Corporations are People?

[GenesisNemesis]

Yeah, a Church is a building in which people worship. Anywho, whatever.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Holden Caulfield? Is that you?

 

[ZiprHead]

Does the Girl Scout CORPORATION come to my door to sell me cookies?

 

[laughing dog]

more and more of the same phoniness, the same dishonest…..

The irony is overwhelming. A corporation is not a person. One can argue a corporation should be treated as if they are a person, but that doesn’t make the a corporation just like treating a dog as if they are a person doesn’t make them a person.

An argument that rests on a falsehood is bogus. Your insistence on unnecessarily basing your position on a false premise makes your argument seem dumber and dumber with each iteration.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Does the Girl Scout CORPORATION come to my door to sell me cookies?

And they actually deliver quality products. Corporations tend to enshittify.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Cars are just groups of people.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Repeat after me ---
"The Girl Scouts is NOT PEOPLE" -- say it!

or say "Planned Parenthood is NOT PEOPLE"

You're a ###-ing ph^$*@ny if you won't say these words.

Does the Girl Scout CORPORATION come to my door to sell me cookies?

And they actually deliver quality products. Corporations tend to enshittify.

You're contradicting yourself. You're saying the Girl Scouts corporation people deliver quality products, but that the Corporations tend to enshittify. You still can't figure it out that the Girl Scouts is one of those corporations. Why is it that you're blind to this fact? Don't you know what a "corporation" is? This group of people (Girl Scouts) is a corporation. Don't say out of one side of your mouth that this corporation is delivering a quality product, but out of the other side of your mouth say that "corporations" enshittify.

Do you mean that MOST other corporations enshittify but this one is an exception? which other ones?

the ACLU? Planned Parenthood? Are these also exceptions? Why are there so many exceptions? If "corporations tend to enshittify," doesn't that mean MOST of them enshittify?

Which is it? Do most of them enshittify? Or is it only a minority? If it's only a minority, then how can you say they "tend to enshittify"?

When will you stop contradicting yourself and stop being phony? and just acknowledge that


even the Girl Scouts and ACLU and Planned Parenthood are "not people"?


or just quit reciting your phony slogan that "corporations are not people"?

 

[bilby]

Repeat after me ---
"The Girl Scouts is NOT PEOPLE" -- say it!

or say "Planned Parenthood is NOT PEOPLE"

You seem to be having serious problems with plurals.

The Girl Scouts is certainly people, but it is not a person.

Like your daft thread on direct democracy, this is a subject that could generate an interesting discussion about a nuanced and fascinating topic; But that can't happen, because the OP is to nuance as oil is to water.

If you want a discussion, discuss.

If you just want to berate people for not sharing your misconceptions, nobody's going to bother contributing to your pointless threads.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Evening Vanguard. page 4. 29 Mar 1965. Venice, California

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

A GROUP of people has the same basic rights, as a group, that the individual members have.
Any group, including corporations.

Corporations are not individual “people” but a legal construction. An individual has rights.
How does a corporation have an opinion to express unless it is explicitly unanimous? Why should a legal construction have rights?

So the Girl Scouts has no rights? no right to free speech, to free assembly, to freely publish anything?

So local law enforcement could break into a church meeting and arrest the preacher who said something the mayor doesn't like, and they have no appeal to the 1st Amendment right to free speech and free assembly?

Or the cops could break up a PTA meeting, or any gathering the Chief of Police disagrees with, to suppress it, and that group has no appeal to the First Amendment?

WTF are you babbling about? Girl Scouts are people.

Yes, but so is the group they are members of. This group Girl Scouts as a collective has the right to publish, to promote a cause, even promote something political (if it so chooses, though it generally does not).

A preacher is a person.

Yes, but so is the congregation/church s/he preaches for, or who hires him/her and gives him/her the platform from which to preach and crusade for a cause. The group of persons is recognized as having the rights granted to "persons" in the Constitution.

A PTA meeting is a meeting of people.

