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This is a misunderstanding of what "person" means in law. It is not synonymous with "human being". It means a legal entity that can own things and have responsi

This is a misunderstanding of what "person" means in law. It is not synonymous with "human being". It means a legal entity that can own things and have responsibilities. If corporations are not persons, then they cannot own property, they cannot sue, they cannot be sued, they cannot enter contracts, etc etc etc. The reason corporations are called "corporations" is that they are "incorporated" which is a legal term meaning the creation of a legal person.

Apocryphon 8y ago
Now that would be an interesting system, if corporations were deprived of the benefits of legal personhood.
- davidw 8y ago
  It'd basically mean that rather than a company being an independent entity that can take investments and so on, you might end up with rich people being the only ones able to start companies. This book is interesting on the subject: https://amzn.to/2XxbbSX https://amzn.to/2XxbbSX reviewed here in The Economist: https://www.economist.com/business/2011/01/27/the-crescent-and-the-company?story_id=18008627 https://www.economist.com/business/2011/01/27/the-crescent-a...
- bluGill 8y ago
  It would be interesting for sure. If corporations cannot get those benefits, how will we as a society get any benefit from people working together for something complex? You cannot make a workable spaceship, car engine (a car might be possible once you have an engine that meets emissions, and several other complex parts). Our modern world is mostly designed around retirement plans owning corporations - without some legal shield 3/4ths of the US should go to prison for Enron Will it be a few rich people who enter into all those contracts and pay their people? At what point do the rich refuse because they have too many people signing contracts on their behalf that they dare not take the risk? There could well be other solutions to the problem. It could be that some alternative is a "better" compromise. However it is not easy to come up with something that doesn't have flaws that are worse than what we have.
  - int_19h 8y ago
    How about, you still protect the rights of people that make the corporation - as individuals. In other words, if the corporation can name a specific individual whose rights are being infringed, then they have a case. But the corporation by itself can't claim infringement of its rights. So for example, with Citizens United, there's no restriction on individuals that make up the company from making political donations from their own personal funds - including those that they earn as owners or employees of said company. But the company cannot use the funds that it owns as an entity in its own right for the same purpose. If its owners want to use those funds for that purpose, they can have the company pay it to them as dividends (taxed accordingly), and then spend them as they see fit - with their own name attached to any such use. Note that this effectively protects free speech qua speech even for corporations, because there's ultimately always a person speaking.
    - tathougies 8y ago
      Seeing as one individual person can own a corporation and thus have unquestioned control over how the Corp spends its money, then yes one person's individual rights are being infringed upon -- namely the right to use ones material resources to further political interests. In the case of one or a few owners, the owners could alternatively authorize a share buyback to simply transfer money between then and the firm
      - int_19h 8y ago
        They're welcome to do it in that manner - and the very fact that they can shows that it's not really an infringement on their right. The point is that it's still freedom of John Doe to speak, not freedom of John Doe LLC to speak.
    - bluGill 8y ago
      That doesn't work, for the exact example you cite. I am not rich enough to afford to buy a TV ad (this includes both production costs and airtime - I'm not an advertising expert nor a good actor so I'd need to hire people to make a good ad). The only way I can afford to get a TV ad out is to get a bunch of like minded people together: create a company with the express purpose of buying our ad, but your just prohibited our company from buying that ad.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Now that would be an interesting system, if corporations were deprived of the benefits of legal personhood. Then they would just not exist: a corporation is exactly a grant of legal personhood.
- hannasanarion 8y ago
  The problem is that corporations as you are thinking of them (private companies) are not the only kind of legal person. Governmental organizations are also incorporated persons, including governments themselves (otherwise you wouldn't be able to sue the United States). Non-corporate entities like nonprofits, partnerships, cooperatives, educational institutions, etc are also legal persons, and need to be for the same reasons.
brianberns 8y ago
Legally, you may be right. However, this same term is used politically to give corporations the right to free speech, and hence to make campaign donations, which is ridiculous.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > However, this same term is used politically to give corporations the right to free speech No, it's a different term that is spelled and pronounced the same (that is, it's a different legal sense of “person”, which courts have found corporations to qualify for for completely different reasons.)
  - brianberns 8y ago
    I can't tell if you're serious. If so, do you really think that makes my statement fundamentally incorrect somehow?
- pyuser583 8y ago
  Free speech is granted by the First Amendment - which also grants freedom of the press. Does the New York Times Corporation benefit from freedom of the press? I’m sure Donald Trump would love it if the answer was “no.”
  - cf498 8y ago
    Authors are persons and clearly have freedom of speech, no one here is arguing with that.
    - jml7c5 8y ago
      I believe your argument is that, because the author of a NYT piece has the right to free speech, any law prohibiting the NYT from publishing that article is invalid. Not because the NYT has a right to free speech, but because one can "fall back" on the protection afforded to the original author. Doesn't this same protection apply to the author of an advertisement published by a super PAC?
brlewis 8y ago
Whose law? In the U.S. there's a term called "party" for whoever's suing or being sued. It can be a person or a combination of parties. Three people can be sued without collectively being a human being. Also in the U.S., the controversy about corporations being persons has to do with selectively granting them constitutional rights, not about their identity as human beings.
- zapzupnz 8y ago
  > Three people can be sued without collectively being a human being Wouldn't that simply be three persons?
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > In the U.S. there's a term called "party" for whoever's suing or being sued. It can be a person or a combination of parties. A party is a person who is a litigant in a lawsuit, to be a party, one must first be a legal person. > Also in the U.S., the controversy about corporations being persons has to do with selectively granting them constitutional rights, That's actually a controversy about a different kind of personhood than is being discussed (that is whether they are within the scope of “person” in the sense used in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment, which has been addressed not in terms of juridical personhood but in terms of the necessity of such to give effect to rights of natural persons acting through the corporation.)

