# "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:** 4
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/61 "2012-08-11T08:46:51Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Just to be clear, polls show that 80% of Americans oppose the decision, so I think it’s safe to say that plenty of right-wingers already oppose it. And I wonder how many of them actually understood the decision. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/62 "2012-08-11T09:02:11Z")
Doesn’t matter too much, since the only way it can be overturned is by amendment, and the text of the proposed amendments would poll even worse than the Citizens United decision. All of the proposed amendments either effectively repeal the 1st amendment, or self-nullify. ---
**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 11, 2012, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/63 "2012-08-11T10:13:23Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I don’t know that corporations have “full personhood”, so much as there is no legal alternative to treating an organization that can act like a person as anything other than a person. > > … If it can talk like a person, it has the right to talk. if it can be prosecuted, it has the right to a defense. if it can seek redress in courts, it has the right to seek redress in courts. 😕 Are you assuming what you seek to prove? And in what sense can a corporation “act like a person”? It can’t get married. It can’t be imprisoned. Its officers can be imprisoned, or even held liable, though its owners can not be. The whole notion of “corporations are legal persons” began with the limited liability notion and now, because a long-ago lawyer coined the term “legal person”, we conclude “there is no legal alternative to treating an organization that can act like a person as anything other than a person” ? 😕 :smack: But I confess I’m not sure what the debate is about. Do unincorporated associations (an unlimited partnership, a family, my sister’s knitting club) “act like a person”? They can “talk like a person” (at least as much as corporations can) and “can seek redress in courts.” ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/64 "2012-08-11T10:15:58Z")
I think the bottom line is that where corporations get into the same issues as individuals do, they have to be treated the same as individuals to the extent possible. Again, if you don’t like equal protection for corporations, what’s the alternative? If you don’t like free speech for corporations, then does this mean all corporate output, like books and movies, lacks free speech protections? I’m just not sure how a world where corporations weren’t treated as persons would work. It seems like the objections are more a case of lashing out than thinking through the issue. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/65 "2012-08-11T14:32:55Z")
> [@Untoward\_Parable](#): > > Corporations in the US are invested in by foreign persons and entities to a large degree. So when the corporation speaks in the US political sphere they are partly the voice of international wealth. There may be an argument to be made that that’s good (I would never agree with That) but freedom of speech in the US is the right of citizens not foreigners with gobs of money. That is not what the Constitution of the United States says. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/66 "2012-08-11T14:38:24Z")
So foreign persons do not have free speech rights in the United States? You mean that we could pass a law (with mandatory prison time) against Canadians coming down here and bitching because we use Fahrenheit temperature? Come to think of it, I like that. 🙂 ---
**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 11, 2012, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/67 "2012-08-11T14:40:08Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > If you don’t like free speech for corporations, then does this mean all corporate output, like books and movies, lacks free speech protections? I’m just not sure how a world where corporations weren’t treated as persons would work. It seems like the objections are more a case of lashing out than thinking through the issue. 😕 😕 😕 :smack: AFAIK, the entire thread is about _Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission_. Four of the 9 SCOTUS Justices dissented from that opinion. Apparently you accuse those Justices of “lashing out” rather than “thinking through the issue.” One of us is lashing out rather than thinking – if we were in BBQ Pit I’d say which of us it was. If you think that everyone who was happier with controls on campaign spending endorses the “Corporation”=“consummate evil” gibberish in OP title, I can see why you’re confused. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/68 "2012-08-11T14:44:29Z")
septimus, not one of the justices said that corporations don’t have free speech rights or were not persons. So yes, those who think corporations should not be treated as persons or don’t have free speech rights are lashing out and not thinking it through. As for foreigners mentioned a couple posts back, that means we can ban the BBC? ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/69 "2012-08-11T14:48:05Z")