And that meeting or group is people, covered by the 1st Amendment. Its right to free speech is basic, because "the people" in the 1st Amendment includes GROUPS of people as part of its meaning. This right of the PTA could be exercised by it in many ways, such as arranging meetings, maybe paying rent, out of the PTA's assets, or also by publishing something, even something political or controversial. As individuals, those PTA members might not have the assets to pay for it, but as a group of people pooling their resources they have the power to do it. And in other ways too the group has extra power, and with it the right, to do those things protected by the 1st Amendment.

A corporation is ultimately owned by people but that no more makes it a person than my owning a car makes it a person.

OK, but no one has said your owning something is what makes it a person. The reason an object like a corporation/group is people is not because it's owned by people but because that owned object is composed of people. Whether it's owned by someone is not the point -- that it's composed of people is the point.

E.g., a professional sports team is people, a bank is people, a radio or TV show is people, a sweatshop is people, a brothel is people, a school is people, a church is people, a marketplace is people, a parade is people, a Broadway show is people, a commission is people, a work crew is people, a platoon is people, an office staff is people, a business is people. Every group of people, such as these, is people and has 1st Amendment rights, and it can be bought or sold or dissolved or liquidated by its owner (if it's owned by someone). But also, a group might not have an owner, but it still has its 1st Amendment rights, because it's a group of people.



A GROUP, not only an individual, has free speech rights.

I found the following quote, in the opinion of Justice Kennedy, saying that groups, including corporations, do have 1st Amendment rights, because the Constitutional protection (for "people") includes groups (or a group) of people, not just an individual. And to single out certain kinds of groups (e.g. "corporations" and "labor unions") for special treatment or exclusion violates their Constitutional protection, which extends to ALL people (meaning both individuals and groups of individuals), with none to be excluded as ineligible or as unprotected in comparison to any others.

CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMM’N

Under the rationale of these precedents, political speech does not lose First Amendment protection “simply because its source is a corporation.” Bellotti, supra, at 784; see Pacific Gas & Elec. Co. v. Public Util. Comm’n of Cal. , 475 U. S. 1, 8 (1986) (plurality opinion) (“The identity of the speaker is not decisive in determining whether speech is protected. Corporations and other associations, like individuals, contribute to the ‘discussion, debate, and the dissemination of information and ideas’ that the First Amendment seeks to foster” (quoting Bellotti, 435 U. S., at 783)). The Court has thus rejected the argument that political speech of corporations or other associations should be treated differently under the First Amendment simply because such associations are not “natural persons.” Id., at 776; see id. , at 780, n. 16. Cf. id. , at 828 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting).

Whatever "natural persons" means, it is not a proper criterion or standard for determining who is or is not covered by the 1st Amendment. So if someone (or some group) is singled out as "not natural" etc., this cannot be a basis for denying them 1st Amendment protection.


Whether GROUPS are also "people"

Simply put, Citizens United basically declared that ALL groups are people, including corporations.

BUT -- (no general rule applies perfectly, or is followed perfectly).

And this rule -- ALL groups are people and have basic rights -- might not prevail in every conceivable case. The Court may not be 100% consistent in applying this rule to all possible cases. E.g., there are discriminations against foreigners, which might wrongly violate this good rule that everyone is covered by the basic 1st Amendment rights, with no exceptions. But in general this is a good rule or principle the Court upheld in the Citizens United case -- that every group of people is included in "the people" who have 1st Amendment rights, and corporations cannot be singled out and excluded as an exception, like the election reform act of 2002 tried to do.

A corporation can legally be bought and sold, but . . .

No, not a non-profit corporation. And your slogan is "corporations are not people," not "for-profit corporations are not people." You can't make this argument unless you change your slogan to: "for-profit corporations are not people" to make it accurate. So far no one agrees to change the slogan. And the company Citizens United is not a for-profit corporation but is a non-profit. So "corporations" are not distinguished by the feature that they can be legally bought and sold. Only some can be, but others cannot be bought and sold.

