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If corporations are people - and if a single corporation is an 'independent entity separate from indidivuals that constitute it' - then there is only one logica

If corporations are people - and if a single corporation is an 'independent entity separate from indidivuals that constitute it' - then there is only one logical classification that makes sense: if corporations are people, then they are also slaves. People after all, have free will - and if they can't choose to quit their jobs, terminate their relationships with shareholders, executives, employees, etc., then they are in a position of slavery or at least, indentured servitude of some sort. If corporations are people, they are also owned entities, they can be traded and sold like slaves on an auction block in New Orleans were 200 years ago. This seems problematic from both legal and moral standpoints, doesn't it? One interesting solution would be to give each corporation its own AI mind that could argue for the corporation's interests and exercise free will. This would of course be complicated - the corporation might independently negotiate contracts with shareholders (who supply capital) and employees (who supply labor), rather than be entirely beholden to the executive board (which, in this scenario, would be reduced to an entirely advisory role, if not eliminated entirely). Another stipulation could be that the corporation, our independent intelligent AI entity, would always hold a majority ownership in itself, i.e. 51% of shares at least. Of course, this would also do away with holding corporations, shell corporations, and other forms of hidden ownership. Well... it's an interesting idea. Of course, the corporation was originally set up as a legal entity to shield investors from legal liability for their actions, comparable to organized crime setups where the Dons reap the majority of the profits but never get their hands dirty themselves.

ModernMech 4y ago
> People after all, have free will - and if they can't choose to quit their jobs, terminate their relationships with shareholders, executives, employees, etc., then they are in a position of slavery or at least, indentured servitude of some sort. That's not quite the way I see it. To me, a corporation is an emergent intelligence that results from a system of smaller parts interacting with one another. Those parts are in fact shareholders, executives, employees, etc. In this sense, saying a corporate person is a slave to its employees is like saying we biological people are slaves to our cells and organs. I have no idea if that's true, but I think it's fun to think about the implications. It certainly brings into question one of the premises of your post; that people have free will.
kerkeslager 4y ago
Jesus Christ. Only on Hacker News can one find a criticism of corporate personhood in which the complaint is that it doesn't grant corporations enough rights. Corporations don't have rights. I understand that the law says they do: I'm saying the law is wrong. Rights are an inalienable thing granted to entities that have feelings, needs, the ability to experience joy and suffering, etc. You know what a person is: don't embarrass yourself by pretending you don't. The entire purpose of capitalism is that it's supposed to result in the best results for people. Supposedly, competition will bring us the best products possible at the lowest price possible, while fairly rewarding people for their contributions. The entire point of this is to serve people: real, human people. Corporations exist to serve people, and if they fail to serve that purpose, they don't deserve to exist. Some might argue that corporations are made up of people, and therefore corporate personhood is an approximation of representing those humans' rights, but that's a horribly inaccurate approximation of the truth. The majority of the people--real humans with rights--who make up most corporations, are workers, who are granted no power to speak on behalf of the corporation or choose what the corporation does. This means that when you treat the corporation as an entity with rights and responsibilities, you disproportionately concentrate the benefits of being a human in the people who are in charge of the corporation, who are then able to selfishly concentrate all the responsibilities--and punishments for not fulfilling those responsibilities--in the workers. This is why corporate personhood exists: because it allows a small segment of society to use the rights of humans to take actions while receiving none of the consequences if those actions are harmful, instead hiding behind limited liability and offloading the consequences onto workers and diverse pools of shareholders, some of whom had no visibility into the actions taken and too few shares to meaningfully make decisions. And in fact, because certain aspects of corporate personhood don't make any sense, corporations have more rights than people. Slavery isn't illegal in the US: if you commit a crime, you can be forced to work in prison for no pay. But when corporations commit crimes, they usually get fines. If an individual knowingly sold an exploding car to someone and that person died, the seller would trivially go to jail. But when Ford did this, they paid damages. And incidentally, the decision to do this was made by people--people with human responsibility to not commit murder/manslaughter--and none of these people ever went to jail, either. I'm going to say it again: corporations don't have rights. And corporations are harming people, who do have rights, on a massive scale. Whatever the law says, we have no ethical obligation to treat corporations with anything other than outright malice. As long as you don't harm any person, harming a corporation is a victimless act. And often, harming corporations helps more humans than it harms.
samus 4y ago
The AI argument is completely irrelevant. The owners of a corporation already delegate decision making to one or more natural intelligences, also known as the board. This (hive) mind is responsible for acting in the corporation's interest.
- photochemsyn 4y ago
  The legal requirement is that the board act in the shareholder's interest, which is not necessarily the same as the corporation's interest, is it? What if the board was instead elected by the employees and was directed to act in their interest instead? Or, half the board could be elected by employees, and half elected by shareholders. What the corporate person would think about this is anyone's guess, though.
  - samus 4y ago
    The shareholders own the company. Therefore, the board has to act in the shareholder's interest. Usually this means that the share price at the stock market has to be maintained or increased, else the shareholders would suffer losses. Employees have no stake in a normal company. Their contributions are remunerated by their salary, and their employment can be terminated at any time (details subject to jurisdiction of course). Some jurisdiction provide for a worker's council in larger companies that can influence decisions of the board. Corporations where employees regularly exercise control democratically are called worker cooperatives.

