Quick question about "Corporations as people"

[amrchaos]

Here is a question I have about "Corporations as people"

What is their citizenship? Could foreigners buy corporations and gain access to our political system through the SC ruling? Also, what was the SC ruling so I can look it up.


Thanks to all that help me answer these question.

 

[The Infidel]

Corps are made up of people.

 

[amrchaos]

I've got that--but what about their citizenship?

 

[occupied]

I've got that--but what about their citizenship?

Anyone can give money to a superpac. Direct contributions are becoming a thing of the past, a mere drop in the bucket of total spending and the only kind still tightly regulated.

 

[Dante]

Here is a question I have about "Corporations as people"

What is their citizenship? Could foreigners buy corporations and gain access to our political system through the SC ruling? Also, what was the SC ruling so I can look it up.


Thanks to all that help me answer these question.

I'm voting for APPLE COMPUTERS in US Senate Race

 

[The Infidel]

I've got that--but what about their citizenship?

They work for corporations

 

[JackLandsman]

Of course corporations are "made of people". The issue, however, is that in this country corporations as entities are considered persons. This is because of the Supreme Court's historically corporatist reading of the Fourteenth Amendment. It's bunk of course. Hopefully we can do away with corporate personhood this century.

 

[Katzndogz]

If a corporation is incorporated under the laws of a state, they have the rights of corporate citizens under that state's laws. Corporations do not have the right to vote. Foreigners who come here and become naturalized under our federal laws have the right to vote. Would you deny the right to vote to all those naturalized citizens? Suppose foreigners came here specifically to become naturalized citizens and vote themselves benefits under our system. Would you deny them the right as voters to do just that?

 

[midcan5]

Weird I was just debating this and wrote a few thoughts. The video from MIT below is excellent. Here: http://video.mit.edu/watch/democracy-after-citizens-united-9635/

A few observations.

The problem with CU is it assumes a corporation is a definable entity, and as such acts in a manner that makes sense in the way in which we consider a person for instance to act. Corporate goals rarely align with society's goals, or even with a nation's goals. Corporations exist to make money for their stock holders and executives. Persons exist as individuals, as recognizable responsible agents. Corporations operate outside the democratic framework that individuals operate under. Corporations operate equally well under communism as under democracy, they also operate across borders with resources and policies that differ from place to place. Funds from overseas operations then can enter and provide monies that influence local politics, and even transnational politics, by creating and funding ads and other various media that manages the idea landscape. CU gave enormous power to money that comes from anywhere to control media in our democracy with no responsible agent or clear understanding of who benefits, how, or why they benefit.

OT Unions suffer the same sort of dilemma but unions operate locally and specifically, when I was in a union I often disagreed with their decisions or policies. But I was also a recipient of the benefits of the union and having seen the manner in which corporations treat workers through mergers and benefit fights, I see unions as I see lawyers, a wall against empty greed and corporate irresponsibility.

"Corporate propaganda directed outwards, that is, to the public at large, has two main objectives: to identify the free enterprise system in popular consciousness with every cherished value, and to identify interventionist governments and strong unions (the only agencies capable of checking a complete domination of society by corporations) with tyranny, oppression and even subversion. The techniques used to achieve these results are variously called 'public relations', 'corporate communications' and 'economic education'." Alex Carey 'Taking the Risk out of Democracy' [see also [http://video.mit.edu/watch/democracy-after-citizens-united-9635/]Home | MIT Video[/url] ]


"Historian Phillips-Fein traces the hidden history of the Reagan revolution to a coterie of business executives, including General Electric official and Reagan mentor Lemuel Boulware, who saw labor unions, government regulation, high taxes and welfare spending as dire threats to their profits and power. From the 1930s onward, the author argues, they provided the money, organization and fervor for a decades-long war against New Deal liberalism—funding campaigns, think tanks, magazines and lobbying groups, and indoctrinating employees in the virtues of unfettered capitalism." [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Hands-Making-Conservative-Movement/dp/0393059308/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8]Amazon.com: Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan (9780393059304): Kim Phillips-Fein: Books[/ame]

 

[Katzndogz]

Of course corporations are "made of people". The issue, however, is that in this country corporations as entities are considered persons. This is because of the Supreme Court's historically corporatist reading of the Fourteenth Amendment. It's bunk of course. Hopefully we can do away with corporate personhood this century.

That will never happen. Nor would you like it if it did. Corporate personhood has nothing to do with the 14th Amendment.

