# "Corporation"="consummate evil"; how can a corporation be a person? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 9, 2012, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987 "2012-08-09T19:12:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/21 "2012-08-10T01:22:26Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > We’ve had these threads before, but I still can’t understand this argument. So, you have a freedom of speech. Your neighbor, Bill, has a freedom of speech. > > But if you AND Bill want to get together and form the “Two Neighbors Against Potholes in Front of Our Houses” group, then there is no freedom of speech there and the government can shut you both up? It seems silly. Because it’s \*not \*shutting them up. They still have the same amount of free speech they had before. However, under our current system, they also now have \*more \*free speech- their own, individual voices, and their collective voice. That’s why it seems silly to me to use that argument against corporate personhood. Nobody’s right to free speech is infringed if corporations aren’t persons. They just don’t get an extra loud voice as a result of owning a corporation. ---
**Author:** ![greenslime1951](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e9bcb4/32.png) [@greenslime1951](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/greenslime1951)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/22 "2012-08-10T01:24:49Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > The problem is, a corporation isn’t people acting collectively; it’s a few people giving orders, and the rest obeying. Corporations don’t poll their workers before they give money to politicians who work against the interests of those workers. Fundamental misunderstanding. Those who make the decisions have been hired by the corporation to do so. They can be fired for making decisions that don’t please the employers/shareholders. In fact, one of the fairly unique aspects of the corporate business model is that management and equity holders are often _not_ the same people. ---
**Author:** ![greenslime1951](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e9bcb4/32.png) [@greenslime1951](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/greenslime1951)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/23 "2012-08-10T01:28:44Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Because the individuals already have them, there is no particular reason why a collection of such individuals needs a second set of rights to augment the first. They already have the equal allotment that is their due. Perhaps, but that same argument could be used to supposedly render moot such things as gay rights, women’s rights, etc. legislation, as well as virtually all civil rights law. The Civil Rights Act of 1963 (I believe that’s the date), by your argument, was redundant because it codified rights that already existed. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/24 "2012-08-10T01:31:36Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Corporations are also often devices of the not-so-wealthy. Lots of small business owners incorporate. But the _Citizens United_ ruling does not give **them** much more political-electoral influence than they would have if it had gone the other way. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/25 "2012-08-10T01:48:22Z")
> [@Lightnin](#): > > Because it’s \*not \*shutting them up. They still have the same amount of free speech they had before. However, under our current system, they also now have \*more \*free speech- their own, individual voices, and their collective voice. Well, I’m not buying that argument, but even if we accept it, then Congress still acted in the wrong, since it’s not supposed to enact a law that abridges freedom of speech. If the law took us from a state of more free speech to a state of less free speech, then the law is unconstitutional since it “abridged” free speech. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/26 "2012-08-10T01:59:51Z")
Greenslime, this appears to be another thread where you express your unhappiness with the way people make wild unsubstantiated sweeping accusations. Just as a tip, you’d have more credibility if you didn’t use wild unsubstantiated sweeping accusations at a toll in making your point. Two possible reasons why _some_ people might have _some_ problems with _some_ corporations: 1. Concentration of power. Corporations can represent an accumulation of the resources of thousands of people which are then controlled by a dozen or so leaders. As individuals, all of these people were limited in what they could do. But the leaders of a corporation are like the President of a country or the general of an army - he or she can now take actions that are far beyond what any individual could do. 2. Limited liability. This is, after all, the reason why corporations were created. But limited liability is just another way of saying avoiding responsibility. A corporation can make it possible for people to do things without the consequences they would face if they did those things as individuals. My main point is that there are restrictions that society places on individuals. If corporations are immune to these restrictions, it makes sense for society to establish an equivalent set of restrictions for corporations. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/27 "2012-08-10T02:16:40Z")
> [@Lightnin](#): > > Because it’s \*not \*shutting them up. They still have the same amount of free speech they had before. However, under our current system, they also now have \*more \*free speech- their own, individual voices, and their collective voice. > > That’s why it seems silly to me to use that argument against corporate personhood. Nobody’s right to free speech is infringed if corporations aren’t persons. They just don’t get an extra loud voice as a result of owning a corporation. Okay. How about if the neighbor issues a statement against the potholes and Bill issues a statement saying that he agrees with what his neighbor said? You would agree that is fine, I assume. Now, if they issue a joint statement, The poster and Bill hereby protest these potholes. Is that okay? I would assume and hope so. Why does it become different if they name their association? