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This never made sense to me. Personhood should be reserved for persons. Instead of contorting language and law into pretzels, make new law to conserve nature.

This never made sense to me. Personhood should be reserved for persons. Instead of contorting language and law into pretzels, make new law to conserve nature. A river is not a person. A corporation is not a person.

anamax 3y ago
A corporation is, however, a collection of people. Which raises the question, should a collection of people have different rights than the members of said collection?
- floydnoel 3y ago
  Of course a group of people should have no more rights than any one person! It's only natural.
  - xhevahir 3y ago
    No one said more rights; that they should have all the rights of a single citizen is contentious enough. What if, for example, we grant freedom of speech to this entity, and we take freedom of speech to include the funding of political parties, causes, or candidates? (That's how things are at present in the United States.)
    - zilti 3y ago
      No, that is not how things are. Companies do not have freedom of speech etc. in the USA.
      - AdhemarVandamme 3y ago
        Don’t they? In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U.S. 682 (2014) the Supreme Court did not address and answer whether for-profit corporations are protected by the free exercise of religion clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, but the Court did recognize a for-profit corporation’s claim of religious belief (equal to the belief of its owners), sufficient for such a corporation to be exempt from a regulation that it (or its owners) religiously object to, if there is a less restrictive means of furthering the law’s interest, according to the provisions of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    The question of citizens untied, ect wasnt about if corporations get more or new rights, but if the people lose rights they had before if they are part of a group. A person can hold up a sign, but can two people hold up a sign together.
    - devilbunny 3y ago
      Yeah, this is the critical legal reasoning behind Citizens United, and it doesn't get enough respect from people who dislike the practical outcome of that decision. You do not surrender your rights when you join an organization. Anything that one of its employees could legally do is something that the corporation (which is, as the saying goes about government, just another term for things we agree to do together) should be able to. It's complicated and difficult to draw the lines and impossible to do it perfectly. But if Elon Musk wants to blow an entire fortune for the lulz, that's kind of up to him. And we shouldn't stop him.
samatman 3y ago
Once you remove corporate personhood from corporations, there's nothing left. They can't sue, enter into contracts, be sued, or own things, making them unable to serve their intended purpose. Ah, but you'll say, the law should recognize a distinction between humans and corporations! It does. Corporate personhood is nothing more than a way of talking about the rights, privileges, and obligations, which corporations share with humans. When push comes to shove, the fiction is dispensed with, this is called "piercing the corporate veil"[0], terminology which shows that this is understood to be reasoning by analogy. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil
bawolff 3y ago
The law already distinguishes between legal and natural people. The idea that certain groups of people become virtual people is not new. It dates back to roman times and our entire legal system is built around it. Rivers being people is silly though.
pyuser583 3y ago
Corporations are by definition persons. The “incorporate” means to “make a body” - a legal body that can act like a natural person under the law. Imagine if, say, the New York Times Coporation wasn’t a person. It couldn’t own property. Or enter into contracts. So no office building, unless one of the investors had a property they cared to rent to individual officers or employees. Coworking for everybody, basically. Salaries would be paid from the private accounts of individual investors. As would all expenses. If an investor ran low on funds, they would have to be replaced, quickly. All employees would be the personal servants of the executive officer, although their contracts would make clear they must serve the organization as a whole. Some industries can function like this. Maritime insurance functioned without incorporation for centuries. Even today Lloyd’s of London has some “names” which are personally liable, with no corporate veil between themselves and liability. But businesses like the New York Times Corporation can’t operate that way.
pontifier 3y ago
I lost a court case several years ago in Utah because the judge decided I was not a person. I was merely an individual.

anamax 3y ago

A corporation is, however, a collection of people. Which raises the question, should a collection of people have different rights than the members of said collection?

floydnoel 3y ago
Of course a group of people should have no more rights than any one person! It's only natural.
- xhevahir 3y ago
  No one said more rights; that they should have all the rights of a single citizen is contentious enough. What if, for example, we grant freedom of speech to this entity, and we take freedom of speech to include the funding of political parties, causes, or candidates? (That's how things are at present in the United States.)
  - zilti 3y ago
    No, that is not how things are. Companies do not have freedom of speech etc. in the USA.
    - AdhemarVandamme 3y ago
      Don’t they? In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U.S. 682 (2014) the Supreme Court did not address and answer whether for-profit corporations are protected by the free exercise of religion clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, but the Court did recognize a for-profit corporation’s claim of religious belief (equal to the belief of its owners), sufficient for such a corporation to be exempt from a regulation that it (or its owners) religiously object to, if there is a less restrictive means of furthering the law’s interest, according to the provisions of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  The question of citizens untied, ect wasnt about if corporations get more or new rights, but if the people lose rights they had before if they are part of a group. A person can hold up a sign, but can two people hold up a sign together.
  - devilbunny 3y ago
    Yeah, this is the critical legal reasoning behind Citizens United, and it doesn't get enough respect from people who dislike the practical outcome of that decision. You do not surrender your rights when you join an organization. Anything that one of its employees could legally do is something that the corporation (which is, as the saying goes about government, just another term for things we agree to do together) should be able to. It's complicated and difficult to draw the lines and impossible to do it perfectly. But if Elon Musk wants to blow an entire fortune for the lulz, that's kind of up to him. And we shouldn't stop him.

samatman 3y ago

Once you remove corporate personhood from corporations, there's nothing left. They can't sue, enter into contracts, be sued, or own things, making them unable to serve their intended purpose. Ah, but you'll say, the law should recognize a distinction between humans and corporations! It does. Corporate personhood is nothing more than a way of talking about the rights, privileges, and obligations, which corporations share with humans. When push comes to shove, the fiction is dispensed with, this is called "piercing the corporate veil"[0], terminology which shows that this is understood to be reasoning by analogy. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil

bawolff 3y ago

The law already distinguishes between legal and natural people. The idea that certain groups of people become virtual people is not new. It dates back to roman times and our entire legal system is built around it. Rivers being people is silly though.

pyuser583 3y ago

Corporations are by definition persons. The “incorporate” means to “make a body” - a legal body that can act like a natural person under the law. Imagine if, say, the New York Times Coporation wasn’t a person. It couldn’t own property. Or enter into contracts. So no office building, unless one of the investors had a property they cared to rent to individual officers or employees. Coworking for everybody, basically. Salaries would be paid from the private accounts of individual investors. As would all expenses. If an investor ran low on funds, they would have to be replaced, quickly. All employees would be the personal servants of the executive officer, although their contracts would make clear they must serve the organization as a whole. Some industries can function like this. Maritime insurance functioned without incorporation for centuries. Even today Lloyd’s of London has some “names” which are personally liable, with no corporate veil between themselves and liability. But businesses like the New York Times Corporation can’t operate that way.

pontifier 3y ago

I lost a court case several years ago in Utah because the judge decided I was not a person. I was merely an individual.