Reply #17: Corporations can't vote [View All]

They may affect the vote with financial contributions, but then so could a partnership or an individual.

The issue is campaign finance reform, not "coporate personhood." A corporation is a legal entity that can exist apart from an individual, but it does not have individual rights. An individual has an estate, property, that exists parallel to the way a corporation exists - but also have a personhood that is subject to life and liberty rights. The corporation does not have that. People are taking "personhood" in the wrong way - in the nineteenth century, they would only be referring to the fact that it could sue or be sued, enter into contracts or not, as an entity.

If we did away with that, we'd have chaos now. We can't expect this economy to be run only by individuals. A contract would have to be made for every transaction individually. This might be great for lawyers, but it would slow down everything down considerably.

For example, you'd buy a car from an individual in every instance. You and that individual need to make your own contract. Something goes wrong, and you sue the individual. You win. Individual has disappeared, or has no money, or just refuses to pay. You have to pay a lawyer or at least go to court to have the sheriff levy on the person's assets. The person does not care about the damage to his reputation, since it would take a lot of effort on your part to publicize that person's failings, and there are, at the same time, millions of other such cases and no one sees anything unusual here.

So corporations are good for something. They have a motive to pay off their judgments, offer warranties, take care of problems without letting them all go to court.