Recognizing a corporation as a legal person was the way the state imposed responsibilities of groups of individuals organized for a common enterprise. Up until then, which was the latter part of the 19th century, there was no recognition of corporate personhood and no way to control those corporations. For instance, liberals LOVE the way environmental laws have been used against corporations to force them to stop polluting. This couldn't be done without the legal personhood of corporations. Nor could the corporation be forced to pay to clean up a toxic site. Without legal personhood, a corporation would have no responsibility if it defrauded an investor, nor would there be any deep corporate pockets for the negligent acts of its employees. Nor would there by any corporate taxes at all.

So, removing legal personhood from corporations isn't going to happen.

 

[JackLandsman]

A nice blog entry that educated me a few years back would be "Corporate Psychopathology" by thirtyplus, a diarist @ DailyKos. It's a nice read.

 

[JackLandsman]

Of course corporations are "made of people". The issue, however, is that in this country corporations as entities are considered persons. This is because of the Supreme Court's historically corporatist reading of the Fourteenth Amendment. It's bunk of course. Hopefully we can do away with corporate personhood this century.

That will never happen. Nor would you like it if it did. Corporate personhood has nothing to do with the 14th Amendment.

Recognizing a corporation as a legal person was the way the state imposed responsibilities of groups of individuals organized for a common enterprise. Up until then, which was the latter part of the 19th century, there was no recognition of corporate personhood and no way to control those corporations. For instance, liberals LOVE the way environmental laws have been used against corporations to force them to stop polluting. This couldn't be done without the legal personhood of corporations. Nor could the corporation be forced to pay to clean up a toxic site. Without legal personhood, a corporation would have no responsibility if it defrauded an investor, nor would there be any deep corporate pockets for the negligent acts of its employees. Nor would there by any corporate taxes at all.

So, removing legal personhood from corporations isn't going to happen.

My reference to the 14th Amendment, firstly, was absolutely apt and is specifically relevant to your pointing to the latter 19th century as a starting point for this notion of corporate personhood. Corporations, as persons, are granted equal protections under the law, supposedly to guard them from activist government. What irks liberals such as I is the application of legal rights originally meant for freed slaves to corporate persons. This doesn't mean, for instance, that I support the restriction of political donations of corporate PACs--which are not the corporations, mind you, but appendages of corporate influence. I'd like to return to an era when corporations were simply a collection of individuals who served a particular productive, non-profit purpose in the community (the original intent of corporate charters); or indeed profit-making entities that don't wield the kind of influence they presently do (e.g., the insurance lobby writing the health care reform legislation which includes a corrupt, unconstitutional, corporatistic invention such as the "individual mandate"). Our present point has stemmed from the Supreme Court's historical designation of corporations as persons. I'm against it.

 

[ClosedCaption]

 

[occupied]

Of course corporations are "made of people". The issue, however, is that in this country corporations as entities are considered persons. This is because of the Supreme Court's historically corporatist reading of the Fourteenth Amendment. It's bunk of course. Hopefully we can do away with corporate personhood this century.

That will never happen. Nor would you like it if it did. Corporate personhood has nothing to do with the 14th Amendment.

Recognizing a corporation as a legal person was the way the state imposed responsibilities of groups of individuals organized for a common enterprise. Up until then, which was the latter part of the 19th century, there was no recognition of corporate personhood and no way to control those corporations. For instance, liberals LOVE the way environmental laws have been used against corporations to force them to stop polluting. This couldn't be done without the legal personhood of corporations. Nor could the corporation be forced to pay to clean up a toxic site. Without legal personhood, a corporation would have no responsibility if it defrauded an investor, nor would there be any deep corporate pockets for the negligent acts of its employees. Nor would there by any corporate taxes at all.

So, removing legal personhood from corporations isn't going to happen.

Pretty crappy rationale for allowing corporations the power to dictate and enforce what regulations are going be applied to them, when there is a corporate death penalty tell me that we are holding them responsible for their actions.

 

[Charles_Main]

Here is a question I have about "Corporations as people"

What is their citizenship? Could foreigners buy corporations and gain access to our political system through the SC ruling? Also, what was the SC ruling so I can look it up.


Thanks to all that help me answer these question.

The Short answer is yes, Foreigners can own stocks in them.

What's the big deal, last time I head Clooney was over in Europe raising money for Obama. You guys don't seem to have a problem with that.

 

[Charles_Main]

Of course corporations are "made of people". The issue, however, is that in this country corporations as entities are considered persons. This is because of the Supreme Court's historically corporatist reading of the Fourteenth Amendment. It's bunk of course. Hopefully we can do away with corporate personhood this century.

