment rights to corporations.