[lbo-talk] Challenge for leftists of all stripes

[Doug Henwood]

Nathan Newman wrote:

>-And would John Q. Moneybags III, individual capitalist, behave any
>differently?
>
>John Q Moneybags rarely controls property or assets which the public wants
>to regulate.  He almost always controls such property through corporate
>entities.   If the public cannot regulate the corporate entity, they lose
>the a lot of power to control corporate power.
>
>Let me give an example I am working on right now.  Hartford and Chicago are
>debating city ordinances that would require large retail establishments
>like Wal-Mart to allow the public (and union organizers) onto their
>property to talk to customers and employees.   An argument the opposition
>lawyers are making is that this would violate the free speech rights of the
>companies to have to "associate" with speech on their property with which
>they disagree.
>
>Nobody expects to force John Q. Moneybags to allow protesters onto his
>property, but we don't want to extend the same principle to corporations
>like Wal-Mart.

My whole point is that a corp is an institutionalized version of Mr 
Moneybags, and both will behave in pretty similar fashion. I don't 
understand what the corp personhood crowd sees as an alternative to 
the corporate form. If it's some sort of semi-socialized hybrid form, 
in which public benefit somehow is supposed to co-exist with profit 
maximization, then we're not talking legal reform, we're talking 
serious political transformation. I don't think the personhood people 
really understand this.

Doug