That will never happen. Nor would you like it if it did. Corporate personhood has nothing to do with the 14th Amendment.

Recognizing a corporation as a legal person was the way the state imposed responsibilities of groups of individuals organized for a common enterprise. Up until then, which was the latter part of the 19th century, there was no recognition of corporate personhood and no way to control those corporations. For instance, liberals LOVE the way environmental laws have been used against corporations to force them to stop polluting. This couldn't be done without the legal personhood of corporations. Nor could the corporation be forced to pay to clean up a toxic site. Without legal personhood, a corporation would have no responsibility if it defrauded an investor, nor would there be any deep corporate pockets for the negligent acts of its employees. Nor would there by any corporate taxes at all.

So, removing legal personhood from corporations isn't going to happen.

Pretty crappy rationale for allowing corporations the power to dictate and enforce what regulations are going be applied to them, when there is a corporate death penalty tell me that we are holding them responsible for their actions.

We can and do hold the management of Cooperation's to account. your premise is false.

 

[jillian]

Here is a question I have about "Corporations as people"

What is their citizenship? Could foreigners buy corporations and gain access to our political system through the SC ruling? Also, what was the SC ruling so I can look it up.


Thanks to all that help me answer these question.

corporate citizenship lies in the state of their incorporation. for example, if a company is incorporated in delaware, it is a citizen of delaware.

 

[JackLandsman]

Of course corporations are "made of people". The issue, however, is that in this country corporations as entities are considered persons. This is because of the Supreme Court's historically corporatist reading of the Fourteenth Amendment. It's bunk of course. Hopefully we can do away with corporate personhood this century.

That will never happen. Nor would you like it if it did. Corporate personhood has nothing to do with the 14th Amendment.

Recognizing a corporation as a legal person was the way the state imposed responsibilities of groups of individuals organized for a common enterprise. Up until then, which was the latter part of the 19th century, there was no recognition of corporate personhood and no way to control those corporations. For instance, liberals LOVE the way environmental laws have been used against corporations to force them to stop polluting. This couldn't be done without the legal personhood of corporations. Nor could the corporation be forced to pay to clean up a toxic site. Without legal personhood, a corporation would have no responsibility if it defrauded an investor, nor would there be any deep corporate pockets for the negligent acts of its employees. Nor would there by any corporate taxes at all.

So, removing legal personhood from corporations isn't going to happen.

Pretty crappy rationale for allowing corporations the power to dictate and enforce what regulations are going be applied to them, when there is a corporate death penalty tell me that we are holding them responsible for their actions.

Exactly. Corporate personhood grows from an ideological predisposition. Simply put there is a direct corollary of the 14 Amendment's intended protections from freed slaves and favorable findings for corporations by the Supreme Court in decades since. I'm against it.

 

[theDoctorisIn]

Here is a question I have about "Corporations as people"

What is their citizenship? Could foreigners buy corporations and gain access to our political system through the SC ruling? Also, what was the SC ruling so I can look it up.


Thanks to all that help me answer these question.

corporate citizenship lies in the state of their incorporation. for example, if a company is incorporated in delaware, it is a citizen of delaware.

Delaware must have more "Corporation People" citizens than actual people citizens then.

 

[occupied]

That will never happen. Nor would you like it if it did. Corporate personhood has nothing to do with the 14th Amendment.

Recognizing a corporation as a legal person was the way the state imposed responsibilities of groups of individuals organized for a common enterprise. Up until then, which was the latter part of the 19th century, there was no recognition of corporate personhood and no way to control those corporations. For instance, liberals LOVE the way environmental laws have been used against corporations to force them to stop polluting. This couldn't be done without the legal personhood of corporations. Nor could the corporation be forced to pay to clean up a toxic site. Without legal personhood, a corporation would have no responsibility if it defrauded an investor, nor would there be any deep corporate pockets for the negligent acts of its employees. Nor would there by any corporate taxes at all.

So, removing legal personhood from corporations isn't going to happen.

Pretty crappy rationale for allowing corporations the power to dictate and enforce what regulations are going be applied to them, when there is a corporate death penalty tell me that we are holding them responsible for their actions.

We can and do hold the management of Cooperation's to account. your premise is false.

We sometimes hold them to account but whatever paltry penalty that eventually gets handed down after a lengthy court battle is not exactly a deterrent, when is the last time we broke up a company?