[gruez]

Never? Even the whole "corporations are people too" meme where this sentiment presumably originated from is often misunderstood. It doesn't mean corporations have the same rights as people, it just means they can conduct transactions and can sue/be used. It doesn't mean they can vote.

[tines]

I thought that the "corporations are people" meme was the actual rationale for why corpos "should" be allowed to spend money on elections: spending money for political purposes is free speech, and people have the right to free speech, and corpos are people, so corpos have the right to spend money for political purposes.

[gruez]

>spending money for political purposes is free speech, and people have the right to free speech, and corpos are people, so corpos have the right to spend money for political purposes.

From wikipedia:

>The majority also held that the First Amendment's free press clause protects associations of individuals in addition to individual speakers, and further that the First Amendment does not allow prohibitions of speech based on the speaker's identity. Corporations, as associations of individuals, therefore have free speech rights under the First Amendment.

In other words, corporations have the right to spend money for political purposes not because of corporate personhood or "corporations are people too", it's because first amendment protections apply to associations of people. This covers corporations, but also includes other groups like trade unions.

[tines]

The flaw in this reasoning is that corporations are not merely associations of people; they are a special kind of association of people, which can be regulated specially. Hence, I think, why some have stripped away this motivated language and reduced it to the more honest and obviously absurd "corporations are people too."

[gruez]

>The flaw in this reasoning is that corporations are not merely associations of people; they are a special kind of association of people, which can be regulated specially.

You realize republicans can make the same argument to bash unions?

[monocasa]

They already have. Unions generally can't donate to political campaigns, and can't do things like strike in solidarity with other unions which would be pretty clearly be speech if we're counting corporate donations to political campaigns as speech.

[gruez]

> Unions generally can't donate to political campaigns

???

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/carpenters-joiners-union/su...

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/service-employees-internati...

>and can't do things like strike in solidarity with other unions which would be pretty clearly be speech if we're counting corporate donations to political campaigns as speech.

Seems like a stretch to lump industrial action with political donations.

[XorNot]

That was the Citizens United reasoning yes and it was wholly absurd unless you really wanted to empower the executive class.

[otikik]

Corporations can vote now. If they own land. In some states.

Which is fine, they only get one vote.

But they can also divide a piece of land into small plots, make a bunch of shell companies, each one owning a small piece of land, and vote using that.

[mc32]

It also allows them to be sued. I suppose we could have other mechanisms to sue companies but this is what we’ve come up with.

[jordanb]

"Corporate Personhood" allows the corporate entity to be a responsibility sink for the owners. They alternative is that people can sue the owners/officers directly for the "actions" of the corporation.

[bluefirebrand]

Which is obviously messed.

"We can direct the corporation we own to dump raw sewage into rivers but you can't hold us accountable personally for that decision" is an absolutely messed way to run things

[mc32]

Sure but you need to be able to get to “someone” when say the owner skips town or dies or… plus this firewall makes it so people will be more willing to build businesses.

[ezst]

> Sure but you need to be able to get to “someone” when say the owner skips town or dies or…

And now you get to "nobody at all" when effectively nothing happens to the leaders the instant the need to bear accountability

> plus this firewall makes it so people will be more willing to build businesses.

Doubt.

[XorNot]

Requiring one function does not require the other though.

"Corporate personhood" is a legal concept where how person-like a corporation is can be defined in whichever way is convenient to how we want the law to operate.

[wat10000]

It does in one town in Delaware, at least: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/delaware-court-upho...

[weaksauce]

The thing that stuck with me is the awful reasoning by the judge: "Judge rules Fenwick Island's corporate voting does not dilute human votes"

How could corporations voting not dilute the human votes by the very nature and reason of voting in the first place?

[cucumber3732842]

>How could corporations voting not dilute the human votes by the very nature and reason of voting in the first place?

Because you're being misled (i.e. lied to) about the actual nature of the situation.

This is a snooty vacation town shithole. Non-resident landowners have been allowed to vote here since day 1. The purpose of incorporating as a town is/was essentially to have a town that's run by business. Think like City of Industry CA fucked the Hamptons, this is the kid.

Back when they did this in 1950-whatever this worked fine. All the land was owned by McScumbag A, McScumbag B and McScumbag C who invariably lived in DC, NYC, etc, etc. Back then people owned vacation cottages, businesses, motels, etc, etc, in their own name. So, as everything moved to LLCs and whatnot over the years the scummy developers and investors slowly lost influence to the "filthy townies" or whatever and so in 2000-whatever they amended their constitution to allow their LLCs to vote and now, here we are litigating the implications in court.

Yeah, it's stupid on like a dozen different levels but this isn't the "random normal-ish town goes apeshit and decide to let DuPont vote" it's being cast as. This town was already apeshit, it's just being fought about in court.

And INB4 anyone puts words in my mouth, no I don't support the ruling.