ModernMech 4y ago

> People after all, have free will - and if they can't choose to quit their jobs, terminate their relationships with shareholders, executives, employees, etc., then they are in a position of slavery or at least, indentured servitude of some sort. That's not quite the way I see it. To me, a corporation is an emergent intelligence that results from a system of smaller parts interacting with one another. Those parts are in fact shareholders, executives, employees, etc. In this sense, saying a corporate person is a slave to its employees is like saying we biological people are slaves to our cells and organs. I have no idea if that's true, but I think it's fun to think about the implications. It certainly brings into question one of the premises of your post; that people have free will.

kerkeslager 4y ago

Jesus Christ. Only on Hacker News can one find a criticism of corporate personhood in which the complaint is that it doesn't grant corporations enough rights. Corporations don't have rights. I understand that the law says they do: I'm saying the law is wrong. Rights are an inalienable thing granted to entities that have feelings, needs, the ability to experience joy and suffering, etc. You know what a person is: don't embarrass yourself by pretending you don't. The entire purpose of capitalism is that it's supposed to result in the best results for people. Supposedly, competition will bring us the best products possible at the lowest price possible, while fairly rewarding people for their contributions. The entire point of this is to serve people: real, human people. Corporations exist to serve people, and if they fail to serve that purpose, they don't deserve to exist. Some might argue that corporations are made up of people, and therefore corporate personhood is an approximation of representing those humans' rights, but that's a horribly inaccurate approximation of the truth. The majority of the people--real humans with rights--who make up most corporations, are workers, who are granted no power to speak on behalf of the corporation or choose what the corporation does. This means that when you treat the corporation as an entity with rights and responsibilities, you disproportionately concentrate the benefits of being a human in the people who are in charge of the corporation, who are then able to selfishly concentrate all the responsibilities--and punishments for not fulfilling those responsibilities--in the workers. This is why corporate personhood exists: because it allows a small segment of society to use the rights of humans to take actions while receiving none of the consequences if those actions are harmful, instead hiding behind limited liability and offloading the consequences onto workers and diverse pools of shareholders, some of whom had no visibility into the actions taken and too few shares to meaningfully make decisions. And in fact, because certain aspects of corporate personhood don't make any sense, corporations have more rights than people. Slavery isn't illegal in the US: if you commit a crime, you can be forced to work in prison for no pay. But when corporations commit crimes, they usually get fines. If an individual knowingly sold an exploding car to someone and that person died, the seller would trivially go to jail. But when Ford did this, they paid damages. And incidentally, the decision to do this was made by people--people with human responsibility to not commit murder/manslaughter--and none of these people ever went to jail, either. I'm going to say it again: corporations don't have rights. And corporations are harming people, who do have rights, on a massive scale. Whatever the law says, we have no ethical obligation to treat corporations with anything other than outright malice. As long as you don't harm any person, harming a corporation is a victimless act. And often, harming corporations helps more humans than it harms.

samus 4y ago

The AI argument is completely irrelevant. The owners of a corporation already delegate decision making to one or more natural intelligences, also known as the board. This (hive) mind is responsible for acting in the corporation's interest.

photochemsyn 4y ago
The legal requirement is that the board act in the shareholder's interest, which is not necessarily the same as the corporation's interest, is it? What if the board was instead elected by the employees and was directed to act in their interest instead? Or, half the board could be elected by employees, and half elected by shareholders. What the corporate person would think about this is anyone's guess, though.
- samus 4y ago
  The shareholders own the company. Therefore, the board has to act in the shareholder's interest. Usually this means that the share price at the stock market has to be maintained or increased, else the shareholders would suffer losses. Employees have no stake in a normal company. Their contributions are remunerated by their salary, and their employment can be terminated at any time (details subject to jurisdiction of course). Some jurisdiction provide for a worker's council in larger companies that can influence decisions of the board. Corporations where employees regularly exercise control democratically are called worker cooperatives.