When Did Companies Become People?
Posted by Michelle Moquin on July 30th, 2014
Good morning!
Diving a little deeper on the topic I posted about a week ago.
From NPR:
When Did Companies Become People? Excavating The Legal Evolution
Volunteers at the Lincoln Memorial help roll up a giant banner printed with the Preamble to the Constitution during an October 2010 demonstration against the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling.
Are corporations people? The U.S. Supreme Court says they are, at least for some purposes. And in the past four years, the high court has dramatically expanded corporate rights.
It ruled that corporations have the right to spend money in candidate elections, and that some for-profit corporations may, on religious grounds, refuse to comply with a federal mandate to cover birth control in their employee health plans.
These are personal rights accorded to corporations. To many, the concept of corporations as people seems odd, to say the least. But it is not new.
The dictionary defines “corporation” as “a number of persons united in one body for a purpose.” Corporate entities date back to medieval times, observes Columbia law professor John Coffee, an authority on corporate law. “You could think of the Catholic Church as probably the first entity that could buy and sell property in its own name,” he says.
Indeed, having an artificial legal persona was especially important to churches, says Elizabeth Pollman, an associate professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
“Having a corporation would allow people to put property into a collective ownership that could be held with perpetual existence,” she says. “So it wouldn’t be tied to any one person’s lifespan, or subject necessarily to laws regarding inheriting property.”
Later on, in the United States and elsewhere, the advantages of incorporation were essential to efficient and secure economic development. Unlike partnerships, the corporation continued to exist even if a partner died; there was no unanimity required to do something; shareholders could not be sued individually, only the corporation as a whole, so investors only risked as much as they put into buying shares.
By the 1800s, the process of incorporating became relatively simple. But corporations aren’t mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, leaving the courts to determine what rights corporations have — and which corporations have them. After all, Coca-Cola is a corporation, but so are the NAACP and the National Rifle Association, and so are small churches and local nonprofits.
“All these truly different types of organizations might come under the label ‘corporation,’ ” Pollman observes. “And so the real difficulty is figuring out how to treat these different things under the Constitution.”
In the early years of the republic, the only right given to corporations was the right to have their contracts respected by the government, according to legal historian Eben Moglen.
The great industrialization of the United States in the 1800s, however, intensified companies’ need to raise money.
“With the invention of the railroad, you needed a great deal of capital to exploit its purpose, ” Columbia professor Coffee says, “and only the corporate form offered limited liability, easy transferability of shares, and continued, perpetual existence.”
In addition, the end of the Civil War and the adoption of the 14th Amendment provided an opportunity for corporations to seek further legal protection, says Moglen, also a Columbia University professor.
“From the moment the 14th Amendment was passed in 1868, lawyers for corporations — particularly railroad companies — wanted to use that 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection to make sure that the states didn’t unequally treat corporations,” Moglen says.
Nobody was talking about extending to corporations the right of free speech back then. What the railroads sought was equal treatment under state tax laws and things like that.
The Supreme Court extended that protection to corporations, and over time also extended some — but not all — of the rights guaranteed to individuals in the Bill of Rights. The court ruled that corporations don’t have a right against self-incrimination, for instance, but are protected by the ban on warrantless search and seizure.
Otherwise, as the Cato Institute’s Ilya Shapiro puts it, “the police could storm down the doors of some company and take all their computers and their files.”
But for 100 years, corporations were not given any constitutional right of political speech; in fact, quite the contrary. In 1907, following a corporate corruption scandal involving prior presidential campaigns, Congress passed a law banning corporate involvement in federal election campaigns. That wall held firm for 70 years.
The first crack came in a case that involved neither candidate elections nor federal law. In 1978 a sharply divided Supreme Court ruled for the first time that corporations have a First Amendment right to spend money on state ballot initiatives.
Still, for decades, candidate elections remained free of direct corporate influence under federal law. Only money from individuals and groups of individuals — political action committees — were permitted in federal elections.
Then came Citizens United, the Supreme Court’s 5-4 First Amendment decision in 2010 that extended to corporations for the first time full rights to spend money as they wish in candidate elections — federal, state and local. The decision reversed a century of legal understanding, unleashed a flood of campaign cash and created a crescendo of controversy that continues to build today.
It thrilled many in the business community, horrified campaign reformers, and provoked considerable mockery in the comedian classes.