. . . corporation can legally be bought and sold, people cannot.

In professional sports people can be bought and sold. E.g., professional sports teams routinely buy and sell players, sending them across country to the team that purchased them or traded another player for them. Of course a player may refuse to cooperate with this, but that could end their career -- it's in their interest to comply -- they get rich in a system which buys and sells them as property.

It all depends on the need, on the market, on the supply of and demand for the people in question who might be bought and sold or traded. These people being traded themselves are better off in a system which can trade them like objects for sale to the highest bidder etc.

But further, not every for-profit corporation can be sold. Sometimes a sale can be blocked by various means, and so in those cases the corporation cannot be sold. So this is not a fundamental difference distinguishing people from corporations. Some people are bought and sold, and some corporations cannot be sold, so this rule is inconsistent and does not essentially distinguish corporations from people but is only a generalization that often corporations can be sold and people usually cannot be.

So still no one is explaining what distinguishes corporations from other groups, such that "corporations are not people" -- this slogan remains a knee-jerk impulse only, not anything about corporations or about who is and who is "not people."

 

[laughing dog]

A GROUP of people has the same basic rights, as a group, that the individual members have.
Any group, including corporations.

There is no necessary rationale to allow a group the same rights as an individual. A nation may make the choice to give corporations the same rights as individuals, but it may not as well.

You think The Citizens United decision was right and good for the country. I don’t. I don’t believe corporations are people and they don’t deserve the same rights and privileges as people. And I certainly do not think unlimited spending on political speech is good for the country regardless of the identity of the spender.

 

[scombrid]

DFO

 

[Elixir]

There is no necessary rationale to allow a group the same rights as an individual.

It’s bonkers, in fact.
Any four people can constitute six “groups” of two plus four groups of three plus four individuals, giving four people the ostensible rights of fourteen unaffiliated individuals.
Applying the same principle to a hundred fifty million people is a guarantee of vastly unequal representation and power. As we see IRL.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Businesses corporations are not people.

Can't you understand -- your tirade is against all businesses, not just against corporations.

The slogan is "corporations are not people"

if corporations were people they would be taxed on their revenues, not just their profits.

That’s a really insightful point — it gets to the heart of the hypocrisy.

So this now is a very major point, to explain why corporations are "not people" -- this is "the heart" of the whole issue -- Here comes the "heart of the hypocrisy":

If corporations were truly treated like people, they’d carry the same burdens the rest of us do, including being taxed on everything they earn, not just what’s left after deductions and loopholes.

"the rest of us"? Who's the "us"?

So the whole essence of this "hypocrisy" of letting corporations have basic Constitutional rights is a confusion of "corporation" with "business," because what's identified here is not something about "corporations" per se, but is about ALL BUSINESSES, including the noncorporations --- being taxed on profits rather than revenues. This describes not only corporations, but partnerships and family businesses and sole proprietorships and independent contractors.

Us vs. Them (wage-earners vs. non-wage-earners)

Who are "the rest of us" and who are the hypocrites who pay taxes on profits rather than on revenues like "the rest of us" have to do? All those who pay taxes on their profits, all businesses, are HYPOCRITES, we're told, and they're "not people," just like the corporations are "not people."

So it's "hypocrisy" that all these many businesses pay taxes on their profits rather than on their revenues. We're talking about many kinds of small businesses (and some large businesses) -- we're talking about janitor and appliance repair and pizza delivery and gardening & landscaping and childcare services, and many small restaurants and hotels and corner grocery stores and bakeries and shops -- all "HYPOCRITES" who are not "the rest of us" and not paying their fair share, thousands of business types which are largely performed by noncorporations.

These are NONcorporations and yet are guilty of the same "hypocrisy" the corporations are guilty of -- they pay taxes on their profits rather than their revenues.

