Tuesday, March 1, 2011

corporate personhood

I think I can settle this debate once and for all (how modest of me /s). so many people for so many years have been arguing back and forth on behalf of human rights for corporations. why do we have to argue if these rights are human rights? can they not just be rights granted in mere legal terms on paper? human rights are unalienable. granted rights are just bargained legal terms. corporations only exist as bargained legal terms; humans exist regardless of legal jargon. clearly corporations are simple bargained rights, not unalienable rights —perhaps we can just call them rules. to call into question the personhood of a corporation is a slippery slope, a premeditated effort to twist, bypass or usurp logic that would otherwise limit wealth accumulation/hoarding. the goal is clear: the property —or tool— known as a corporation is designed to accumulate wealth for its owners. giving the owners more leverage —in every possible way. the most popular example in current media is corporations exercising freedom of speech (as if corporations distribute dialog not directly from the owners themselves or coerced employees afraid to lose their jobs). property cannot be used give a person's freedom of speech duplicity. the rule has always been: one person one vote. a corporation is not a stake holder; it is actually a stake to be held. their existence is that of property. a corporation is, by its very definition, property.
it can be bargained that property can own other property but is, in and of itself, always owned. the property owned by that corporation, by transitive rules, is owned within that same hierarchy of ownership; the roots always go back to some flesh and blood human (regardless how dead their soul is). in fact, nothing about a corporation can ever be free from ownership. in my opinion that is in antithesis of what a person is.

the deliberate purpose to gain corporate personhood is wealth accumulation/hoarding. if that is its stated goal then we have the rights as actual persons to deny that, bargained, granted "right". the purpose of gaining corporate personhood is not a matter of fighting persecution or some lofty social good that would be achieved; it is simple greed. anyone fighting for the rights to hoard excessive wealth should fight an uphill battle. that said, we have the right —I would say the obligation— to resist them.

I can use analogies of past slavery or current pet ownership but I feel these arguments hold up well on their own. I request constructive dialog on the matter. if there are holes in my logic, I welcome reasonable criticism.

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