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.
But in addition to liability, the usual context(s) we discuss here are reputation, accountability, and security. The context of "liability" would probably encompass the various distinctions between criminal/immoral activity and lawful/moral activity, but even if it doesn't, let's just say it does for the sake of brevity.
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.
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.
Are corporations people?
thekohser Are corporations people? 
