Looking for positives, but especially negatives. What are the pitfalls of not granting corporations the same rights as people/citizens?
Calling a constitutional convention right now would be insane. Republicans would take that process and fuck is up forever while pulling up the ladder behind them
Yeah…
Because right now republicans are showing restraint and not doing everything they can think of…
Surely the only reason they don’t do is because their sense of fair play…
The main reason why corporate personhood exists is to limit the liability of owners. If I run a company and a customer slips and falls, they can sue the company, but they can’t sue me or my shareholders. Without any form of personhood there could be no limited liability. The customer would be suing me and the shareholders directly.
I don’t think it would change much for giant corporations but that would be terrible for small businesses. I have a friend who makes his own stuff and sells it to people. He doesn’t make much, a few thousand a year. He incorporated to prevent losing his house from a customer suing him.
I once worked for an Unlimited Liability Corporation (ULC). It’s a corporation where the owners and shareholders can be sued directly for company actions. They took on that higher risk because the tax breaks that come with a ULC were worth it I guess. So it’s not like giant corporations wouldn’t exist if they weren’t considered people, but it probably would hurt entrepreneurship.
The main issue Americans have with corporate personhood is the “freedom of speech” thing the US Supreme Court ruled on in Citizens United v. FCC. The ruling basically said corporations can’t be prevented from giving their money to political causes because its a violation of the corporation’s freedom of speech. That’s specifically a US ruling. Other countries don’t grant rights and freedoms to corporations.
He incorporated to prevent losing his house from a customer suing him.
Why should he be immune just because he wrote something on a piece of paper? Why shouldn’t that limited liability just be a thing to start with?
Because if we didn’t have such protections, the ONLY people who could ever afford to go into business are the already-super-wealthy.
Nobody would ever open a small business if it meant risking the roof over their childrens’ head.
I’m asking why the paper is necessary, as in why shouldn’t the limited liability just be a thing that exists in the first place.
I can’t even imagine the clusterfuck. This is baked into the very first words of our law.
1 U.S. Code § 1 - Words denoting number, gender, and so forth
the words “person” and “whoever” include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals;
The Citizens United ruling needs pulled, that’s all.
the radically different society that would be in place already for such an amendment to be ratified
Many different kinds of organizations are organized as corporations. Charities, newspapers, churches, etc. If the amendment was not carefully written, it could be construed to deny important rights, such as press freedom or religious freedom, to organizations that really ought to be protected. Similarly, the protections against unwarranted search and seizure or taking of property for pubic use without compensation should probably continue to cover corporations.
Really, the only problem I see WRT corporations having constitutional rights is the decision that political spending is protected speech. The other constitutional rights are generally not problematic.
So maybe something like this:
No person, whether natural born human or legal fiction, shall spend, donate, or otherwise make valuable contributions to any candidate or campaign, if said person is not entitled to vote in the election for such candidate or campaign.
Only natural born human beings shall be entitled to vote in any election.