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/28 "2012-08-10T02:29:06Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Workers aren’t part of a corporation unless they hold stock. Stockholders buy the stock voluntarily and agree to the terms of the corporation sets for governing itself. If you only want to own stock in companies that do poll stockholders, you are free to do so. > > Do you poll your babysitter before you decide to put a vote for Obama sign in your front yard? My hypothetical babysitter isn’t making me money that I can then use to fund laws that oppress her. The workers are the corporation, regardless of what the law says; you might as well argue that your flesh and bones aren’t part of you. The managers are the ones who control it; the workers are the body of the corporation. Stockholders aren’t much more than a gullible source of resources that has to be placated until the time comes for the top management to loot the company and leave them in the lurch when the stock collapses. > [@greenslime1951](#): > > Fundamental misunderstanding. Those who make the decisions have been hired by the corporation to do so. They can be fired for making decisions that don’t please the employers/shareholders. In the real world management hires each other and are a near closed caste. Shareholders don’t have control, the managers do; the managers can and will destroy a corporation for their own profit, ruin the worth of the stocks held by those stockholders, and then be immediately hired by another corporation which is run by their buddies who do the same thing. Ownership matters much less than control, and it’s not the stockholders who have control. Basically, you are making the same mistake as Marxism with its emphasis on “ownership of the means of production”, rather than control over what is done with it. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/29 "2012-08-10T03:24:41Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > The workers are the corporation… No, they are not. You don’t get to redefine terms to suit your agenda. A corporation, by definition, is made up of investors. Workers are workers. “Corporation” is a term of art. A legal term, like tenant or landlord or murder, theft or tax deduction. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/30 "2012-08-10T04:07:43Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Nope. It got going right after the _Citizens United_ ruling. Oh, no, this was a popular thing long before that, people just cited the Santa Clara vs Southern Pacific case as being when it started. The “why are corporations treated like people” thing has been a popular Internet discussion since long before Citizens United. ---
**Author:** ![greenslime1951](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e9bcb4/32.png) [@greenslime1951](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/greenslime1951)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/31 "2012-08-10T04:21:11Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Just as a tip, you’d have more credibility if you didn’t use wild unsubstantiated sweeping accusations at a toll in making your point. > > 1. Limited liability. This is, after all, the reason why corporations were created. But limited liability is just another way of saying avoiding responsibility.; Just as a tip, I made no “wild unsubstantiated sweeping accusations”; furthermore, I am not that concerned with whether I have “credibility” with you or not. You have a poor grasp of the concept if you think that limited liability is “the” reason corporations are/were created. It is **a** reason, but not even the most important one. And the populist, shallow stance that the persons forming a corporation do so “to avoid responsibility” is weak at best. You are confusing responsibility with liability. Other posters have noted that a corporation fundamentally differs from other types of entities because of its potential size. That size is, in turn, _enabled_ by limited liability. A sole/joint proprietorship doesn’t have to get very large before any of its business activities could result in complete ruin for _all_ stakeholders, due to joint and several liability (torts and others). Imagine, if you will, that every stockholder of, say, Exxon was jointly and severally liable for the company’s actions. No prudent person would own their stock, not because they are evil polluting world-dominating scum blah blah blah, but because owning their stock would be far too risky–it could result in disaster. The company would cease to exist, or would never have been formed in the first place. And by the way, as far as “avoiding responsibility,” that doesn’t include criminal responsibility, nor does it include proof against being sued _by the shareholders_ (as an individual). So the idea that people form corporations because they are some kind of magic shield against responsibility for malfeasance is pretty silly. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/32 "2012-08-10T04:45:13Z")
> [@greenslime1951](#): > > Just as a tip, I made no “wild unsubstantiated sweeping accusations” Just trying to help you acclimate with local customs. I can only assume that _“I’ve seen it here and elsewhere: “corporation” has become an inherently pejorative term, like, for instance, “bastard.” Corporations rob the public. Corporations wreck the environment. Corporations don’t pay their pair share of taxes. Etc. etc. etc.”_ doesn’t qualify as a wild unsubstantiated accusation on your homeworld. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/33 "2012-08-10T07:51:32Z")
I’ll believe that corporations are people just as soon as Texas executes one. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/34 "2012-08-10T08:20:37Z")
ACORN is incorporated. Good to know that they aren’t persons, and thus the FBI may raid their offices for any reason. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/35 "2012-08-10T08:40:18Z")
