4 ms·

Probably not, but I think a pretty vast number of people would agree that these sorts of corporate legal fictions should also not exist. Giving a corporation p

Probably not, but I think a pretty vast number of people would agree that these sorts of corporate legal fictions should also not exist. Giving a corporation personhood does not give the corporation rights as much as does take away rights from those who interact with that corporation.

bunderbunder 7y ago
Arguably, you can't destroy corporate personhood without doing a lot of damage to capitalism itself. One problem that corporate personhood was meant to solve was that owning part of a business becomes a legally risky thing when the business isn't a separate person from its owners. Incorporation creates a legal firewall that, for example, allows me to own stock in Apple without having to fear that I will get personally sued if they do something wrong, or that someone will be able to go after my personal assets if they go bankrupt. It also makes it easier for me to interact with the corporation in certain ways - for example, if I have a grievance against something Apple did, I can name a single, easy to identify entity in my lawsuit, rather than having to pursue a case against a whole slew of individuals. The latter would be a prohibitively difficult effort, since you'd have to figure out exactly which individual are responsible in order to name them in the lawsuit, and then deal with a whole bunch of additional litigation in order to allocate liability among all the people involved in whatever thing it is you're suing them about. There is still a question of exactly what rights and responsibilities a corporate person should get. Many legal jurisdictions, including the United States, have historically been very liberal in granting natural rights to corporations, and there's plenty of room to argue that they've gone too far. But I don't think there's much room for arguing against the idea that at least some aspects of corporate personhood actually work out to the benefit of people who interact with corporations.
- gonational 7y ago
  > allows me to own stock in Apple without having to fear that I will get personally sued if they do something wrong This is part of what I mean when I say that corporate personhood takes away rights from those who interact with corporations. A corporation can feel financial pain, but it cannot experience the emotional pain of loss, the fear of which being a deterrent against tortious (or criminal) behavior. I realize, the notion of personally punishing e.g., XYZ Phone Co shareholders, because one their phone's battery bursts into flames and kills a child, sounds a little weird. Should the mother of this child simply accept cash for her son's life and be happy with it? If that's not fair, who should personally pay, the CEO? He's just an employee of the corporation, who is beholden to the shareholders.
Zuider 7y ago
>Giving a corporation personhood does not give the corporation rights as much as does take away rights from those who interact with that corporation. Maybe, but the purpose of legal personhood for abstract entities is also to hold them accountable under the same proven body of law that applies to individuals. Corporate personhood is not a new invention, but came from Roman law as it became practically necessary to extend the body of law governing individuals to families, clans, tribes, and eventually to such entities as guilds, universities and even city states. Today, the word 'corporation' has become virtually synonymous with a commercial enterprise, but the concept of legal incorporation is much wider than that.
dragonwriter 7y ago
> Giving a corporation personhood does not give the corporation rights as much as does take away rights from those who interact with that corporation. I think you are (aside from any debate about your basic position) conflating juridical personhood, which is the issue here, with Constitutional (under, e.g., the 5th and 14th Amendments, and thus applying to rights within the scope of liberty addressed by those Amendments) personhood, as at issue in Citizens United, which are different concepts. Juridical personhood is a defining feature of corporations, making them subjects of law that can, for instance, be sued.

bunderbunder 7y ago

Arguably, you can't destroy corporate personhood without doing a lot of damage to capitalism itself. One problem that corporate personhood was meant to solve was that owning part of a business becomes a legally risky thing when the business isn't a separate person from its owners. Incorporation creates a legal firewall that, for example, allows me to own stock in Apple without having to fear that I will get personally sued if they do something wrong, or that someone will be able to go after my personal assets if they go bankrupt. It also makes it easier for me to interact with the corporation in certain ways - for example, if I have a grievance against something Apple did, I can name a single, easy to identify entity in my lawsuit, rather than having to pursue a case against a whole slew of individuals. The latter would be a prohibitively difficult effort, since you'd have to figure out exactly which individual are responsible in order to name them in the lawsuit, and then deal with a whole bunch of additional litigation in order to allocate liability among all the people involved in whatever thing it is you're suing them about. There is still a question of exactly what rights and responsibilities a corporate person should get. Many legal jurisdictions, including the United States, have historically been very liberal in granting natural rights to corporations, and there's plenty of room to argue that they've gone too far. But I don't think there's much room for arguing against the idea that at least some aspects of corporate personhood actually work out to the benefit of people who interact with corporations.

gonational 7y ago
> allows me to own stock in Apple without having to fear that I will get personally sued if they do something wrong This is part of what I mean when I say that corporate personhood takes away rights from those who interact with corporations. A corporation can feel financial pain, but it cannot experience the emotional pain of loss, the fear of which being a deterrent against tortious (or criminal) behavior. I realize, the notion of personally punishing e.g., XYZ Phone Co shareholders, because one their phone's battery bursts into flames and kills a child, sounds a little weird. Should the mother of this child simply accept cash for her son's life and be happy with it? If that's not fair, who should personally pay, the CEO? He's just an employee of the corporation, who is beholden to the shareholders.

Zuider 7y ago

>Giving a corporation personhood does not give the corporation rights as much as does take away rights from those who interact with that corporation. Maybe, but the purpose of legal personhood for abstract entities is also to hold them accountable under the same proven body of law that applies to individuals. Corporate personhood is not a new invention, but came from Roman law as it became practically necessary to extend the body of law governing individuals to families, clans, tribes, and eventually to such entities as guilds, universities and even city states. Today, the word 'corporation' has become virtually synonymous with a commercial enterprise, but the concept of legal incorporation is much wider than that.

dragonwriter 7y ago

> Giving a corporation personhood does not give the corporation rights as much as does take away rights from those who interact with that corporation. I think you are (aside from any debate about your basic position) conflating juridical personhood, which is the issue here, with Constitutional (under, e.g., the 5th and 14th Amendments, and thus applying to rights within the scope of liberty addressed by those Amendments) personhood, as at issue in Citizens United, which are different concepts. Juridical personhood is a defining feature of corporations, making them subjects of law that can, for instance, be sued.