Time for a Real Debate: Are Corporations People?

[marmar]

Published on Saturday, January 7, 2012 by [font color="blue"]CommonDreams.org[/font]
Time for a Real Debate: Are Corporations People?

by Robert Hinkley

"Corporations are people, my friend... of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to the people. Where do you think it goes? Whose pockets? Whose pockets? People's pockets. Human beings my friend."—Mitt Romney

It’s true that corporations have no ability to act for themselves. They only act through people; their officers, directors, employees, lawyers and agents. However, the important question to ask is “do corporations behave like people?” Because if they don’t behave like people, our nation faces a serious problem it wasn’t designed to handle.

Our form of government was created in 1788 with the adoption of the US Constitution. This was a time when there were only a handful of corporations in existence (and none of the modern variety which have no obligations to protect the public interest). As a consequence, there is no mention anywhere in the Constitution of the word corporation.

This means that our government governs people and corporations the same way—through the passage of laws enacted by our elected representatives. Until such laws are passed, both people and corporations can harm the environment and other elements of the public interest to the extent they have the capacity and inclination to do so. Sometimes the passage of effective new laws can take a very long time. Sometimes such laws never get passed.

The public interest is exposed while our leaders decide what should be done. However, people are unlikely to take advantage of this situation. They generally have little capacity or inclination to engage in behavior that harms the public interest. Modern corporations, on the other hand, have plenty of both. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/07-2

[izquierdista]

1. If they are, they need to be in a mental hospital

A corporation allows the rich person owning or running it to do all manner of greedy, criminal, and sociopathic things, all with the excuse of "maximizing shareholder return".

[orpupilofnature57]

2. The Supreme Court Gave Mitt Fit , the right to lie

Thomas Jefferson said "Beware of the Monied interests".

[City Lights]

3. Corporations are not people. End of story.

It is absurd to say otherwise, regardless of what the "Supreme" Court says.

To convince me otherwise, the person known as Exxon-Mobil or BP, for example, will have to go to jail. The corporation will have to be held to the same standard and suffer the same consequence as the least-powerful person. Until then, corporations are not people.

[RC]

4. But "We the people..." are mentioned.

"As a consequence, there is no mention anywhere in the Constitution of the word corporation.

This means that our government governs people and corporations the same way..."

No, that means that our government does NOT govern people and corporations the same way. For if it did, the Constitution WOULD have mentioned corporations, you mindless dork!.

[rfranklin]

5. The Founding Fathers were very wary of corporations...

Although corporations were not mentioned once in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights,
Thomas Jefferson famously noted that representative government’s purpose was “to curb the excesses
of the monied interests.” Had the Founders realized how powerful corporations would become, likely
they would have created checks on their power

http://www.citizenworks.org/corp/dg/s2r1.pdf

[CanonRay]

6. Here's my only debate point:

Fuck no.

That is all.

[saras]

7. Let's not. It's a STUPID waste of time.

Corporations are no more people than horses are lug nuts, and to pretend otherwise, even for a moment, is stupidity worthy of a drunken six-year-old.

The debate as to what we might gain or lose by treating corporations as though they were the legal equivalent of people in certain specific contexts could potentially be productive, but people seem to prefer their fantasies and beliefs.