"'Corporations Are People' Is Built on an Incredible 19th-Century Lie"

[Ted King]

"How a farcical series of events in the 1880s produced an enduring and controversial legal precedent"

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/arc...er/554852/

Introductory paragraph:

Somewhat unintuitively, American corporations today enjoy many of the same rights as American citizens. Both, for instance, are entitled to the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion. How exactly did corporations come to be understood as “people” bestowed with the most fundamental constitutional rights? The answer can be found in a bizarre—even farcical—series of lawsuits over 130 years ago involving a lawyer who lied to the Supreme Court, an ethically challenged justice, and one of the most powerful corporations of the day.

If this article is accurate, then this historical accounting of how corporations were granted "personhood" by the Supreme Court in the 1880s is disgusting - especially considering how economic conservative justices have managed to expand those rights. The First Gilded Age helping supercharge this Second Gilded Age.

[Acer]

I wouldn't trust any corporation- or finance-related precedents from the Gilded Age.

[pdq]

I still wish some pol with a spine would propose a constitutional amendment that simply states, in the eyes of the law, corporations are not people.

I can't imagine anyone without an agenda opposing that.

[Ted King]

pdq wrote:
I still wish some pol with a spine would propose a constitutional amendment that simply states, in the eyes of the law, corporations are not people.

I can't imagine anyone without an agenda opposing that.

I like the idea but can foresee a billion dollar blizzard of media "explaining" how corporate personhood is absolutely necessary to keep our economy from sinking into some kind of terrible abyss and furthermore is a foundation for our culture (it must be in the Ten Commandments or at least somewhere in the Bible).

[Acer]

I've seen where "personhood" of corporations is what shields owners, boards and shareholders from being personally responsible for the debt should the business fail.

Of course, we could just write a law that says as much without giving corporations all the other rights of personhood.

[pdq]

Ted King wrote:
[quote=pdq]
I still wish some pol with a spine would propose a constitutional amendment that simply states, in the eyes of the law, corporations are not people.

I can't imagine anyone without an agenda opposing that.

I like the idea but can foresee a billion dollar blizzard of media "explaining" how corporate personhood is absolutely necessary to keep our economy from sinking into some kind of terrible abyss and furthermore is a foundation for our culture (it must be in the Ten Commandments or at least somewhere in the Bible).
Bring it. A corporation is not a person, and everyone can see that. I have no doubt there would be a media blitz by opponents, but I think it would do little more than show what side their bread is buttered on.

[Mr Downtown]

pdq wrote:
I still wish some pol with a spine would propose a constitutional amendment that simply states, in the eyes of the law, corporations are not people.

How would you write such an amendment so that corporations can still have freedom of the press (to publish newspapers, to support candidates, etc.)?

I'm not sure how this trope got started that the problem was corporate personhood. That's always been the entire point of having a corporation: it has to be a person in the eyes of the law to make contracts or to be sued.

[Ted King]

Acer wrote:
I've seen where "personhood" of corporations is what shields owners, boards and shareholders from being personally responsible for the debt should the business fail.

Of course, we could just write a law that says as much without giving corporations all the other rights of personhood.

Yep, the laws could just say that you - with others if you so choose - can form this contractual thing we'll agree to call a corporation. The laws can stipulate that part of the contractual language can contain provisions that separate individual capital from corporate capital so that if the corporation goes bankrupt then the individual capital is not part of the corporate assets that would have to go to the corporations creditors.

[pdq]

Mr Downtown wrote:
[quote=pdq]
I still wish some pol with a spine would propose a constitutional amendment that simply states, in the eyes of the law, corporations are not people.

How would you write such an amendment so that corporations can still have freedom of the press (to publish newspapers, to support candidates, etc.)?
What makes you think corporations need to have (complete and unregulated) freedom of the press, or support political candidates, when the vast majority of the people that work for the corporation have no input into those decisions?

Corporations are not people. (...and, FWIW, people are able to sue lots of entities that are not people.)

[Mr Downtown]

You don't understand why The New York Times Corp. or Random House should have freedom of the press? Why Common Cause or the NRA should be able to support political candidates?

What's a "non-person" entity (other than a unit of government) that can be sued?