Corporate Personhood and Money as Speech

If corporations are people and money is speech, is democracy a myth?
What is "corporate personhood" or corporate civil rights?
How can we achieve authentic democracy

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• alteravista
• Democracy
• corporate
• personhood
• free
• speech

[roundaboutwrongway]

What we are really talking about here is Fascism.

Let's not kid ourselves, when corporations have more power over government than the people then that is what you have.

So is that what we have now? Ask yourself that question.

Don't see things how you want to see them, see them how they really are. Then you can begin to pick up the pieces.

[roundaboutwrongway]

@MarmaladeINFP

Well put, and I agree.

[bergweg]

@deepfreezevideo the thing is that corporations are not made of steel, glass, etc.... they are fictions, they don't exist in the physical reality, they are just ideas.

[deepfreezevideo]

Look at it this way: What chance do mortal human beings, made of flesh, blood, muscle and bone have against an army of 500 foot tall "corporate persons" made of glass, steel, concrete, lawyers and unlimited amounts of money, as they stomp around and crush us all in their quest for "their human rights"?

And besides, no human is immortal, but a corporation possesses the potential to be immortal. This very characteristic makes it impossible to recognize a corporation as a "person".

[HoGraz]

@Warmagus This is what we call lowest common denominator in political consciousness.

[HoGraz]

@Warmagus We have a lot of people here too. We also have an empire. Now remember what Jefferson said "You can either have a Republic or an Empire, not both." Our citizens are not happy either and the founding fathers saw the role of governments were to allow the citizen to be happy. We've been trying to have universal healthcare since Teddy Roosevelt and just now getting around to it.

[bluuterra]

Its not true that corporations were not mentioned in the constitution because the framers didn't intend corporations to have power in our society. The Constitution is a document that sets limits on and defines the boundaries of government. power. All other powers are given to the states or to the individuals. That Corporations were not mentioned in the Constitution means that the framers didn't intend the corporations to be governed by the federal government.

[MarmaladeINFP]

My opinion is that this is a moral issue, but not everyone sees it that way. Ignoring the morality, it really comes down to what kind of world one wants to live in. Corporate personhood simply means that we will live in a country ruled by a plutocracy. I don't want to live in a world where everyone is equal but the rich are more equal, but I understand many rich people would love to live in such a world.

[Carbolicsmokeball26]

@sklanger yes, but it's not a democratic collection. One person can own a whole lot of stock. So, several rich people owning 80% of the stock, combined with thousand of people who own the rest, can push an agenda on the political system under the guise that they are a collection of people. Yes, they are a collection, but they are not a DEMOCRATIC collection. Furthermore, a corporation has no conscience, and the current legal framework ENSURES it does not act morally.

[sklanger]

"corporations now can influence government and policy in a legal and legitimate way much more effectively than a single person ever could."

Well, duh. Why do you think people form groups for a common cause? The NAACP is an association of people in common cause -- precisely because it's more effective to pool resources and wield political influence as a group. That's why we have political parties.

How is this a "major problem" when the freedom to associate has been around since the founding?