> [@Lightnin](#): > > Let’s say Bill issues his statement. He then issues his statement with his neighbor, who had also issued his own statement. Then they each individually issue statements with another neighbor, who, of course, had already issued statements both by himself and with each of his other neighbors. > > That’s three people, speaking as if they’re 7 people, just because they’re smart about how they issue their statements. Add another one and… well, you get the idea (and it’s way too early for me to be doing this much math). > > Why does the act of incorporating mean that your voice suddenly counts more than a singular individual’s voice? > > And thanks to Citizens United, groups of people can speak much louder than an individual can… so why would individuals bother speaking on their own? It’s far more efficient just to join a bunch of corporations and have \*unlimited \*amounts of [DEL]money[/DEL] speech that they can spend on whatever political issue they want. Isn’t that the whole purpose of forming groups? Your voice gets louder with numbers? Do you have the same objection with the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances? After all, that petition gives people a louder voice than if they individually wrote letters. The whole idea of free speech is so that individuals and groups of individuals can influence political discourse. You seem to be arguing that allowing groups to speak just makes speech too darn successful. Well, that’s the whole point of the first amendment! ---
**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 11, 2012, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/70 "2012-08-11T14:55:52Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > septimus, not one of the justices said that corporations don’t have free speech rights or were not persons. So yes, those who think corporations should not be treated as persons or don’t have free speech rights are lashing out and not thinking it through. Pull that out of your ear? [QUOTE=Justice Stevens, joined by three other Justices] The conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons in the political sphere is not only inaccurate but also inadequate to justify the Court’s disposition of this case. In the context of election to public office, the distinction between corporate and human speakers is significant. Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it. They cannot vote or run for office. Because they may be managed and controlled by nonresidents, their interests may conflict in fundamental respects with the interests of eligible voters. The financial resources, legal structure, and instrumental orientation of corporations raise legitimate concerns about their role in the electoral process. Our lawmakers have a compelling constitutional basis, if not also a democratic duty, to take measures designed to guard against the potentially deleterious effects of corporate spending in local and national races. The majority’s approach to corporate electioneering marks a dramatic break from our past. Congress has placed special limitations on campaign spending by corporations ever since the passage of the Tillman Act in 1907, ch. 420, 34 Stat. 864. We have unanimously concluded that this “reflects a permissible assessment of the dangers posed by those entities to the electoral process,”… [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/71 "2012-08-11T14:57:36Z")
Which is not the argument I made. I did not say that Stevens believed that corporations must be treated identically. Stevens’ decision says that the BCRA restrictions constitute reasonable “time, place, and manner” restrictions on political speech. It does not say that corporations simply don’t have 1st amendment rights or are not persons. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2012, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/72 "2012-08-12T00:10:18Z")
> [@Untoward\_Parable](#): > > Corporations in the US are invested in by foreign persons and entities to a large degree. So when the corporation speaks in the US political sphere they are partly the voice of international wealth. There may be an argument to be made that that’s good (I would never agree with That) but freedom of speech in the US is the right of citizens not foreigners with gobs of money. How exactly do corporations “speak in the US political sphere”? If a large corporation is looking for a place to bring millions of dollars of tax revenue and thousands of jobs, do they not have some right to enter into negotiations with the appropriate government entities for a mutually beneficial deal? ---
**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 12, 2012, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/73 "2012-08-12T00:18:44Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > How exactly do corporations “speak in the US political sphere”? By handing money to politicians and telling them what they want the politicians to do in return for that money. And the politicians do what they are told. America is for most purposes a plutocracy with a democratic facade. The only votes that _really_ matter are dollars. > [@msmith537](#): > > If a large corporation is looking for a place to bring millions of dollars of tax revenue and thousands of jobs, do they not have some right to enter into negotiations with the appropriate government entities for a mutually beneficial deal? They’d never shown any interest in “mutually beneficial”. And they spend money on all sorts of issues that have nothing to do with their business; Chik-fil-a’s support for anti-homosexual hate groups being a recent famous example. