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Legally, yes. Politically, it's more complicated. I'm not immediately seeing the distinction you're trying to draw here, given the topic-can you elaborate on t

• JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > I'm not immediately seeing the distinction you're trying to draw here Corporations are legal entities. For a legal entity to have meaning, it must be based on a set of laws. The state creates and administers laws. Therefore, corporations are a creature of the state. Theoretically, the state has unlimited power to create, destroy and manipulate corporations to its will. In reality, it's more complicated. Just because someone has a legal right doesn't mean they have the political power to exercise it. When President Miguel R. Dávila of Honduras attempted to exercise state power over the Cuyamel Fruit Company, the latter raised a mercenary army and staged a coup d'état [1]. There are numerous other examples of private corporations running pet states for their own benefit. Once you rise to the level of discussing sovereign power, the distinction between a state and a corporation becomes meaningless. What matters is power--how it's organized is something of a convenience. (For example, try drawing neat lines between the Saudi state, the House of Saud and Saudi Aramco. Or between Vatican City, the Holy See and the Catholic Church.) We're nowhere near that point in America--the federal government could fine into ruin, jail the leadership of or break up any company on earth. This meme of states always having more power than corporations because the latter is a legal creature of the former is overly simplistic. It similarly doesn't follow that a strong state means strong corporations. In many arenas, states compete for power with corporations. Teddy Roosevelt taking on the robber barons required a strong state; in contrast, Korea is an example of a weak state relative to its corporations. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic#Honduras https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic#Honduras