Apocryphon 8y ago

Now that would be an interesting system, if corporations were deprived of the benefits of legal personhood.

davidw 8y ago
It'd basically mean that rather than a company being an independent entity that can take investments and so on, you might end up with rich people being the only ones able to start companies. This book is interesting on the subject: https://amzn.to/2XxbbSX https://amzn.to/2XxbbSX reviewed here in The Economist: https://www.economist.com/business/2011/01/27/the-crescent-and-the-company?story_id=18008627 https://www.economist.com/business/2011/01/27/the-crescent-a...
bluGill 8y ago
It would be interesting for sure. If corporations cannot get those benefits, how will we as a society get any benefit from people working together for something complex? You cannot make a workable spaceship, car engine (a car might be possible once you have an engine that meets emissions, and several other complex parts). Our modern world is mostly designed around retirement plans owning corporations - without some legal shield 3/4ths of the US should go to prison for Enron Will it be a few rich people who enter into all those contracts and pay their people? At what point do the rich refuse because they have too many people signing contracts on their behalf that they dare not take the risk? There could well be other solutions to the problem. It could be that some alternative is a "better" compromise. However it is not easy to come up with something that doesn't have flaws that are worse than what we have.
- int_19h 8y ago
  How about, you still protect the rights of people that make the corporation - as individuals. In other words, if the corporation can name a specific individual whose rights are being infringed, then they have a case. But the corporation by itself can't claim infringement of its rights. So for example, with Citizens United, there's no restriction on individuals that make up the company from making political donations from their own personal funds - including those that they earn as owners or employees of said company. But the company cannot use the funds that it owns as an entity in its own right for the same purpose. If its owners want to use those funds for that purpose, they can have the company pay it to them as dividends (taxed accordingly), and then spend them as they see fit - with their own name attached to any such use. Note that this effectively protects free speech qua speech even for corporations, because there's ultimately always a person speaking.
  - tathougies 8y ago
    Seeing as one individual person can own a corporation and thus have unquestioned control over how the Corp spends its money, then yes one person's individual rights are being infringed upon -- namely the right to use ones material resources to further political interests. In the case of one or a few owners, the owners could alternatively authorize a share buyback to simply transfer money between then and the firm
    - int_19h 8y ago
      They're welcome to do it in that manner - and the very fact that they can shows that it's not really an infringement on their right. The point is that it's still freedom of John Doe to speak, not freedom of John Doe LLC to speak.
  - bluGill 8y ago
    That doesn't work, for the exact example you cite. I am not rich enough to afford to buy a TV ad (this includes both production costs and airtime - I'm not an advertising expert nor a good actor so I'd need to hire people to make a good ad). The only way I can afford to get a TV ad out is to get a bunch of like minded people together: create a company with the express purpose of buying our ad, but your just prohibited our company from buying that ad.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> Now that would be an interesting system, if corporations were deprived of the benefits of legal personhood. Then they would just not exist: a corporation is exactly a grant of legal personhood.
hannasanarion 8y ago
The problem is that corporations as you are thinking of them (private companies) are not the only kind of legal person. Governmental organizations are also incorporated persons, including governments themselves (otherwise you wouldn't be able to sue the United States). Non-corporate entities like nonprofits, partnerships, cooperatives, educational institutions, etc are also legal persons, and need to be for the same reasons.

brianberns 8y ago

Legally, you may be right. However, this same term is used politically to give corporations the right to free speech, and hence to make campaign donations, which is ridiculous.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> However, this same term is used politically to give corporations the right to free speech No, it's a different term that is spelled and pronounced the same (that is, it's a different legal sense of “person”, which courts have found corporations to qualify for for completely different reasons.)
- brianberns 8y ago
  I can't tell if you're serious. If so, do you really think that makes my statement fundamentally incorrect somehow?
pyuser583 8y ago
Free speech is granted by the First Amendment - which also grants freedom of the press. Does the New York Times Corporation benefit from freedom of the press? I’m sure Donald Trump would love it if the answer was “no.”
- cf498 8y ago
  Authors are persons and clearly have freedom of speech, no one here is arguing with that.
  - jml7c5 8y ago
    I believe your argument is that, because the author of a NYT piece has the right to free speech, any law prohibiting the NYT from publishing that article is invalid. Not because the NYT has a right to free speech, but because one can "fall back" on the protection afforded to the original author. Doesn't this same protection apply to the author of an advertisement published by a super PAC?

brlewis 8y ago

Whose law? In the U.S. there's a term called "party" for whoever's suing or being sued. It can be a person or a combination of parties. Three people can be sued without collectively being a human being. Also in the U.S., the controversy about corporations being persons has to do with selectively granting them constitutional rights, not about their identity as human beings.

zapzupnz 8y ago
> Three people can be sued without collectively being a human being Wouldn't that simply be three persons?
dragonwriter 8y ago
> In the U.S. there's a term called "party" for whoever's suing or being sued. It can be a person or a combination of parties. A party is a person who is a litigant in a lawsuit, to be a party, one must first be a legal person. > Also in the U.S., the controversy about corporations being persons has to do with selectively granting them constitutional rights, That's actually a controversy about a different kind of personhood than is being discussed (that is whether they are within the scope of “person” in the sense used in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment, which has been addressed not in terms of juridical personhood but in terms of the necessity of such to give effect to rights of natural persons acting through the corporation.)