6 ms·

Today I learned: the idea that a corporation can commit a crime is a very new one. [1] People commit crimes, not companies. [1] William Blackstone, Commentar

Today I learned: the idea that a corporation can commit a crime is a very new one. [1] People commit crimes, not companies. [1] William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 464 (1765) (“A corporation cannot commit treason or felony or other crime in its corporate capacity though it’s members may in their distinct individual capacities.”)

Hamuko 6y ago
>People commit crimes, not companies. I thought corporations are people, my friend.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
  Someone needs to eat the cake
- papito 6y ago
  Corporations are "people" when it comes to their thirst for massive political influence, but just when they get into legal trouble, they are suddenly NOT a person, but a vague multi-layered blob, impossible to prosecute.
  - dahfizz 6y ago
    I think you're a little confused... > but just when they get into legal trouble, they are suddenly NOT a person, but a vague multi-layered blob, impossible to prosecute. This is exactly why corporations are legally people. We can prosecute the whole blob instead of trying to assign blame to individuals. To see how this works, take a look at People v Rochester Ry. Light co (NY 1909)[1]. A corporation killed someone through negligence, but nobody was ever punished because a corporation was not considered a legal person and it was impossible to reach into the vague blob and charge individuals. [1]https://cite.case.law/nys/114/755/ https://cite.case.law/nys/114/755/
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - papito 6y ago
      I am confused? Effectively, the last criminal prosecution of a corporate entity where actual people went to jail was Robert Mueller's team vs Enron. After that, big money learned their lessons, plugged all the holes in their ships and now it's nearly impossible to do the same again.
      - dahfizz 6y ago
        Yup, you're definitely confused. The people who went to jail as a result of the enron scandal (fastow) were charged as individuals. You can't charge a corporation and then have other people serve jail time on it's behalf. If jail time is the only thing that satiates you, then you need to clearly show that an individual broke the law. Failing that, we have the ability to charge the whole corporation to make sure that they are still held liable.
        stingraycharles 6y ago
        I think it’s not productive calling each other confused, because I think what’s going on is that you’re both approaching this from a different perspective.
        papito 6y ago
        In a working system, yes. In the America that we have today, I can crime all I want, behind a wall of indirection, lawyers, and preferential treatment of the Church of Business. It requires prosecutors with a special set of skills, perseverance, and resources, which we simply don't have. Mountains of corporate money is flowing into the government, thanks to stuff like Citizens United (a nuclear bomb under American politics), and absolutely out of control lobbying, creating a castrated government that simply cannot or wants to do anything.
    - rtlfe 6y ago
      > I think you're a little confused... FWIW starting a conversation that way is going to put people in a defensive mindset and make them less likely to properly consider what you have to say.
- Scoundreller 6y ago
  That started in 1886: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern_Pacific_Railroad_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern....
- wwwwwwwww 6y ago
  To use modern lingo: Corporations are people-fluid. They can chose to be people or not. Forcing people-ness onto them would be corporate-phobic.
  - adwi 6y ago
    I don’t find snide sub-commenting toward the queer community helpful in this discussion or appropriate for Hacker News.
    - gwright 6y ago
      This seems to me to be a parody of queer theory or the idea of socially-constructed gender from critical social justice theory. Those theories shouldn't be off limits from parody or criticism.
      - wwwwwwwww 6y ago
        > Those theories shouldn't be off limits from parody or criticism. That's true, yet in the reality of Cancel Culture, they are. My post was now flagged. Oh well. Other people have lost their job and life for parodying those who can't be criticized.
- pera 6y ago
  Only for the good parts
- harryh 6y ago
  I really wish people would stop repeating this line thinking they are making some kind of interesting point. Go watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St1wSWtm_BI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St1wSWtm_BI Romney's point was that corporations are made up of people and that corporate taxes are, in the end, taxes on people. The fact that this was treated as some kind of gaffe at the time, and is still being repeated almost a decade later is just terribly disappointing.
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > The fact that this was treated as some kind of gaffe at the time, and is still being repeated almost a decade later is just terribly disappointing Anti-intellectualism has been a staple of American politics since approximately the 60s.
  - dtech 6y ago
    "Corporations are people" is literally in US law [1]. It has nothing to do with a gaffe from Mitt Romney. Very famously the US supreme court ruled in 2010 that corporations have free speech and money is speech [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood#Legislation_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood#Legislati... [2] https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122805666 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122805...
    - LordDragonfang 6y ago
      >Very famously the US supreme court ruled in 2010 that corporations have free speech and money is speech Not quite. They ruled that that corporations can spend unlimited money because money is is speech, which was an established precedent set by the much earlier Buckley v. Valeo: >The majority ruled that the Freedom of the Press clause of the First Amendment protects associations of individuals in addition to individual speakers, and further that the First Amendment does not allow prohibitions of speech based on the identity of the speaker. Corporations, as associations of individuals, therefore have free speech rights under the First Amendment. Because spending money is essential to disseminating speech, as established in Buckley v. Valeo, limiting a corporation's ability to spend money is unconstitutional because it limits the ability of its members to associate effectively and to speak on political issues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC#Opinion_of_the_Court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC#Opinion...
bildung 6y ago
That nicely illustrates the importance of the context of quotes: At that time the concept of limited liability didn't yet exist like today. The corporation itself wasn't the same as a modern corporation, yet had the same name.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
Companies are not corporations. The latter have personhood. It's in the name. It is a unitary "body".
Bayart 6y ago
A company is a legal person [1], just as you and me (but we're also natural persons). Otherwise it wouldn't have the ability to sign contracts, borrow money, sue... Or get sued for crimes it committed. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_person https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_person

Hamuko 6y ago

>People commit crimes, not companies. I thought corporations are people, my friend.

Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
Someone needs to eat the cake
papito 6y ago
Corporations are "people" when it comes to their thirst for massive political influence, but just when they get into legal trouble, they are suddenly NOT a person, but a vague multi-layered blob, impossible to prosecute.
- dahfizz 6y ago
  I think you're a little confused... > but just when they get into legal trouble, they are suddenly NOT a person, but a vague multi-layered blob, impossible to prosecute. This is exactly why corporations are legally people. We can prosecute the whole blob instead of trying to assign blame to individuals. To see how this works, take a look at People v Rochester Ry. Light co (NY 1909)[1]. A corporation killed someone through negligence, but nobody was ever punished because a corporation was not considered a legal person and it was impossible to reach into the vague blob and charge individuals. [1]https://cite.case.law/nys/114/755/ https://cite.case.law/nys/114/755/
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - papito 6y ago
    I am confused? Effectively, the last criminal prosecution of a corporate entity where actual people went to jail was Robert Mueller's team vs Enron. After that, big money learned their lessons, plugged all the holes in their ships and now it's nearly impossible to do the same again.
    - dahfizz 6y ago
      Yup, you're definitely confused. The people who went to jail as a result of the enron scandal (fastow) were charged as individuals. You can't charge a corporation and then have other people serve jail time on it's behalf. If jail time is the only thing that satiates you, then you need to clearly show that an individual broke the law. Failing that, we have the ability to charge the whole corporation to make sure that they are still held liable.
      - stingraycharles 6y ago
        I think it’s not productive calling each other confused, because I think what’s going on is that you’re both approaching this from a different perspective.
      - papito 6y ago
        In a working system, yes. In the America that we have today, I can crime all I want, behind a wall of indirection, lawyers, and preferential treatment of the Church of Business. It requires prosecutors with a special set of skills, perseverance, and resources, which we simply don't have. Mountains of corporate money is flowing into the government, thanks to stuff like Citizens United (a nuclear bomb under American politics), and absolutely out of control lobbying, creating a castrated government that simply cannot or wants to do anything.
  - rtlfe 6y ago
    > I think you're a little confused... FWIW starting a conversation that way is going to put people in a defensive mindset and make them less likely to properly consider what you have to say.
Scoundreller 6y ago
That started in 1886: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern_Pacific_Railroad_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern....
wwwwwwwww 6y ago
To use modern lingo: Corporations are people-fluid. They can chose to be people or not. Forcing people-ness onto them would be corporate-phobic.
- adwi 6y ago
  I don’t find snide sub-commenting toward the queer community helpful in this discussion or appropriate for Hacker News.
  - gwright 6y ago
    This seems to me to be a parody of queer theory or the idea of socially-constructed gender from critical social justice theory. Those theories shouldn't be off limits from parody or criticism.
    - wwwwwwwww 6y ago
      > Those theories shouldn't be off limits from parody or criticism. That's true, yet in the reality of Cancel Culture, they are. My post was now flagged. Oh well. Other people have lost their job and life for parodying those who can't be criticized.
pera 6y ago
Only for the good parts
harryh 6y ago
I really wish people would stop repeating this line thinking they are making some kind of interesting point. Go watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St1wSWtm_BI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St1wSWtm_BI Romney's point was that corporations are made up of people and that corporate taxes are, in the end, taxes on people. The fact that this was treated as some kind of gaffe at the time, and is still being repeated almost a decade later is just terribly disappointing.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > The fact that this was treated as some kind of gaffe at the time, and is still being repeated almost a decade later is just terribly disappointing Anti-intellectualism has been a staple of American politics since approximately the 60s.
- dtech 6y ago
  "Corporations are people" is literally in US law [1]. It has nothing to do with a gaffe from Mitt Romney. Very famously the US supreme court ruled in 2010 that corporations have free speech and money is speech [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood#Legislation_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood#Legislati... [2] https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122805666 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122805...
  - LordDragonfang 6y ago
    >Very famously the US supreme court ruled in 2010 that corporations have free speech and money is speech Not quite. They ruled that that corporations can spend unlimited money because money is is speech, which was an established precedent set by the much earlier Buckley v. Valeo: >The majority ruled that the Freedom of the Press clause of the First Amendment protects associations of individuals in addition to individual speakers, and further that the First Amendment does not allow prohibitions of speech based on the identity of the speaker. Corporations, as associations of individuals, therefore have free speech rights under the First Amendment. Because spending money is essential to disseminating speech, as established in Buckley v. Valeo, limiting a corporation's ability to spend money is unconstitutional because it limits the ability of its members to associate effectively and to speak on political issues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC#Opinion_of_the_Court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC#Opinion...

bildung 6y ago

That nicely illustrates the importance of the context of quotes: At that time the concept of limited liability didn't yet exist like today. The corporation itself wasn't the same as a modern corporation, yet had the same name.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago

Companies are not corporations. The latter have personhood. It's in the name. It is a unitary "body".

Bayart 6y ago

A company is a legal person [1], just as you and me (but we're also natural persons). Otherwise it wouldn't have the ability to sign contracts, borrow money, sue... Or get sued for crimes it committed. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_person https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_person