So at the "heart" of this "corporations are not people" hysteria is a huge misconception that it's only corporations which are taxed differently than wage-earners. In fact, this is basically an "us-vs.-them" stampede of wage-earners who hate everyone who is not a wage-earner, who believe that everyone who earns business income is a dishonest hypocrite stealing from the wage-earners who are the only class of people who pay honest taxes because they don't benefit from deductions and loopholes. When they say "corporations," they really mean everyone other than wage-earners, because every time they try to explain why corporations are "not people" they end up meaning everyone other than wage-earners. They're really saying that only wage-earners are "people" and all others are dishonest cheating "not people" hypocrites who pay taxes only on profits rather than on revenues like real people ("the rest of us") pay.

But that’s not how it works. They’re treated like “people” when it helps them — like when they want to spend unlimited money in politics — but when it comes to paying their fair share in taxes, suddenly they’re just businesses with special rules.

And yet the "they" here is not just the corporations, but ALL businesses of any kind, even the smallest. Even the street vendors are part of the "they" here who don't pay "their fair share," but who pay taxes on their profits and not their revenues and so are "hypocrites." This is a rage against ALL NON-WAGE-EARNERS, against all businesses of any kind, including NONcorporations. It's only the wage-earners who pay their "fair share" in taxes, according to this tirade. The independent truck driver, taxi driver, plumber, street-sweeper -- all are hypocrites who dishonestly cheat on their taxes by taking advantage of deductions and loopholes, without carrying "the same burdens the rest of us" have to bear. And "the rest of us" = wage-earners. So it's wage-earners (the good guys) vs. all businesses earning business income rather than wages. And this is a crusade which says that only wage-earners are earning honest income, and all the rest, all businesses, are dishonest hypocrites, not "paying their fair share" and so not "the rest of us" who are the real people vs. the others who are "not people" -- US VS. THEM.

It’s not about fairness or free speech. It’s about power — and using the label of “personhood” when it’s convenient, and discarding it when it’s not.

So everyone not a wage-earner is lying when they call themselves "persons" -- because they're not "the rest of us" wage-earners paying taxes on revenue rather than on profit.

This is about "power" of all these independent contractors and small operators struggling to survive? No, this is about the slogan "Corporations are not people" which fanatics preach and chant over and over but repeatedly run away from and won't explain. The slogan they do explain is unspoken:

"Businesses are not people." = not what we're talking about. The fanatics preach a certain slogan which they've been programmed to repeat over and over ("corporations are not people"), but when they pretend to explain it they switch to the unspoken slogan "businesses are not people" and make that the slogan they're explaining.

This slogan "Businesses are not people" is not the popular slogan, and it's not the topic here. And another slogan the fanatics explain is:

"Groups are not people." = also not what we're talking about

You're supposed to be telling us what it is about CORPORATIONS such that they are "not people" -- can't you understand? It's "corporations" our topic is about, not all businesses or all groups of any kind. Corporations are one kind of group, or one kind of business.

Can you understand a little logic: All corporations are businesses, but not all businesses are corporations.

To explain something about all corporations you have to identify something about corporations per se and tell us how that makes them "not people" -- but if you keep identifying something about ALL businesses, then you've changed the topic and are no longer telling us about corporations but about all businesses, which is not the topic.

Likewise: All businesses are groups, but not all groups are businesses.

There's an apparent fixation on the slogan "corporations are not people" so it cannot be corrected to "groups are not people" or "businesses are not people" -- changing the slogan so it fits the explanation being given would be a solution, but the mindless crusaders who keep chanting this slogan refuse to change the slogan's wording, to have it agree with the explanation, which says that BUSINESSES are not people, or GROUPS are not people.

Why can't anyone explain why it's CORPORATIONS only which are "not people"? Why is it, when you think you're explaining this, your explanation turns out to be NOT about corporations, but about ALL businesses of any kind, including NONcorporate businesses, including all small businesses and even the small street vendors and pizza-delivery drivers and taxi-drivers and tiny mom-'n-pops struggling to survive? These are the HYPOCRITES you're saying are not "the rest of us" but are cheating because they pay taxes on their profits and not their revenues?