“If only there were some way to prove that corporations were not people,” lamented the Daily Show‘s Jon Stewart. Maybe, he mused, we could show “their inability to love.”
Fellow Comedy Central comedian Stephen Colbert tried unsuccessfully to get the question of corporate personhood on the South Carolina ballot, and also formed a superPAC, which asked whether voters would be comfortable letting Mitt Romney date their daughters’ corporations.
But there are serious people on both sides of this issue.
Cato’s Shapiro sees all corporations, when they spend on political campaigns, as merely associations of like-minded people.
“Nobody is saying that corporations are living, breathing entities, or that they have souls or anything like that,” he says. “This is about protecting the rights of the individuals that associate in this way.”
Countering that argument are those who note that individuals are perfectly free to give money to candidates with whom they agree, and to spend unlimited amounts independently supporting those candidates. They shouldn’t need a corporation to express themselves, the argument goes.
Some critics, like Pollman, see a difference between for-profit and nonprofit corporations. A nonprofit corporation formed to advance particular political views is one thing, she says. A large for-profit corporation is something else entirely.
“There’s no reason to believe that the people involved — shareholders, employees, even the directors or managers — have come together for an expressive purpose related to anything other than really what the business is doing,” she argues.
And shareholders and employees, Pollman observes, have no real recourse if they disagree with how corporate money is spent in campaigns.
And then there is the money-is-not-speech argument. The problem for First Amendment believers, Moglen says, arises not because they think corporations shouldn’t have rights so much as they think money isn’t equal to speech.
“And we are now winding up using constitutional rules to concentrate corporate power in a way that’s dangerous to democracy,” he says.
That, of course, is not how the Supreme Court majority sees its decision. The court has said that because speech is an essential mechanism of democracy, the First Amendment forbids discrimination against any class of speaker.
It matters not, the court said just this year, that some speakers, because of the money they spend on elections, may have undue influence on public policy; what is important is that the First Amendment protects both speech and speaker, and the ideas that flow from each.
*****
Blog me.
Peace out.
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July 30th, 2014 at 9:26 am
There is no excuse for this reasoning. The fact is S.T.R.A.K. was paid to give corporations the same benefits as humans. All this pretense need for mental gymnastics to discover the whys and hows is just bullshit.
July 30th, 2014 at 9:39 am
One Ring Phone Scam Cashes in on Curiosity
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It goes by several different names — the missed calls scam, the one ring scam, the ring and run scam, and the dial-and-disconnect scam — but the aim is always the same: to steal 20 or more dollars from you.
Your cell phone rings once then stops and you’re left with a sense of curiosity that will only be satisfied by finding out who phoned you by calling them back.
That’s what the crooks know and that’s why they use this trick.
You won’t recognize the number or even the area code, which is often something like 268, which is used for the Caribbean island of Antigua.
Other Caribbean codes you might see include 242, 246, 264, 284, 345, 441, 473, 649, 664, 758, 767, 784, 809, 829, 849, 868, 876 and 869.
You may have family or friends living in or visiting the Caribbean region and may think it’s a genuine call. But, almost certainly, that one ring is a clue to the fact that it’s a scam.
Alternatively, the caller may wait for you to answer and then respond with a muffled voice you can’t understand or other distressing sounds that leave you puzzled and worried.
And, in a third variation, if you use voicemail, the scammer may leave a message, claiming to be from the police or, say, a hospital, claiming there’s been an emergency and asking you to call back.
Whichever route they use, if your curiosity does get the better of you so that you decide to call back, you’ll be making an international premium line call with a basic fee of around $20, plus a billing charge of between $9 and $20 a minute.
And it may take a couple of minutes or more before you realize something’s not right, and hang up.
In the meantime, you’ll be greeted with a “please hold” message followed by a music recording or perhaps an advertisement.
If you don’t know about this trick, you won’t know just how costly that call back was until your phone bill arrives.
Phone and law enforcement officials say victims’ numbers are dialed randomly by computers operated by scammers who work from various parts of the Caribbean.
7 Key Actions
So, what can you do to minimize the risk from this scam? Here are 7 key actions:
1. If the phone only rings once and you don’t recognize the number, don’t call back.
2. Be aware of and wary about the area code numbers we listed above. They look like they’re from the US but they’re not.
Some smartphones and carriers actually provide the location of the number on-screen.
3. Set up and use voicemail on your cell phone service. If a call is genuine, a serious caller will usually leave a message.
