Wednesday, September 18, 2019
Corporation Personhood
I was thinking after class about corporation personhood, and while I was talking about it with my dad, he mentioned something interesting; if we are thinking of corporations as people, aren't they almost like slaves? They are able to be bought and sold, people consider them as investments and "property" and they are only thought of people sometimes? (Slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person for population purposes to get south more recognition, but were not recognized as people anywhere else). And under the 13th amendment, isn't slavery illegal? If the argument is made that they are not actually slaves, and aren't really people, doesn't that invalidate the idea of corporate personhood under the 14th amendment ruling by the supreme court? So how far does the decision that corporations are people really extend? If they are people for legal purposes, but only sometimes, then why not just change certain things and not call them people? And again, if they are only partial considered people and are also considered property, isn't that similar to slavery? Except corporations are actually not living beings, while former slaves certainly were. I don't think there is a good balance of what corporations should be, but I think that they shouldn't be considered people.
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I think that the distinction is that the entities/people/groups that control the corporation, and by extension the "personhood" of the corporation, "consent" to the actions of buying/selling. It could be framed as "paying" the person (corporation) to do their job (whatever the corporation's function is). I think the problem probably lies with the court's interpretation of the 14th amendment and corporations. I don't think that the buying/selling of corporations is as morally repugnant as slavery.
ReplyDeleteThats a really good point, I didn't think about it that way! I do realize that although I drew parallels to slavery in this post, I did not intend to say that it is as morally wrong as slavery is, but instead meant to comment on the similarities, if we are considering corporations people. The idea that the "people" behind the corporations are "consenting" and viewing the buying/selling as a form of "payment" for the job that the "Person (corporation) is doing is a much easier and better way to think about it. Thanks!
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