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The argument is that the need for abstraction doesn't mean we must reuse an existing concept. We should be able to talk about corporations as entities and talk

The argument is that the need for abstraction doesn't mean we must reuse an existing concept. We should be able to talk about corporations as entities and talk about what laws or rights should apply, without needing to call them people.

thfuran 11mo ago
But the existing concept by and large has the properties we want. The ability to form contracts, to be held civilly or criminally liable for misconduct, to own property, etc. That we say something is a juridical person isn't some kind of moral claim that it's equivalent in importance to a human, it's just a legal classification.
- jabbywocker 11mo ago
  At least for me, the problem is that making them completely equivalent in a legal sense has undesirable outcomes, like Citizens United. Having distinct terms allows for creating distinct, but potential overlapping sets of laws/privileges/rights. Using the same term makes it much harder to argue for distinctions in key areas
  - thfuran 11mo ago
    But they aren't completely equivalent. Natural persons can vote; juridical persons cannot. Natural persons have a constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination; juridical persons do not; etc. There's just a lot in common between the two, because it makes sense for there to be a lot in common. Citizen's United v FEC was a transparently terrible ruling, but it was in no way implied by the mere existence of corporate personhood. It was a significant expansion of the interpretation of corporate personhood that directly overturned a prior supreme court ruling on campaign finance regulation.
    - crazygringo 11mo ago
      I truly wish more people understood this. The entire cry of "corporations aren't people!" is based and a complete misunderstanding of what a legal person is. You've done a great job at explaining. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who willfully propagate these misunderstandings. Because by saying "of course corporations aren't people, and everybody knows this except those dumb <other side>", it's an easy way to try to vilify the other side as dumb/evil. When the reality is that it's simply a tried-and-true necessary and useful legal concept, that virtually nobody but lawyers would even be familiar with in the first place, if it weren't for activists who thought it sounded scandalous.
      - yunwal 11mo ago
        > The entire cry of "corporations aren't people!" is based and a complete misunderstanding of what a legal person is. > if it weren't for activists who thought it sounded scandalous It wasn’t activists who first misunderstood the concept, it was the Supreme Court, who decided that corporate personhood gives corporations the same first amendment rights as real personhood. It’s not ridiculous to point out that if freedom of speech is implied by corporate personhood, it was insane to give corporations personhood in the first place.
        crazygringo 11mo ago
        The Supreme Court was going to decide whatever they wanted, regardless of which linguistic terms were used to describe the underlying legal concepts which remain the same. If you look at the text of the first amendment, the word "person" doesn't appear in that part. It says "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech." It doesn't say that the speech has to come from "persons". So I'd say you're the one misunderstanding here. I think it was a dumb Supreme Court decision, but I'm not going to pretend it had anything to do with the fact that corporations are called a "legal person" instead of a "legal entity" or some other term that ends up meaning the exact same thing. Disagree with their decision, great. But arguing over legal terminology is a waste of breath.
        yunwal 11mo ago
    - jabbywocker 11mo ago
      It was a major expansion, based solely on the reuse of the term. It’s why I used it as an example. The main arguments boils down to that since corporations are people and have free speech, and that a natural persons financial activity is considered protected speech, that a corporate person should have the same freedom as there should be no distinctions about the rights afforded to a person. The entire argument would have been moot if we used distinct terminology
      - thfuran 11mo ago
