'Corporations Are People' Is Built on a 19th-Century Lie

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/03/corporations-people-adam-winkler/554852/?single_page=true

by elsewhen • 8 years ago

13 11 8 years ago

IntronExon• 8 years ago

Let them be people, with all of the liabilities, responsibilities, and legal obligations as people. Otherwise what are we really talking about? The rights and privileges of personhood, but without any of the accountability? How absurd it is.

Indeed, the faux precedent in the Southern Pacific case would go on to be used by a Supreme Court that in the early 20th century became famous for striking down numerous economic regulations, including federal child-labor laws, zoning laws, and wage-and-hour laws. Meanwhile, in cases like the notorious Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), those same justices refused to read the Constitution as protecting the rights of African Americans, the real intended beneficiaries of the Fourteenth Amendment. Between 1868, when the amendment was ratified, and 1912, the Supreme Court would rule on 28 cases involving the rights of African Americans and an astonishing 312 cases on the rights of corporations.

Absurd!

srtjstjsj2• 8 years ago

What this shows is that judicial decisions are not based on "lies" or anything else. They are opinions; judges make decisions and work backwards toward reasons. The very existence of dissenting opinions shows that any case can be decided any way a justice wants. In the 19th Century, that meant that justices took away rights that the 13-15th Amendment tried to to protect.

CyberDildonics3• 8 years ago

If corporations were people, they would be subject to things like the 3 strikes law and the death penalty. People don't get the chance to simply pay fines for harming people.

freech• 8 years ago

The employees of corporations are absolutely subject to things like the 3 strikes law and the death penalty for things they do for the corporation. So it makes sense that they have the same rights when they do things for the corporation.

It would be inconsistent to say: If you do something in the employment of a corporation you have same duties as anyone who acts on his own, but none of the rights.

oldcynic• 8 years ago

Yes but, if corporations themselves are legally persons it should be the corporation that is tried for murder, and potentially sentenced to death. I'm not sure how you'd imprison a corporation under the 3 strikes law, but I leave that as an exercise for the Supreme Court

Otherwise they are wanting the rights of a person with none of the obligations and thus should not have them.

gt_• 8 years ago

The problem here is pseudo-philosophical at most but if there’s an easy answer, it’s definitely not to interpret the metaphor literally.

If the entities are exchangeable (as you treat them) then the premise void. Are you sure you understand the problem? Exchanging one for the other may work in semantics but not in physical reality, because only one of them is physically real.

srtjstjsj2• 8 years ago

That's not true. If a corporation of people borrows money from you, and doesn't pay you back, you can't pursue repayment from them. The "corporation" is bankrupt, because it gave its (your) money to its employees or owners, who are not liable.

kingofhdds2• 8 years ago

Sorry, but you essentially say "it must be different because it's regulated by different legal norms", and it is a nice example of logical fallacy. I'm, by the way, don't have any stakes in this debate (I'm not a US citizen), but the fact that your statement is built on sand is clearly visible from across the Atlantic (and I don't mean the magazine).

CyberDildonics3• 8 years ago

If it is so clear, why didn't you bother to explain what you are saying instead of just stating what your position?

'Corporations Are People' Is Built on a 19th-Century Lie

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