This month's focus
As the short articles at the link below attest, the idea that a corporation is a person under the law is patently foolish and demonstrably false. Further, this concept -- though hinted at for decades -- reached a new pinnacle of notoriety when it was mentioned by a mistaken clerk in a Supreme Court summary late in the nineteenth century. Otherwise, the notion that corporations could have certain rights just as a real naturally-born person would havehad never been sanctioned by the Court.
Yet gradually, and especially in the twentieth century, corporations gained more and more so-called rights, including the right to sue and be sued. This inevitably led to a severe imbalance in power as corporations with their superior resources moved aggressively into the legal arena to intimidate those who would question their decision-making power, even in the area of product safety.
While the philosophy of corporate personhood did not create the profit system it did become in America its technical underpinning in a legal sense. Never voted on by anyone, corporate personhood has achieved the status of stare decisis, or accepted legal practice, as well as received wisdom.
But wise it most surely is not. Whatever we may have gained in predictability, we have lost in practice. Corporations are now more powerful than ever, though it does seems they have not yet been able to completely overcome certain forces of justice and truth inherent in the nature of things.
Corporate Personhood: What It Is
As the short articles at the link below attest, the idea that a corporation is a person under the law is patently foolish and demonstrably false. Further, this concept -- though hinted at for decades -- reached a new pinnacle of notoriety when it was mentioned by a mistaken clerk in a Supreme Court summary late in the nineteenth century. Otherwise, the notion that corporations could have certain rights just as a real naturally-born person would havehad never been sanctioned by the Court.
Yet gradually, and especially in the twentieth century, corporations gained more and more so-called rights, including the right to sue and be sued. This inevitably led to a severe imbalance in power as corporations with their superior resources moved aggressively into the legal arena to intimidate those who would question their decision-making power, even in the area of product safety.
While the philosophy of corporate personhood did not create the profit system it did become in America its technical underpinning in a legal sense. Never voted on by anyone, corporate personhood has achieved the status of stare decisis, or accepted legal practice, as well as received wisdom.
But wise it most surely is not. Whatever we may have gained in predictability, we have lost in practice. Corporations are now more powerful than ever, though it does seems they have not yet been able to completely overcome certain forces of justice and truth inherent in the nature of things.
Corporate Personhood: What It Is
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