Is there difficulty understanding this?

Tell us something about CORPORATIONS that makes them "not people," -- not something about ALL businesses (or all groups) -- it has to be something that's true about corporations only, not also true about ALL businesses, including the small street vendors.

This is about the slogan "Corporations are not people."

Not "Businesses are not people." So tell us why corporations are not people, instead of why businesses are not people.

 

[bilby]

Tell us something about CORPORATIONS that makes them "not people,"

They are corporations. Corporations are legal fictions created by governments. People are primates of the species Homo Sapiens.

Now, you tell us something about corporations that makes them "not businesses".

If you can do it without using large text, there may be bonus points!

 

[Elixir]

You seem to be having serious problems with plurals.

The Girl Scouts is certainly people, but it is not a person.

That's the nut of contention around here. As so often is the case, the difference of opinions may be real, but it is obfuscated (assuming it exists) by varying syntaxes, contexts and plain old fashioned sloppy language, reducing discussion to an exercise in futility.
Corporations are comprised of PEOPLE engaged in a coordinated, cooperative or coerced effort. A PERSON may be part of many many such efforts, but they remain a single PERSON. Rights conferred upon a PERSON should not be separately extended to any aggregation of PEOPLE, for reasons that should be obvious to anyone living in a (purported) representative republic or democracy.

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

You seem to be having serious problems with plurals.

The Girl Scouts is certainly people, but it is not a person.

That's the nut of contention around here. As so often is the case, the difference of opinions may be real, but it is obfuscated (assuming it exists) by varying syntaxes, contexts and plain old fashioned sloppy language, reducing discussion to an exercise in futility.
Corporations are comprised of PEOPLE engaged in a coordinated, cooperative or coerced effort. A PERSON may be part of many many such efforts, but they remain a single PERSON. Rights conferred upon a PERSON should not be separately extended to any aggregation of PEOPLE, for reasons that should be obvious to anyone living in a (purported) representative republic or democracy.

That's several very good points. A person could be an employee at a company, a member of some business organization, in a couple of hobby groups, and part of a loosely structured social group, and so on, but they are only one person.
Lumpy is too obdurate to agree with the obvious contention that corporations (or other groups) should not have the same rights as individual people, and generally that is the actual case.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

So everyone here agrees:

"Groups are not people"​

E.g., a softball team is not people, a school class is not people, a beach party is not people, a sewing club is not people, a crowded marketplace is not people, a marching band is not people, a family is not people, a tribe is not people, a work crew is not people, a platoon or squad is not people. Etc.

And everyone agrees that the slogan "corporations are not people" is faulty because it's promoting a falsehood, which is that there is something "not people" about corporations which is not the case for other groups -- which is false. Because ALL groups are not people, not just corporations; because corporations are ONLY ONE category of groups, and yet ALL groups of all categories are "not people" in the sense that a group is not an individual.

So those who chant "corporations are not people" need to go back to the drawing board and re-word their slogan to something like "Groups are not people" -- and then maybe they'll make some sense, for the first time. So far, they are incapable of saying "Groups are not people." They choke up every time they try to say these words, because the other wording "Corporations are not people" gives them a special "tingle" up their leg which they crave more than a thoughtful wording like "Groups are not people" which might be meaningful, or have an objective meaning subject to being analyzed.

 

[Elixir]

a softball team is not people, a school class is not people, a beach party is not people, a sewing club is not people, a crowded marketplace is not people, a marching band is not people, a family is not people, a tribe is not people, a work crew is not people, a platoon or squad is not people.

In the immortal words of Bill Clinton, "well, that depends what the meaning of 'is' is."

 

[bilby]

So everyone here agrees:

"Groups are not people"

Have you had a recent blow to the head?

Nobody here agrees:
"Groups are not people"


Everyone here (except you) agrees:
"A group is not a person"