Corporate Personhood

[MaxFF]

I guess this issue isn't as hot as it was way back when the Supreme Court ruled on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, but its still an issue some people feel strongly about, and I happened to be bored today and did some google searches about corporate personhood.

Why exactly is it that corporations are people? In most legal systems only people can be sued, so if a sole proprietorship or a partnership causes damages, you can sue the owners. However a corporation is different in that the owners are not liable for any damages. So owners couldn't be sued because they weren't liable, and corporations couldn't be sued because they weren't people, so what were people to do? The courts of many countries eventually created the legal fiction of corporate personhood, so that they could be sued.

Now the important thing to remember is that even though they were legal persons they were not granted all the same rights as natural persons, they usually only had a few legal rights, "the right to a common treasury or chest (including the right to own property), the right to a corporate seal (i.e., the right to make and sign contracts), the right to sue and be sued (to enforce contracts), the right to hire agents (employees) and the right to make by-laws (self-governance)." Just enough rights to do business transactions and be held accountable for them. And that sounds like the type of corporate personhood that I can get behind.

Unfortunately corporate rights have expanded greatly in many places in the world, most notably the United States. In 1886, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, the supreme court ruled that the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment applied to corporations, and was the first of many rulings where corporations would be granted rights found in the constitution. The most recent ruling of this nature was the aforementioned Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, where corporations get the same free speech rights as regular people, and money = speech.

So basically corporate personhood was just something made up so corporations could be held liable, it wasn't intended to give the same rights as real people. I don't see a problem with corporate personhood if the rights are limited the way they originally were, however there is no reason why corporations should have any more rights than that. They aren't really people its just a convenient abstraction to treat them that way for certain legal procedures.

source: several wikipedia pages. No doubt someone will comment telling me how its not a reliable source.

[E-lad]

It is my understanding that corporate personhood allows the corporations to make unlimited contributions to political candidates effectively giving them control of the election process since very often the candidates with the most money, win.

[E-lad]

"The decision held that corporations have the same First Amendment rights as people, and that political spending was free speech. The ruling allowed corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections, so long as their actions were not directly coordinated with a candidate’s campaign."

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/08/s ... ersonhood/

[MaxFF]

It is my understanding that corporate personhood allows the corporations to make unlimited contributions to political candidates effectively giving them control of the election process since very often the candidates with the most money, win.

Then I suppose there needs to be a distinction between being an actual person, and being treated as a person for a specific purpose. Example: corporations originally could not be sued because only people could be sued, that's why corporate personhood was originally created. If we just abolished corporate personhood, presumably we would run into the original problem of not being allowed to sue them, unless there was a specific provision in the law that allows non persons to be sued. Or maybe putting in provisions that corporations will be treated as a person for certain purposes, but it really isn't one.

Since corporate personhood is not part of any statute it is a legal fiction made up by the courts which originally served the purpose of letting corporations be sued. The legal fiction means that they are not really people they are just treated as people in certain situations. Corporations cannot yet vote even though people can, among other recognized differences between people and corporations. So far the courts decide where the limits of corporate rights are, but a law which says which situations to treat a corporation as a person and when not to could solve the problem. There must be some way to make corporations partially like people so they can enter contracts and be sued, but not entirely equal to people.

[MaxFF]

Maybe I can explain this a different way. If we think of corporations as inanimate objects they cannot be sued or prosecuted for criminal offenses. The idea of corporate personhood was created centuries ago for that purpose. It didn't make them equal to natural persons, it simply treated them as though they were persons for the sake of legal procedures so they could be held accountable for crimes.

They idea of corporations having free speech rights equal to natural persons is a recent invention that has nothing to do with the centuries old idea of corporate personhood. Maybe the word personhood carries too strong a connotation and we need to call it something else, but it should be possible, and historically it has been possible, to treat corporations as a person for legal procedures without granting all the rights of natural persons.

Even today with all the rights corporations have amassed, there are still some rights only natural persons have and corporations don't which proves that its reasonable to deny corporation certain rights and still think of them as persons.

[E-lad]

I completely understand those concepts. It is the recent rulings that allow them to control elections. Just roll that back and everybody is happy.

[MaxFF]

I completely understand those concepts. It is the recent rulings that allow them to control elections. Just roll that back and everybody is happy.

Sorry I think I misunderstood your comments, the first one seemed me to like you were agreeing that personhood necessarily meant they had first amendment rights, when in fact you were just reporting the supreme court position on it. I guess I overreacted and wrote a ton of unnecessary paragraphs explaining how personhood can exist without granting them full rights.

[E-lad]

I completely understand those concepts. It is the recent rulings that allow them to control elections. Just roll that back and everybody is happy.

Sorry I think I misunderstood your comments, the first one seemed me to like you were agreeing that personhood necessarily meant they had first amendment rights, when in fact you were just reporting the supreme court position on it. I guess I overreacted and wrote a ton of unnecessary paragraphs explaining how personhood can exist without granting them full rights.

No prob. I've done that plenty of times, but yes. We make rules. Rules are normally made by reasonable people. They are often not enforced by reasonable people. And when a rule or law has unintended consequences then it would seem easy enough to change, but we find if an unfair law benefits unintended entities, those people rally to perpetuate it; in this case the people with the unintended influence.


In any event, your comments were insightful and thanks for the research notes!

Froggie

[E-lad]

Max, here's an interesting article on campaign finance reform by Julian Brookes at Rolling Stone:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/bl ... z1sibrEEL3

[MaxFF]

Max, here's an interesting article on campaign finance reform by Julian Brookes at Rolling Stone:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/bl ... z1sibrEEL3

Actually that's a great idea, a documentary about the Koch brothers, and their political influence. People can't just hear about corporate influence in politics as an abstract idea, they need to see the damage it causes. I'd like to think almost anyone(not including corporate executives) who catches a glimpse of that ugliness would immediately be in favor of campaign finance reform. Of course the problem is that now that corporations have amassed such huge political influence, its going to be a colossal task to restrain them. I look forward to the day when corporations are knocked down a few pegs and put in their place.