When I was in high school, back in the late 80’s, early 90’s, I remember at least one teacher mentioned that corporations were considered people, but he described them as being people only for tax and liability purposes. Basically they were people as far as the IRS was concerned, and that was about it.
Lately from what I’ve been hearing, mostly or completely from this message board, corporate person-hood goes well beyond taxation.
So, my question is, was he being over-simplistic or have corporations gained new rights since the early 90’s?
You’re right, part of it means that it allows corporations to be taxed separately from any natural persons. But it also affords them other rights and gives them other responsibilities: they have the right to enter into and enforce contracts, they can sue and be sued and they can be regulated directly, among other things.
The most topical difference between corporations in the early 90s and today is the ruling in Citizens United v The FEC last year, which overturned a lower court decision and overruled previous case law to hold that corporations were allowed to broadcast “electioneering communications” in the run-up to federal elections, because it held any restrictions on such communication would violate corporations’ right to free speech under the first amendment. Essentially it allows corporations and unions to spend more money on electioneering than they were previously allowed to, and it’s been subject to heavy criticism, including by both John McCain and President Obama.
What does that have to do with “corporate personhood”? The First Amendment does not have the word “person” in it. It protects speech. It doesn’t specify or restrict where that speech is coming from.
Corporations are not persons for the purposes of the First Amendment - the First Amendment applies to speech, not to the source of the speech.
A lot of the confusion is that apparently many people didn’t receive the lecture you did in the 1980s. I hear a lot of people talking about this “evil” concept of corporate personhood as though it literally was invented in the past few years.
It’s at least 150 years old, and you are correct that its primary meaning in the day to day sense has to do with issues such as liability and taxation. It’s really part and parcel of the natural process through which large corporations developed, and some degree of “personhood” for corporations exists in all market driven economies (including all of the economies of Europe.)
The alternative would be situations where, for example, a company has 1,000,000 shareholders, technically each shareholder would have ownership rights over 1/1,000,000th of any of the company’s assets. They would be 1/1,000,000th liable anytime the company lost a court case, they would be 1/1,000,000th taxed anytime the company made profits.
While most countries have far more restrictions (for good or bad) on campaign advertisement spending and use of the public airwaves for electioneering, even in relatively socialist countries the standards of corporate personhood apply: they can own property, enter into contracts, be taxed on their income, and can sue and be sued.
The biggest one is probably the ability for the corporation to own property in its own right and the ability to enter into contracts. The alternatives would make things very difficult, in an LLP with a few partners it isn’t a big deal that all of the partners have to sign the contracts. In a corporation with thousands or potentially millions of shareholders (BP has millions, for example) can you imagine being required to get all of their agreement for every day-to-day business activity?
Technically, but for the purposes of the OP’s question it’s all tied up in the same debate - the extent of the rights and responsibilities of corporations as opposed to natural persons. If the OP has been hearing a lot about corporate personhood over the last year or so, I suspect at least some of it has involved discussions about Citizens United. “Move to Amend” is one of the main advocacy groups opposing the decision in Citizens United and they (admittedly incorrectly) make no distinction between Citizens United and corporate personhood. It may not be technically accurate to amalgamate the two, but similar considerations drive both debates.
I’d say almost all the talk about “Corporate Personhood” has to do with Citizens United. In reality I’d say the vast majority of the people behind the “Move to Amend” movement and similar are against corporate speech, and not the age old term of legal art known as “corporate personhood.” Now, I’m sure a few very hardcore socialists/communists would be happy to see the corporation as an entity destroyed, but I think that’s a minuscule portion of the population and a small portion of those who are opposed to the decision in Citizens United.
In reality they should be advocating against “Corporate Speech Rights”, but the marketing isn’t as good. By focusing on the legal term of art “personhood” they are basically taking a complex legal/business concept that you need at least a novice familiarity with the issue to properly understand and using its “first-look absurdity” to make their issue stand out more.
I think the change has been a movement from corporations having the same property rights as people to corporations have the same civil rights as people. I don’t think anyone objects to the idea of a corporation “owning” a patent or a copyright, which as people have said are legal precedents that go back decades. What is more controversial is the idea that a corporation has freedom of speech or is entitled to equal protection.
So by your argument, doesn’t a dog have constitutional rights? You’re claiming that rights just exists regardless of the source.
My response would be that idea is foolish. The Constitution guarantees the rights of people not dogs or corporations. We may decide to extend some rights to non-persons for our purposes but there should never be an assumption that non-persons have inherent rights.
A group of Dopers want to pool resources to expand the fight against ignorance. We determine that the best way to do this would be to fly an airplane with banners such as “this airplane did not take off on a treadmill.” We must pool resources because individually, none of us can afford the costs of fuel, pilot rental, etc.
Is there any legal construct that would enable us to undertake such an endevour without risking personal liability for things that go wrong (e.g. airplane crashing)? Is there a legal construct that would enable us to do so that would not also permit MegaCorp from ostensibly doing the same thing in a political campaign? How would you differentiate?
Why is corporate freedom of speech necessary? What does it provide that individual freedom fo speech does not? Let’s face facts, a corporation doesn’t really have thoughts or opinions or speech - all of these things are actually held by people who are speaking under corporate cover.
It allows groups of people to pool resources to amplify their voice without incurring personal liability. If you’re saying that the person speaking on behalf of the corporation already has freedom of speech, then aren’t you implicitly granting the corporation the same freedom? Or how would you grant person A as an individual the right to speech but not the corporation he is speaking on behalf of?
I’m far from a fan of Citizens, but the question of how to rectify its horrible impact over American politics is not an easy question to answer.
The talk may be. But the decision had nothing to do with “Corporate Personhood”. Thus, if, as you say, the “Move to Amend” are using this knowing that it has nothing to do with the decision, they are lying scoundrels. Not a revelation, really
Can a dog speak? And you’re missing the point. It is not the person producing the speech that has a “constitutional right”. It is the speech itself that is protected. How that speech is produced is immaterial.
Where does the First Amendment restrict the source of the speech?
The problem is that, if your interpretation is sound, then a lot more than just the first amendment applies to non-human entities. It is not unreasonable to read a document written by humans that throughout assumes we are talking about humans only applies to humans.
I’m going to enjoy the hell out seeing the sixth and seventh amendments apply to dogs. That’s going to be hilarious to watch.
I’m going to stick with foolish on this idea. The First Amendment protects the right of people to speak not the right of speech to be spoken. Argue otherwise and you might as well claim that the Second Amendment protects the rights of firearms to be owned rather than the right of people to own firearms.
Like I’ve said before, people have rights. Corporations, dogs, speech, and firearms do not.
But if you’re saying that a corporation has freedom of speech that is distinct from non-corporate freedom of speech than you’re creating a special constitutional right for some people. After all, as I’ve said, corporations don’t really speak. People speak for the corporation. So if all people have the same freedom of speech then there’s no need for corporate freedom of speech - it’s already included in personal rights. And if that isn’t the case and corporate freedom of speech is different than that means that people speaking on behalf of a corporation have a right that people speaking as individuals lack.
And of course that’s the real point. Granting rights to corporations really means granting rights to the people who head corporations.
The first seven words (“We the People of the United States”) just say who is enacting the Constitution. They do not say who is given rights or duties by the various parts.
