4 ms·
Corporate personhood is accumulating more and more of the rights previously reserved to real persons, but none of the same moral, ethical, or legal inhibitors a
by charonn0 14y ago
Corporate personhood is accumulating more and more of the rights previously reserved to real persons, but none of the same moral, ethical, or legal inhibitors are effective against them. You can't imprison a corporation when they break the law, and fines simply become a cost of doing business. If they get big enough they gain de facto immunity from prosecution even for serious felonies[1].
[1]: http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/investigations/media/hsbc-exposed-us-finacial-system-to-money-laundering-drug-terrorist-financing-risks http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/investigations/med...
- bhb916 14y agoTreating corporations as people for legal purposes doesn't concern me -- in fact it's a vital simplification that preserves our rights as individuals. The "de facto" immunity concerns me greatly. You can't imprison a corporation, true, but you can do a lot of other things to enforce laws: you can pierce the corporate veil, you can revoke licenses, and you can imprison executives. Choosing not to take those steps, or creating a system where taking those steps is possible, seems to be the real failure here.