> Offense at the idea of corporations
> as persons, with reference to freedom
> of speech or due process is puzzling.
Why is it puzzling? The complaint I have is that *human* rights are accorded to an artificial legal entity, not the people in it. The people in the corp don't lose their rights (at least not by the force of the State -- however, the corporation may take their rights away) by being a member of the corporation, but the corp actually gains rights that puts it on par with human beings. That is a really sickening form of reification. What other inanimate objects would you extent human rights too? A car? A sofa?
> Corporations are legal forms
> of organization by which people receive
> income from capital. I see no problem
> in such people having free speech or
> due process in that capacity.
It is not about the people in the corp -- it is about the corp *itself*. I'm sorry I can't seem to convey this point effectively.
> The
> largesse accorded to corporations,
> such as the lack of consequences for
> felonious acts, is a political matter,
> not one related to the corporation
> as a person, or even to libertarianism.
I was the one who posted saying that corporations-as-persons were not to be blamed on Cato, so take that one off my plate. As far as it being political, well, duh. Does that somehow negate my point? Corporations got to be people because corporations were running the politics.
I still think the balance is lopsided. If I steal from someone, burn down someone's house, or other commit assorted crimes, I lose some (most) of my civil rights while I'm incarcerated. I lose the ability to move about freely, the ability to earn income, etc. I might think that laws regarding corporations were more fair if when a corporation was convicted of a felony, the police padlocked its doors, disconnected its telephones, and didn't let it do anything until its sentence was served. Absurd you say? No more so than thinking of a legal construct as a "person".
> In 1997 the Feds collected over $100 billion in corporate income tax
> revenues. In addition, dividends which were included in the corporate tax
> base are taxed to the person. Now these tax levies could be higher, and
> corporate attorneys may be useful in keeping them lower than they might
> otherwise be, but in any case this is double taxation. In this matter, if
> not others, you have no idea what you're talking about.
Now I know you've gone to one too many Cato lunches. Just watch them on C-SPAN, like I do, I don't think you can catch the disease through the TV. The double taxation canard is a favorite of the right. But if this phrase "double taxation" is to mean anything, why isn't it true of my income as a wage slave. I pay income taxes and then I turn around and pay sales tax on the money I have left after the nasty confiscatory Federal Gov't has stolen from me. How is that any less "double taxation"? If you want to keep the fiction of the corp as a person in place, isn't it just two different "people" being taxed?
$100 billion is what % of the 1997 budget? Yeah, that's about what I thought.
> MBS
--
Joseph Noonan jfn1 at msc.com