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2012, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/74 "2012-08-12T00:28:15Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Chik-fil-a’s support for anti-homosexual hate groups being a recent famous example. CFA is an atrocious example to try to make your point with because it’s not contributing to such groups, its owners are, and in any case it’s a privately held company with no shareholders outside the family of its founder to answer to. If it ws like most large corporations, with a board of directors answering to shareholders, the gay-hating shit would be in the rear view mirror long ago, because there would have been pressure to cut out the stupid crap that has nothing to do with selling chicken sandwiches. In effect, its owners are contributing to gay-hating with their salaries. That has jack shit to do with legal personhood, or Citizens United, or any of that stuff. If CFA started buying ad time with company funds, that’d be a different story. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2012, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/75 "2012-08-12T05:23:25Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > They’d never shown any interest in “mutually beneficial”. And they spend money on all sorts of issues that have nothing to do with their business; Chik-fil-a’s support for anti-homosexual hate groups being a recent famous example. Well..no. It’s up to the other party to negotiate terms beneficial to them. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2012, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/76 "2012-08-12T06:14:22Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > Isn’t that the whole purpose of forming groups? Your voice gets louder with numbers? What? Groups are formed to accomplish what individuals alone or in contention would find difficult or insurmountable, not specifically to engage in messaging, political or otherwise. My mother’s _Ladies’ Sewing Circle and Terrorist Society_ was not formed for the purpose of disseminating messages, information and propaganda outside the group, its purpose as a group is to collaborate in patterns, techniques and fiendish plans. Communicating with outsiders is not always a significant function of a group (except perhaps by blowing them up). Consider for example the Tillamook County Creamery Association, which began as a sort of co-op of area dairy farmers to facilitate the shipment, and later processing, of their product. The aspect of forming a group for the purpose of gaining a stronger voice is largely missing here, unless you somehow equate speech with commerce. Corporations are formed to do a thing, usually the speech thing is more of a side effect. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2012, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/77 "2012-08-12T17:13:09Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > 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.) So, since people have the right to exercise their human rights as individuals but collectivization of said rights is bad, unions are also bad. This is especially true when you make the generally false assumption that union membership is uniform in nature and that the decisions of its leadership represent the beliefs of the rank-and-file membership in anything but a broad and very general manner. I don’t think people thought this the whole way through before they got upset about it. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2012, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/78 "2012-08-12T18:33:42Z")
Unions are, by their very nature, political. It can hardly be otherwise, as the forces which seek to weaken and destroy unionization act with political power, they use legislation to their ends. Perhaps in the beginning, another course might have been possible. In that beginning, labor was hardly more than Oliver Twist holding forth his bowl and saying “Please, sir, I want some more?”. The answer was “No, fuck you, you can have some more when you have the power to take it!” Challenge accepted. The core premise of a corporation is business, and to that end, they seek to manipulate politics. The destruction of unions would, in a short sighted way, enhance their bottom line. But we are no longer an industrial economy, we are a consumer economy, and if the consumer does not have any money, there is no economy. And the consumer works for a living. A reasonable progressive looks forward in the hope that cooperation and mutual respect between labor and capital is possible and can be realized. But given the competitive nature of our culture, that is only possible in one of two ways: either labor has the political and economic power to demand a fair share, or fairness is delivered from the generous and kindly hand of capital, as an expression of their Christian humanity. Scant evidence thus far. When there is an equivalence of power between the contesting parties, such compromise and mutual respect is viable, perhaps even inevitable. Absent such an equivalence, it is essentially impossible. ---
**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 12, 2012, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/79 "2012-08-12T19:09:22Z")
What’s the difference between an industrial and a consumer economy? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2012, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987/80 "2012-08-12T19:59:34Z")
Corporations are either not persons, or have no speech rights, or they ARE persons, in which case they are sociopaths, since they have no interest other than making money. Pick yer poison, can’t have both. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporation-consummate-evil-how-can-a-corporation-be-a-person/630987.md?page=5)