However, as we indicated above, beware of scammers leaving phony alert messages asking you to call back.
You may have to use your judgment on this. If you don’t know anyone in the relevant area code region and haven’t visited it, don’t call back.
The scammer won’t say which region he’s calling from. He’ll probably want you to think he’s in the US, so check that code carefully against the list we’ve provided.
Also, ask yourself how the supposed caller would have your number.
4. If you do think you should make the call, check the number through online directories first. They will tell you where the phone number is registered.
5. Always check your phone bill carefully for unexpected and unusual charges. If you get stung by the one ring scam, try to resolve the bill with your cell phone carrier.
6. Also, ask your carrier about whether numbers from particular areas can be blocked.
7. If you’ve lost money and can’t get it back from your phone service provider, consider filing a complaint with either the Federal Trade Commission (see https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/#crnt&panel1-1) or the Federal Communications Commission ( https://www.fcc.gov/complaints ).
The one ring scam is just the latest in a number of tricks that crooks use to try to fool you into making calls on premium-charge lines.
We reported on this many years ago, in one of our earliest issues.
http://www.scambusters.org/ScamBusters8.html
Sad to see that it’s still around in a new guise. So, just remember this simple rule: One ring, one scam!
July 30th, 2014 at 1:03 pm
Companies began to be people when the 1 percent found profit and then found 5 Scotus members willing to sell out.
July 30th, 2014 at 1:09 pm
Michelle like just saw you. Damn you are one hot blond!
July 30th, 2014 at 1:15 pm
I don’t know when it happened, but if it doesn’t change soon we will be tucked.
July 30th, 2014 at 8:33 pm
When did corporations become People? They are not people, they are monstrous beasts. But they want to have the same civil rights afforded to individual people, that’s when.
July 31st, 2014 at 12:53 am
Howie, seems like you were right once again. You told Israel to get those tunnels before they used one to attack inside Israel.
They didn’t. http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2014/07/30/tsr-dnt-scuitto-hamas-tunnel-network.cnn.html
July 31st, 2014 at 1:25 am
GOP claims to not be racist, and says they are suing Obama because the people demand we do something. SO… why did they not sue BUSH, CLINTON, ETC.? Really man.. What about Franklin D. Roosevelt with a total of 3,522 executive orders?
So, why sue.. here is a list of what the POTUS and others have done.
Richard Nixon Total 346
Gerald R…. Ford Total 169
Jimmy Carter Total 320
Ronald Reagan Total 381
George Bush Total 166
Bill Clinton Total 364
George W. Bush Total 291
Barack Obama Total 168
So…they’re not racist..RIGHT???
July 31st, 2014 at 1:50 am
“The dictionary defines corporation as “a number of persons united in one body for a purpose.”
That used to be called a split/multiple personality and it was a mental disease. The S.T.A.R.K. lets the personalities run wild, like a herd of cash cows.
July 31st, 2014 at 8:47 am
Michelle: Where do you find these gems? Jon Stewart’s video was great.
Citizens United was the ruling that really did the US in. The Korrupt 5 on SCOTUS, the K-RATS, have declared war on Democracy. Allowing corporations to make their money here and headquarter their business in Europe, avoiding any taxes, is another ruling the K-RATS have made recently that will have a profound negative affect on US prosperity.
Racism, being as strong as it is in the US is being used as a trump card by the GOP. They know damn well that citizens, who against their better judgment, will go along with anything to make Obama look bad. The dumbasses are letting their own racist views cut their own throats, and everyone else’s along with ‘em . Just as the GOP had planned.
I am getting so sick of hearing of all the bullshit the GOP is getting away with, which is minute compared to what the 1%er’s behind the wheel are.
It is so vital to the survival of this nation that EVERYBODY get their ass out there and VOTE come November, remember that the GOP will cheat on the vote count if they can get away with it.
Didrea#3: I think you nailed it spot on.
July 31st, 2014 at 9:22 am
On this Ebola crisis. The British, South Africa, the Dutch, many white scientists who worked in those white controlled countries countries know that the Ebola virus is a strain of a virus manufactured by american racists to assist those white controlled countries to thin out the black population of Africa.
Those sick racist bastards are living well in the US and practicing their racists aims in American politics.
July 31st, 2014 at 9:28 am
Thanks Al for your kind remarks. It is an honor to have someone like you acknowledge your post.