The basic premise that a corporate entity is “basically a fantasy” is erroneous. It is a legal entity. When you steal from it, you steal from it. That is the legal answer. I believe it is also the moral answer - just because an entity isn’t human, doesn’t absolve you from your moral duty to observe its property rights. If you really want to ask what humans get harmed, it is all the stakeholders. If you’re Buddhist, it of course also harms you.
If the concept of corporation did not exist, and say you stole a horse from 5 guys who jointly owned a horse, you stole from the 5 guys who owned the horse. Even if you argued that no man can ever really own a horse.
never mind. Didnot see immediately preceding post.
There’s no “paradox” here. Legally you’re stealing from a corporation. Morally, you are harming everyone, some more directly than others. Legal and moral aren’t the same thing.
Then you simply don’t understand the consequences of crime. Theft is a loss for everyone, even people who don’t work for, or own shares in, the store you stole the item from. Theft is a deadweight loss that harms society as a whole.
The 10% shareholder convinces the majority of stockholders to liquidate the company. That 10% shareholder gets 10% of the liquidation proceeds (which would include the liquidation inventory sale of all those coffee makers.)
Corporate personhood is an elastic concept that means what the stockholders want it to mean. When it shields them from prosecution for corporate crimes, corporations are a legal person; when the corporation pays taxes, stockholders whine that they are being taxed twice on capital gains because the corporation is just an asset. They will fight like the devil to have it both ways, and feign incredulity when people call them on it. In their universe, a corporation has all the benefits of personhood, yet none of the liabilities. It is the perfect con.
Corporations are not people. Corporations are owned by people.
My wife and I have a joint bank account. If someone steals $500 from our bank account, they have stolen $500 from my wife and from me. This is no less theft because they stole it from a bank account than if they stole it from my wallet, or my wife’s purse.
Corporations don’t have any moral status, as a person or a group of persons do. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t theft to steal from their assets. Gym lockers don’t have any moral status either, but the guy who stole my credit card out of my gym locker was still stealing from me.
The shareholders collectively own all the assets of the corporation, as well as any net revenues those assets generate, so if someone steals an asset, or siphons off incoming revenue, the victims are the shareholders.
I don’t see where anything was “relinquished” along the way. I suggest kanicbird, if he’s actually interested in anything approaching a serious discussion on the topic, do some very very basic reading on corporations and how they work.
Well, actually it does indeed carry liabilities, it’s just that the extent of a shareholder’s individual liability is limited to what he actually invested. If he bought $500 in shares, he could lose all of it, but nobody can grab his house on top of that.
Possibly there are some people who buy shares of companies and don’t actually understand this. The democratic nature of the stock market is that even idiots can participate.
Corporations are people; they’re just not natural people like you or I. They’re artificial people. Legally, what makes something a person is that it has an independent legal existence. It can sue, be sued, enter into contracts, be liable, and so on. And corporations have that status under the law.
To take a slightly different tack - if you steal from a corporation, then you are stealing something certain corporate employees are responsible for, and they may lose their jobs as a result. IMHO, that’s far more immoral than causing the shareholders a 0.001 cent loss per share.
A corporation is a legal entity where a number of individuals (shareholders) have pooled together assets (their money) in order to acomplish some business end. Typically, their percentage of ownership is reflected in the amount of money they put into it (shares). In exchange for putting money in, they have an expectation that the overall value of the company will increase or that they will receive money in return (dividends) as the company conducts business.
When you steal from a corporation, you are taking assets out of the corporation that does not belong to you. This reduces the total value of the company and proportionately decreases each of the shareholders assets. It’s like if you and your friends chip in to buy a car and I steal one of the tires. You still own the same percentage of car, but the car is worth less because it now needs a new tire.
Comapnies are not “people”. They are a “legal person” which is a little different. They can’t marry or vote in elections. They are, however, afforded some legal rights that insulate the shareholders against losing more than the value of what they put in and certain legal actions. A corporation can’t murder someone. Individuals can and would be prosecuted under the appropriate law. In fact, a corporation that institutionally conspires to murder someone has a fair chance of being prosecuted under the RICO act as well as other charges.
My vehicle is at risk of lockpicking; if you steal it, I still have 100% of (what’s left of) my possessions, so if you steal my vehicle, your’re not stealing from me?? :rolleyes: :smack:
Start with a clearer, less biased, understanding of possession and corporations and rephrase your question!
I don’t understand your focus on the individual or a divided individual. Can’t you comprehend or relate to a group of people that have an interest in property?
How about the UAW… or Green Peace… or Charlie Rangel’s reelection committee?
There’s no such thing as a “moral status”. What does that even mean apart from you taking the words “moral” and “status” and inexplicably throwing them together?
Many corporations certainly act in a more “moral” (or less “immoral”) way than many people, that’s for sure. Assuming that’s what you meant.
I’m sure that someone, somewhere, has bitched and whined about their taxes related to investment in a corporation. How does that constitute support of your claim that “Corporate personhood is an elastic concept that means what the stockholders want it to mean.”? It it nothing of the sort, no matter what some idiot might once have whined about. You’re presenting ignorance as fact.
Legal or jurisitic personage is a old, carefully defined, and absolutely necessary concept. What you claim you heard someone saying about their taxes doesn’t change the law. I heard someone claiming Barack Obama’s a Kenyan; does that make it so?
This confusing over corporate personhood is baffling to me; I don’t understand why people don’t get what a legal person is. (And it’s not just corporations; unions, government departments, trusts, charities, and the like are all legal persons.) If those entities weren’t granted status as legal persons how could you ever have a contract with one? How could they have bank accounts? How could a company employ you? How could a charity apply for charitable status to start with? How could a university collect tuition or cut a student a check for a bursary? How could they have any legal standing of any kind? That’s why we have legal personage; so companies, charities and other such things can do things and be subject to law.
Largely everyone, everywhere who has ever bitched about capitals gains taxes has done so on the basis of double taxation, arguing from exactly the position I expressed. Corporations are legal persons for purpose of collecting taxes, so objecting to taxes on capital gains and dividends on the basis of double taxation is specious at best.