The right to free speech is a right afforded human beings. It doesn’t apply to parrots or computer programs; why should it apply to entities established as “legal persons” solely for the purpose of liability law? > [@greenslime1951](#): > > Answer me this: a corporation, in its essence, is a group of individuals. Why should that group _not_ have the same rights that the individuals comprising it have? Because the officer, stockholders and/or employees of that corporation are welcome to exercise their human rights as individuals. There was a time when corporations made political contributions via their officers. (This was abused of course; often officers were pressured to contribute even to candidates they opposed.) One point worth noting is that a corporation pursuing the fiduciary interest of its stockholders may make decisions that not one of those stockholders would make as an individual. An extreme (and bizarre) example of this is the Hershey Trust Company, set up by Milton Hershey, the great philanthropist and chocolate maker, to benefit the City of Hershey, Pennsylvania. Because of their “obligation” to maximize share value the Trust Company voted to … shut down the chocolate factory in Hershey and move their production overseas. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/36 "2012-08-10T09:19:48Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > One point worth noting is that a corporation pursuing the fiduciary interest of its stockholders may make decisions that not one of those stockholders would make as an individual. An extreme (and bizarre) example of this is the Hershey Trust Company, set up by Milton Hershey, the great philanthropist and chocolate maker, to benefit the City of Hershey, Pennsylvania. Because of their “obligation” to maximize share value the Trust Company voted to … shut down the chocolate factory in Hershey and move their production overseas. :smack: But they aren’t forced to, nothing stops them from taking other things into account such as brand image. It isn’t like they are robots forced to do any action just because it would save ten cents. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/37 "2012-08-10T10:12:22Z")
If corporations don’t have free speech rights, then that means any output by a corporation, such as books, movies, or music, is censorable. Thank goodness, I was wondering how we’d get around the 1st amendment so we could start getting rid of all the sex and violence in popular culture! I’m gratified to know that this is not a concern. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/38 "2012-08-10T10:32:37Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > If corporations don’t have free speech rights, then that means any output by a corporation, such as books, movies, or music, is censorable. Thank goodness, I was wondering how we’d get around the 1st amendment so we could start getting rid of all the sex and violence in popular culture! I’m gratified to know that this is not a concern. Don’t be silly. Corporations don’t create books, movies, or music - people do. As long as people have their individual rights of free speech, then the government cannot censor them. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/39 "2012-08-10T10:57:52Z")
Then this would apply to political ads, no? Those are also created by people, exactly the same way a movie or a TV show or a record album is made by people. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/40 "2012-08-10T11:03:25Z")
I can’t decide whether this is about all corporations or about whether some corporations can be “evil”. Certainly “all corporations” aren’t anything; they come in all shapes and sizes and behaviors. But it would also be true to say that some corporations have definitely engaged in behavior that was harmful to the general public. As it happens I was literally just reading “All the Devils Are Here” by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera and had just reached the following passage (and I hope this is a short enough excerpt to meet board rules; it’s a long book): > [@](#): > > In the aftermath of the crisis, Goldman Sachs would be excoriated by the press and the public - and investigated by Congress, the SEC and the Justice department - for the way it used synthetic mortgage-backed securities to advance its own interests, often at the expense of its clients. There was something a tad unfair about this focus on Goldman; its mercenary behavior wasn’t all that unique. Goldman was simply more skilled than its peers in looking out for its own interests. The firm had no grand scheme to destroy Wall Street. Its executives had no idea just how bad the destruction would be. Mainly, Goldman’s traders were just doing what they had alwyas been taught to do: _Protect the firm at all costs._ > > Yet somehow it was inevitable that Goldman would land at the center of the storm. The modern Goldman attitude - that there was no conflilct it couldn’t manage, no complex product too complex, and few trades the firm should turn its back on - was bound to leave a bad taste in the mouths of people who were not part of Wall Street. Other members of the Wall Street tribe often resented Goldman for the way it ran roughshod over its clients and counterparties. But they accepted it. It was just “Goldman being Goldman.” > > But for large swatches of the American public, many of whom lost their homes or jobs because of the financial crisis, Goldman’s behavior was deeply offensive. taking advantage of clients to save its own skin - and then denying that that’s what it had done - was not the way companies were supposed to act. People were also offended as they realized that Goldman had played as big a role as the rest of Wall Street in blowing the bubble bigger. Yet unlike millions of subprime borrowers, it largely escaped the damage it helped create. > > It was the mortage market that definitively put the lie to Goldman’s famous, sanctimonious first business principle, the one John Whitehead had articulated three-plus decades earlier: _Our client’s interests always come first._ They didn’t - and hadn’t for some time. As a 2007 training guide for the Goldman Sachs mortgage department noted, “However, this [the first business principle] is not always straightforward, as we are a market maker to multiple clients,” meaning that even when Goldman was servicing clients, it often had to choose which clients’ interests would come first. The presentation could have added that one of those clients , as often as not, was Goldman Sachs itself. [Italics as in the original source] You’d be hard-pressed to find many individuals or corporations who act evil in a mustache-twirling evil-for-evil’s-sake way. What you more often find are individuals or corporations putting their own short-term interests first in ways which have a disproportionately negative long-term impact on others. They play the markets, they lobby politicians, they tweak the products and lie to their customers for the sake of this year’s bonus, and let next year take care of itself. The end result still looks a lot like “evil” to me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987.md?page=3)