The rights of corporations exist independently of the 14th amendment, as they do for any other group of persons in any organizational structure. If groups had no rights, the government could, for instance, confiscate property held jointly, or simply ban groups at will. This has nothing to do with whether they organize as corporations.
Do you think corporations, or other groups, should have no rights? If a corporation is sued, does it have the right to an attorney? Does a corporation have no property rights?
You are saying “voters” like they are a unanimous mass. They are not. If any sizable portion of the electorate decides that their vote is meaningless, you gonna have a problem on your hands, especially if they find their lives turning to shit because of, you know, the economy being in the crapper for everyone but the rich people who have taken over our democracy. It’s just a matter of time.
If “sizeable” means a minority, it will be an ugly, and short, rebellion. if the corporations can control the masses at will, that means there is no hope of ever changing the system. The fact that most people actually do think it can be changed indicates that it’s not really as big a problem as they say it is.
Yes, it reminds me of the situation back in the 90s when term limits were all the rage. In a few places, a majority of voters approved term limit ballot initiatives - and at the same time elected incumbents who had already served more than the number of terms that the term limits applied.
Yes, ultimately an angry mob will do what it wants. But until that happens, we can still judge whether the mob is right or wrong. When half of Americans don’t even bother to show up to vote, I say they should stop whining about how their vote doesn’t matter.
Property rights do not even derive from the constitution (unless you’re going to argue that they’re part of the tenth amendment rights reserved for people - using the judicial interpretation of a corporation as a person). I don’t believe in limited liability. If a person invested in a business and they profit from its practices, then they are responsible when those practices cause death or injury.
Whatever. They’re still rights. Should groups not have them? As soon as you own property as a group - a corporation, partnership, heck, even a family - have you no rights?
Then you want everyone to become an independent merchant or mom and pop operation. Nobody will invest money or buy stock without limited liability. You don’t understand how the modern world works.
Given that government pension funds invest in corporations, that would mean that the pension fund would be on the hook for more than their investment should a corporation do wrong.
One has roughly equivalent rights as with sole ownership. Unless you can point to a specific right which is lost, other than a lack of liability.
Liability should apply for anyone that voluntarily funded an enterprise up to the total amount of profit they derived from the practices of that enterprise.
I see. Well, no soldiers will be reappropriating corporations or seizing their property without compensation, as the corporate holdings will be in the hands of people proportionally to the amount of money invested into the corporation. The rights granted by the fifth amendment are personal, after all.
You have a right to your share of a corporation’s property, but does the corporation have the right to its property, or can the government confiscate it without due process, etc.? If so, saying that individuals have property rights when they own part of a corporation is absurd.
And that’s pretty much how it works. You buy shares in a company and the company is liable? You may lose the value of the shares. Someone shouldn’t be able to sue you for what a company did.
Now I’m not an expert on limited liabliity, but from what I understand it means that investors can only lose their investment. You might actually be creating a lower standard of liability there.
The corporation has no right of property not derived from its shareholders. If the government confiscates some dongle, its not the corporation that’s been wronged, but the shareholders.
Which is why in practice corporations must be treated like persons. Because there is no way to separate the rights of the group from the rights of the individual.
The shareholders should each go hire individual lawyers and fight the government for their $500 worth of stock?
What’s the point of a corporation at all if it can’t act as a single unit?
What is this obsession you have with not letting groups act as groups? Would you say the same thing about a church? If the government confiscated the property of a church, would you say it’s fine because it has no rights? Or would you say the church members must each hire lawyers? How would you measure what each person’s ownership of the church is valued? Suppose they all settled the lawsuit with the government - do you think nobody suffered a loss from having to let the government destroy their church, since they each got paid $50 or whatever for the effort? Great - now they have no church to worship in. Do you think their religious rights weren’t violated?
People form institutions that act as a single unit, and have certain legal rights as an individual unit. Nothing wrong with that. Get over it already.
