Are corporations people? Options

[Collect]

Corporations can be "defamed" and can sue on that basis.

Wikipedia, to the extent that its rules regarding biographies of living people are predicated on preventing any suits about defamation likely should have rules preventing "commercial defamation" as well.

Nothing to do with corporations being "people" but rather to do with the ability of Wikipedia to handle such lawsuits. At this point, Wikipedia appears to routinely remove material brought to its attention which falls into this category, but the community consensus on policies has not thus far followed suit.

[Jon Awbrey]

A Wikipedia essay that tried to extend WP:BLP protections to articles about corporations was recently burned and scattered to the wind — the "public" reason being the essay was created by a banned user. I think the "private" reason is one more familiar to us, though — such a policy would fly in the face of Wikipedia's real purpose as the world's largest online defamation platform.

Of course, the Big Thing that all your pseudonymous pseudoliberalationists in Wikiputia miss is the fact that Corporate Interests are not primarily about Money, they are primarily about Power.

And Power is the commodity that your friendly invisible corporation known as the Wikimedia Foundation is going after first.

Sure, Money and Power are means to each other's ends in that great howling feedback loop known as Idiocracy Today (IT), but Power is The Man @ The Switch & Baiteroo.

So try to watch out for that …

Jon

[Rhindle]

Corporate personhood provides just the benefits of a person but not the negatives. Why can't a corporation be prosecuted for murder? A family can't prosecute a tobacco company for their father's death from smoking. It's possible a D.A. might give it a try but a judge would most likely throw the case out since most American judges are pro-business anyway. Also, say a case is heard and the corporation does get convicted how would you punish it?

[Milton Roe]

Corporate personhood provides just the benefits of a person but not the negatives. Why can't a corporation be prosecuted for murder? A family can't prosecute a tobacco company for their father's death from smoking. It's possible a D.A. might give it a try but a judge would most likely throw the case out since most American judges are pro-business anyway. Also, say a case is heard and the corporation does get convicted how would you punish it?

You can punish the people who actually made the corporate decisions. Also, corporations can be fined and even subjected to the corporate "death penalty" of decapitation, dismemberment, or receivership.

[Jon Awbrey]

You Heard the Myth, Now Read the Reality —

Corporate Crime and Violence : Without Shame

Of course, not even these criminally low standards of responsibility apply to a corporation like the Wikimedia Foundation …

Jon

[anthony]

Why can't a corporation be prosecuted for murder?

What makes you think it can't?

[anthony]

Also, corporations can be fined and even subjected to the corporate "death penalty" of decapitation, dismemberment, or receivership.

And a mistaken "corporate death penalty" can be nearly as difficult to undo as the personal death penalty.

On May 31, 2005, in the case Arthur Andersen LLP v. United States, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously reversed Andersen's conviction due to what it saw as serious flaws in the jury instructions.[5] In the court's view, the instructions were far too vague to allow a jury to find obstruction of justice had really occurred. The court found that the instructions were worded in such a way that Andersen could have been convicted without any proof that the firm knew it had broken the law or that there had been a link to any official proceeding that prohibited the destruction of documents. The opinion, written by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, was also highly skeptical of the government's concept of "corrupt persuasion"—persuading someone to engage in an act with an improper purpose even without knowing an act is unlawful.

[Jon Awbrey]

I think I once posted links to a couple of survey papers on “corporate personhood”. I can't find them right now, but here's a site that lists a number of readings:

http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/personhood/

Jon

[Jon Awbrey]

Ending Corporate Governance

Timeline of Personhood Rights and Powers

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

Aren't psychopaths people?

Nah, sub-humans. The discussion here is on whether corporations are people. It is another to ask whether all "people" make it to personhood.

I see this direction of conversation is well covered elsewhere. I have not read this book, did not see the film, and so cannot recommended either ... but, of course, being a Wikipedia I will quote it at length in argument in order to appear an ex-spurt in the topic.

The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power by Joel Bakan.

Bakan, an internationally recognized legal scholar and professor of law at the University of British Columbia, takes a powerful stab at the most influential institution of our time, the corporation.

As a legal entity, a corporation has as its edict one and only one goal, to create profits for its shareholders, without legal or moral obligation to the welfare of workers, the environment, or the well-being of society as a whole. Corporations have successfully hijacked governments, promoting free-market solutions to virtually all of the concerns of human endeavor. Competition and self-interest dominate, and other aspects of human nature, such as creativity, empathy, and the ability to live in harmony with the earth, are suppressed and even ridiculed.

Bakan believes that, like Communism, this ideological order cannot last and that corporate rule must be challenged to bring balance and revive the values of democracy, social justice, equality, and compassion.

I do agree that these golem have grown out of proportion and their influences are corrupting to the point of destruction our environment and societies.

[Jon Awbrey]

Thom Hartmann • Unequal Protection

• How Corporations Became “People” — and How You Can Fight Back
• Introduction : The Battle to Save Democracy
• Part I. Corporations Take Over
• Chapter 1. The Deciding Moment?
• Chapter 2. The Corporate Conquest of America

The legal rights of the defendant, Loan Company, although it be a corporation, soulless and speechless, rise as high in the scales of law and justice as those of the most obscure and poverty-stricken subject of the state.

— Excerpt from the judge’s ruling in Brannan v. Schartzer, 25 Ohio Dec. 491 (1915)

Evidently, quite a bit higher …

Jon