        There were then and still are now constitutional rights afforded to natural persons but not juridical persons. There is not some inability to distinguish the two. Look at the ruling that Citizens United overturned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_v._Michigan_Chamber_of_Commerce https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_v._Michigan_Chamber_of_.... It was very clear that it's fine (and necessary) to restrict corporations in some ways precisely because they are not people. Perhaps the argument of Citizens United wouldn't have been made if we instead used the terms "Human Shmerg" and "Legal Shmerg", but exactly the same argument could apply to shmergness as to personhood when discussing the rights afforded to shmergs of one kind or another, and the conservatives in the US really want to deregulate everything.
        jabbywocker 11mo ago
        Thats exactly my point, you do not have to use the exact same term for both types. You could literally just use “person” and “corporation” as wholly distinct terms with overlapping rights afforded to each and avoid the edge case semantic arguments that create legal situations that the majority takes issue with.
        MaxfordAndSons 11mo ago
        I'd venture to guess that whatever legal logic resulted in the SC deciding that corporations should have the same right to free speech as individuals presumably doesn't hinge on any semantic blurriness between different subsets of "persons", and even if they didn't use overlapping terms it would still have ruled thus. That said, it certainly is nice free marketing for our corporate overlords.
- f0a0464cc8012 11mo ago
  But then why does a corporation need freedom of speech etc?
  - hrimfaxi 11mo ago
    Because a corporation is a group of people, and a group of people don't lose their freedom of speech just because they joined a collective. And corporations can stand for things. They can have missions and use funds to effect speech in support of causes that align with their beliefs.
    - mcv 11mo ago
      Is a corporation really a group of people? Of course people are involved with the corporation, but the corporation doesn't represent its employees, shareholders, management or customers. It's a separate legal entity with complex relationships with its employees, management, shareholders and customers, but with its own rights and responsibilities. There are organisation forms that are a lot closer to being just a group of people working together, like co-ops and firms maybe. I'm not entirely up to date on all options in English-speaking countries (which will vary of course, but the Dutch Maatschap is probably as close as you can get to a company that's just a group of people.
      - Attrecomet 11mo ago
        >the Dutch Maatschap is probably as close as you can get to a company that's just a group of people. So the Dutch just go ahead and call a group of people a "mash up"!
      - hrimfaxi 11mo ago
        Co-ops and firms sound like they are a subset of corporation. If they aren't, what makes them different in your mind? Corporations can take many forms and organize around many different principles.
        mcv 11mo ago
- rendaw 11mo ago
  It also has a lot of properties we don't want, no? Freedom of travel, enlist in the army, drink alcohol after a certain age, get married, etc etc.
  - thfuran 11mo ago
    A few. But weighed against pretty much all of tort law and contract law, which heavily lean on the similar treatment, those are some pretty tiny edge cases that it's easy to say only apply to natural persons.
- acka 11mo ago
  Corporations can be held criminally liable, but they can't go to prison. And while lots of countries have gotten rid of the death penalty, a corporation can actually be "executed" by getting dissolved. I think these are some pretty big deals.
  - hrimfaxi 11mo ago
    Are those things unique to corporations though? A dead person can be held criminally liable but can't go to prison.
    - thfuran 11mo ago
      Can a dead person be held criminally liable? I wouldn’t think the case would proceed.
      - hrimfaxi 11mo ago
        It's happened at least once, though in papal court not criminal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Synod https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Synod Though I would be surprised if not once in human history in some kangaroo court a dead person was put on trial for a crime. edit: Here's one though it resulted in a mistrial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Plummer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Plummer
jcelerier 11mo ago
> The argument is that the need for abstraction doesn't mean we must reuse an existing concept. but that's not what is happening, there are two concepts: "natural person" and "legal person". you could call them "foo" and "bar" if you prefer, those are just legal variable names.

