QUOTE(Somey @ Sun 20th March 2011, 7:17am)
QUOTE(anthony @ Sat 19th March 2011, 7:56pm)
Not at all? What does it mean for corporations to not be treated as people "at all"? The fact that a corporation is treated sorta kinda like a person is, I'd say, essential to the definition of "corporation" (more specifically, it is essential to the definition of "legal entity", of which a corporation is one form among several).
You make some very good points, of course - in terms of legal entityhood (is that a word?), if a society clearly wants it to be possible for people to indemnify themselves against various forms of liability for wrongdoing by being part of a corporation (some would say "hiding behind," though), then that's a legitimate thing for society to do.
There are many advantages to the concept of corporations beyond tort liability. And the ability of an individual to "hide behind" a corporation is, in practice, quite limited. Especially with regard to the large corporations which you seem to hate the most. But even with regard to smaller corporations, in many cases the employer and employee share joint and several liability, even without piercing the corporate veil.
Without a big rich corporation to sue when a fast food employee forgets to warn people about the wet floor causing you to slip and bust your head open, who are you going to sue, the poor high school student with the mop and without the yellow sign? I suppose we could force every single person in the world to maintain liability insurance... But no, that wouldn't work, because no individual would ever be able to amass the kind of capital it would take to guarantee the claims.
QUOTE(Somey @ Sun 20th March 2011, 7:17am)
As a group of people, a corporation naturally will attempt to avoid liability, defend its reputation, and ensure its security. And, it may or may not choose to be accountable in relation to whatever it and its owners/members/employees do. There isn't anything we can do about this; it's simply the natural result of people operating as a group, and if society gives specific kinds of groups certain rights that other groups don't get to have, then so be it - as long as society can also take those rights away when that's in society's best interests.
So... when I say corporations shouldn't be treated as people, I'm mostly talking about an individual choice. Individuals such as myself don't have to agree to support the notion that people operating as a group should be treated separately (in any of those aforementioned contexts) from the group itself, as a "legal entity," when considering the actions of that group. We just have to agree to respect the law, even if we don't always like or agree with what the law says.
Morally, I agree with you. With respect to criminal law, I agree with you (and so does the law). With respect to tort law, I somewhat agree with you (though the law mostly does not). And with respect to contract law, I completely disagree with you.
I don't think you can run a modern free society without the notion of legal entities. I'm not going to sign a significant contract with Joe Schmoe. I'm not going to buy a car manufactured by Joe Schmoe. About the only way you could make such a society "work" would be to have all such transactions run by the government.
QUOTE(Somey @ Sun 20th March 2011, 7:17am)
You can also turn some of the arguments in favor of corporate personhood around to some extent; for example, a corporation can, and is by definition, owned by one or more people. So to properly support the idea that corporations are legally equivalent to people, you'd have to allow people (and/or corporations) to own other people too, and then claim that the actions of the people they own are not really their own actions. It sounds ridiculous because it is, but slavery has existed for a long time, it still exists today in some parts of the world, and it will probably still exist for the foreseeable future. It's not as far-fetched as we'd like to believe. So it has to be fought; and if it can't be stopped, it at least has to be minimized and contained.
No, it's not as far-fetched as we'd like to believe. The doctrine of "respondeat superior" ("let the master answer") was regularly applied to slaves.
Maybe we need to do away with the concept of "respondeat superior". I've not investigated it thoroughly, but I've read some good arguments in favor of this.
But I never said I supported the notion "that corporations are legally equivalent to people". In fact, I'd say pretty much no one does once you eliminate the equivocation in that statement and change it to the notion "that corporations are legally equivalent to [natural persons]". The law makes lots of clear distinctions between natural persons and juristic persons - for instance, slavery.
My objection was to your earlier comment that you "personally don't believe corporations should be treated as people at all". I think that's as absurd as the belief that corporations should be treated as equivalent to humans.
Corporations should, and are, treated somewhat like humans in some situations. They can sue and be sued. They can enter into contracts. They can own property. (They also can be taxed, which is a point which I would think you would be in agreement with.)
But corporations aren't people. And the law does not treat corporations as legally equivalent to humans.
This post has been edited by anthony: 
Are corporations people?
thekohser Are corporations people? 
