The Supreme Court decision

[gwillen]

For those on my flist, if any, who support the Court's decision in /Citizens United v. FEC/, I would be interested to know your answers to the following questions:

Is a toaster a person?

Is a corporation a person?

Can you explain the difference?

What would it mean for a toaster to have a right to free speech?

What does it mean, precisely, for a corporation to have a right to free speech? This is not the same as the free speech rights enjoyed by any of the people involved as individuals -- this, as ruled by the court, is a separate right, belonging to the corporation as an entity in and of itself, completely independent of the rights of any of the individuals involved.

Can you explain the difference?

ETA: Justice Rehnquist's dissent in /First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti/
makes for excellent reading on the subject.

Comments

[physics-dude.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm just having fun with the argument. You seem to think I see corporations in a favorable light, which is not really true. I fully understand that their reason for existence is to make money. I don't think they can be faulted for acting accordingly, and I think it's kind of a vacuous statement to call a corporation "evil", but I still think there is also a regulatory responsibility to keep corporate actions in check when the profit motive interferes with other things we care about as a society.

Also, I am not vegetarian. Just because I can make an argument that a corporation is alive or sentient, doesn't in my mind mean it should have all the same rights as humans. I was just giving you the Hofstadter argument that these are emergent phenomena and we should avoid speciesist definition. I think historically human society has had no problem dispensing with life forms it has deemed hazardous to itself.

I think you are the second or third person to tell me to watch The Corporation. :) It came up in a discussion about how they should always be viewed in light of their profit motive. I think the major downside of incorporation, at least if you want to register securities, is that even if you founded it with nobler goals, you are then basically required to put profit above all else. I think it probably makes more sense to replace the phrase "corporate greed" with "shareholder greed".