thfuran 11mo ago

But the existing concept by and large has the properties we want. The ability to form contracts, to be held civilly or criminally liable for misconduct, to own property, etc. That we say something is a juridical person isn't some kind of moral claim that it's equivalent in importance to a human, it's just a legal classification.

jabbywocker 11mo ago
At least for me, the problem is that making them completely equivalent in a legal sense has undesirable outcomes, like Citizens United. Having distinct terms allows for creating distinct, but potential overlapping sets of laws/privileges/rights. Using the same term makes it much harder to argue for distinctions in key areas
- thfuran 11mo ago
  But they aren't completely equivalent. Natural persons can vote; juridical persons cannot. Natural persons have a constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination; juridical persons do not; etc. There's just a lot in common between the two, because it makes sense for there to be a lot in common. Citizen's United v FEC was a transparently terrible ruling, but it was in no way implied by the mere existence of corporate personhood. It was a significant expansion of the interpretation of corporate personhood that directly overturned a prior supreme court ruling on campaign finance regulation.
  - crazygringo 11mo ago
    I truly wish more people understood this. The entire cry of "corporations aren't people!" is based and a complete misunderstanding of what a legal person is. You've done a great job at explaining. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who willfully propagate these misunderstandings. Because by saying "of course corporations aren't people, and everybody knows this except those dumb <other side>", it's an easy way to try to vilify the other side as dumb/evil. When the reality is that it's simply a tried-and-true necessary and useful legal concept, that virtually nobody but lawyers would even be familiar with in the first place, if it weren't for activists who thought it sounded scandalous.
    - yunwal 11mo ago
      > The entire cry of "corporations aren't people!" is based and a complete misunderstanding of what a legal person is. > if it weren't for activists who thought it sounded scandalous It wasn’t activists who first misunderstood the concept, it was the Supreme Court, who decided that corporate personhood gives corporations the same first amendment rights as real personhood. It’s not ridiculous to point out that if freedom of speech is implied by corporate personhood, it was insane to give corporations personhood in the first place.
      - crazygringo 11mo ago
        The Supreme Court was going to decide whatever they wanted, regardless of which linguistic terms were used to describe the underlying legal concepts which remain the same. If you look at the text of the first amendment, the word "person" doesn't appear in that part. It says "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech." It doesn't say that the speech has to come from "persons". So I'd say you're the one misunderstanding here. I think it was a dumb Supreme Court decision, but I'm not going to pretend it had anything to do with the fact that corporations are called a "legal person" instead of a "legal entity" or some other term that ends up meaning the exact same thing. Disagree with their decision, great. But arguing over legal terminology is a waste of breath.
        yunwal 11mo ago
  - jabbywocker 11mo ago
    It was a major expansion, based solely on the reuse of the term. It’s why I used it as an example. The main arguments boils down to that since corporations are people and have free speech, and that a natural persons financial activity is considered protected speech, that a corporate person should have the same freedom as there should be no distinctions about the rights afforded to a person. The entire argument would have been moot if we used distinct terminology
    - thfuran 11mo ago
      There were then and still are now constitutional rights afforded to natural persons but not juridical persons. There is not some inability to distinguish the two. Look at the ruling that Citizens United overturned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_v._Michigan_Chamber_of_Commerce https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_v._Michigan_Chamber_of_.... It was very clear that it's fine (and necessary) to restrict corporations in some ways precisely because they are not people. Perhaps the argument of Citizens United wouldn't have been made if we instead used the terms "Human Shmerg" and "Legal Shmerg", but exactly the same argument could apply to shmergness as to personhood when discussing the rights afforded to shmergs of one kind or another, and the conservatives in the US really want to deregulate everything.
      - jabbywocker 11mo ago
        Thats exactly my point, you do not have to use the exact same term for both types. You could literally just use “person” and “corporation” as wholly distinct terms with overlapping rights afforded to each and avoid the edge case semantic arguments that create legal situations that the majority takes issue with.
        MaxfordAndSons 11mo ago
        I'd venture to guess that whatever legal logic resulted in the SC deciding that corporations should have the same right to free speech as individuals presumably doesn't hinge on any semantic blurriness between different subsets of "persons", and even if they didn't use overlapping terms it would still have ruled thus. That said, it certainly is nice free marketing for our corporate overlords.
f0a0464cc8012 11mo ago
But then why does a corporation need freedom of speech etc?
- hrimfaxi 11mo ago
  Because a corporation is a group of people, and a group of people don't lose their freedom of speech just because they joined a collective. And corporations can stand for things. They can have missions and use funds to effect speech in support of causes that align with their beliefs.
  - mcv 11mo ago
    Is a corporation really a group of people? Of course people are involved with the corporation, but the corporation doesn't represent its employees, shareholders, management or customers. It's a separate legal entity with complex relationships with its employees, management, shareholders and customers, but with its own rights and responsibilities. There are organisation forms that are a lot closer to being just a group of people working together, like co-ops and firms maybe. I'm not entirely up to date on all options in English-speaking countries (which will vary of course, but the Dutch Maatschap is probably as close as you can get to a company that's just a group of people.
    - Attrecomet 11mo ago
      >the Dutch Maatschap is probably as close as you can get to a company that's just a group of people. So the Dutch just go ahead and call a group of people a "mash up"!
    - hrimfaxi 11mo ago
      Co-ops and firms sound like they are a subset of corporation. If they aren't, what makes them different in your mind? Corporations can take many forms and organize around many different principles.
      - mcv 11mo ago
rendaw 11mo ago
It also has a lot of properties we don't want, no? Freedom of travel, enlist in the army, drink alcohol after a certain age, get married, etc etc.
- thfuran 11mo ago
  A few. But weighed against pretty much all of tort law and contract law, which heavily lean on the similar treatment, those are some pretty tiny edge cases that it's easy to say only apply to natural persons.
acka 11mo ago
Corporations can be held criminally liable, but they can't go to prison. And while lots of countries have gotten rid of the death penalty, a corporation can actually be "executed" by getting dissolved. I think these are some pretty big deals.
- hrimfaxi 11mo ago
  Are those things unique to corporations though? A dead person can be held criminally liable but can't go to prison.
  - thfuran 11mo ago
    Can a dead person be held criminally liable? I wouldn’t think the case would proceed.
    - hrimfaxi 11mo ago
      It's happened at least once, though in papal court not criminal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Synod https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Synod Though I would be surprised if not once in human history in some kangaroo court a dead person was put on trial for a crime. edit: Here's one though it resulted in a mistrial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Plummer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Plummer

jcelerier 11mo ago

> The argument is that the need for abstraction doesn't mean we must reuse an existing concept. but that's not what is happening, there are two concepts: "natural person" and "legal person". you could call them "foo" and "bar" if you prefer, those are just legal variable names.