For instance, how can a corporation be granted the same legal status as actual people, when a corporation can defend their side of a lawsuit indefinitely? Even given the inherently radical imbalance of power in such a case, a corporation doesn’t suffer biological death and can therefore carry on its case for a theoretically infinite amount of time into the future.
The portion of this section of The Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society Volume 2, by Robert W. Kolb titled “The Right to Exist” (and other portions such as “The Right to Bear Arms”) is also interesting.
I am of two minds on this. I understand the need that corporations should have rights near or equal to a regular citizen. I also think that giving them such rights is going down a slippery slope. It could actually cause more civil freedoms to be lost and we have so little to spare anymore.
I have to think though that corporations employ the greatest amount of citizens and so protecting corporations also gives protection to employment.
corporate personhood is a farce - a corporation is a machine, not a living organism - it is a structure built out of capital - and you can’t build a person out of money
Sure it should, but it shouldn’t be granted that right based on the ridiculous notion that MSNBC and the Wall Street Journal are people , if anything they are mechanisms through which freedom of speech is practiced, they should not themselves posessed of human rights above and beyond the rights of their living constituents - to say a news corporation has freedom of speech seems to me like saying that a radio or a TV set or the internet has freedom of speech - it is to conflate the medium with the content
I suggest we view a corporation as what it is - a voluntary group of people. A corporation is a person in the strictly legal/technical sense - a corporation can be sued singly, for example, which is much more efficient than separately suing each of the managers/owners.
Freedom of Speech can be (properly) understood as an aspect of property rights. If I (as a natural person, or together with my business partners having formed a corporation) own a printing press, part of my property rights extend to using it to publish.
The corporation’s rights are simply derived from the rights of the natural persons owning it.
A limited corporate personhood should be expected, but what we have now is laughable. A publically traded corporation is ownded by the shareholders who hold their board of directors and CEO responsible for running the business of the corporation, right? The reality is that a board of directors does everything possible to prevent shareholders from having any input in how the business is run or who runs it. The board, the CEO and other top execs are shielded from any responsibility to the actual owners, and given golden parachutes when they screw up and forced out of the company. If a corporation is granted personhood, where does responsibility lie?
Kristy,
If personhood needs to be in place to protect the livelyhood of it’s employees, please explain Enron to me…
Yes for some and no for others. If the corporation is found guilty of major crimes then under the act all that are employed by the company should be held responsible. If all within are not held to the same standard then its wrong. If the corporations and their employees wnat citizenship rights then they must all face the same consequences as private citizens do. I do think a partial compromise would be in order. we do need corporations as entities no matter what anyone thinks. Knock them down and more will spring up some how somewhere. So since they are a very large part of many economies. They should have some civil rights as one enitity.
No - a corporation is not a “mere creature of law”. It is a manifestation of the cooperation between real human beings. It derives its rights not from the law, as suggested by the quote, but from the rights of its owners.
I guess I can’t figure out what you’re saying. “Derives” is ambiguous. Are the corporation’s rights identical to the rights of its owners? If so, then corporations are persons according to the law. If the corporation is a merely a collection of individuals with rights, then the corporation is not a “person”, legally speaking, in any sense at all. If it’s something inbetween, which surely it is, then it is a “creature of law”.
Corporations have property rights reflecting the property rights of its owners. No more, no less. Thus on the one hand, it is no more justified to stop a corporation from using its property as it sees fit (e.g. donate to a political campaign) than it would be to stop an individual. On the other hand, I don’t think corporations should enjoy any extra rights, such as limited liability (which IS an artificial creation of the state).
If I am confusing (as I often am), I suggest you come up with specific instances in which the question of corporate personhood is relevant and, possibly controversial. That will make it easier to understand any ambiguities.
Sure but if you hold all employees accountable for their actions and others within that corporation then what are the chances of major crimes occuring? If you police yourself then noone else has to. Even the janitors can find criminal doings while they make their rounds, if they keep their mouths shut and turn a blind eye are they not responsible? The CEOs cannot commit a crime without the help of the other people within. If the employees want their corporation to have citizen rights then they must be ready to pay. And yes this is harsh but, If people want their jobs then they must be responsible to keep their job legal.
We have all seen those screaming children in stores where the parent just ignores the kid and everyone else suffers for it. Welll, this is different but not by much. People need to be held accountable not just the CEOs.
Ok, I’m still not positive but now I think you think corporations should have rights equal to individuals. Does this sound accurate?
I gave an example in the OP, where corporations don’t die after about 100 years of life maximum, yet can persevere indefinitely with regards to lawsuits, etc.
I think with this approach you’d practically ban corporations from even existing. Who would choose to be a janitor for an airline company? Should the janitor really share the liability? I think most of us might prefer self-sufficiency farming to that scenario. Is that your intention? Or do you believe I’m wrong about all that?