[shawndrost]

I don't understand this POV, can you explain what I'm missing?

Usually when people say "corporations aren't people" I think they are confused about the need for an abstraction. But you acknowledged the need for an abstraction.

I don't imagine you are confused about the status quo of the legal terminology? AFAIK, the current facts are: the legal term "person" encompasses "natural person" (ie the common meaning of "person") and "legal person" (ie the common usage of "corporation"). In legalese, owning shares of legal persons is not slavery; owning shares of natural persons is; owning shares of "people" is ambiguous.

I don't imagine you are advocating for a change in legal terminology. It seems like it would be an outrageously painful find-and-replace in the largest codebase ever? And for what upside? It's like some non-programmer advocating to abandon the use of the word "master" in git, but literally a billion times worse.

Are you are just gesturing at a broader political agenda about reducing corporate power? Or something else I am not picking up on?

[foolswisdom]

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]

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.

[acka]

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]

Are those things unique to corporations though? A dead person can be held criminally liable but can't go to prison.

[thfuran]

Can a dead person be held criminally liable? I wouldn’t think the case would proceed.

[hrimfaxi]

It's happened at least once, though in papal court not criminal: 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

[jabbywocker]

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]

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.

[jabbywocker]

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]

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_.... 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.

[crazygringo]

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]

> 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.

[rendaw]

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]

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.

[f0a0464cc8012]

But then why does a corporation need freedom of speech etc?

[hrimfaxi]

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]

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.

[hrimfaxi]

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.

[Attrecomet]

>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"!

[tekla]

If a group of workers create a Union, should the Union be allowed free speech?

[acka]

I believe it would be redundant to explicitly grant freedom of speech to an organization such as a union, as its individual members inherently possess this right.

[comex]

And you will find similar reasoning in the Citizens United decision with respect to corporations:

> If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech. If the antidistortion rationale were to be accepted, however, it would permit Government to ban political speech simply because the speaker is an association that has taken on the corporate form.

[jcelerier]

> 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.

[ghtbircshotbe]

Or you could just take the obvious and literally meaning of the phrase "corporations are not people" and not say that everyone who says it is confused. Corporations have different incentives, legal requirements, rights and responsibilities.