[lbo-talk] Challenge for leftists of all stripes

[Liza Featherstone]

One thing I always wonder about the corporate personhood, is, wouldn't it be
better to expand it in a totally literal-minded way. (I know, you would have
to abolish limited liability - I don't know how to do that, of course.) Say,
if they are going to be considered people and have the rights people have,
they should have the responsibilities people have. Thus, say, OK
corporations are people, so, when they commit crimes, the board, CEO and all
of upper management have to do jail time. They cause someone's death, they
get life sentences. Three strikes in California, we throw away the key. Etc.
You could then criminalize environmental and labor law violations, and all
sorts of other potentially great stuff. I think most people would rather see
corporations gain responsibilities -- and miscreants wear leg irons -- than
lose rights.

Liza  


> From: "Nathan Newman" <nathanne at nathannewman.org>
> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 16:00:12 -0500
> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Challenge for leftists of all stripes
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
> 
> 
> John Thornton wrote:
>> All persons are guaranteed "free speech". Corporations can donate
>> money to political parties or individuals as a guaranteed form of
>> free speech.
> -I think this line of complaint is more petit bourgeois than
> -proletarian. It seems founded on an often undisclosed nostalgia for
> -the 19th century world of proprietorships or small partnerships. And
> -what a wonderful time that was!
> 
> No, the complaints about legal personhood for corporations have to do with
> the history of courts in the US using that "personhood" to endow them with
> a range of constitutional rights that legislatures could not regulate.  For
> decades, those rights included a range of economic contracting rights that
> stunted legislative regulation.
> 
> More recently, "free speech" and other "associational" rights have been
> raised to try to block a range of regulations.   Let me give one example.
> At one point, California required Pacific Gas & Electric to include a flyer
> by a consumer group, TURN, advertising to ratepayers their ability to join
> TURN and support a consumer advocate against higher electric rates.   The
> US Supreme Court struck down this law as violating the free speech rights
> of PG&E against having to be associated with the views of TURN.
> 
> Believe me, in the legal work I do on economic regulation, corporate
> opponents cite their constiutional rights against violations of equal
> protection, free speech, due process and a range of other rights to combat
> economic regulation.  Corporate personhood is indeed one of the deadlier
> weapons against democracy in the United States.  We had a period after the
> New Deal when this was largely abandoned, but it is creeping up on us
> day-to-day and is likely to accellerate in the coming years as more
> reactionary jurists extend their control of the courts.
> 
> Nathan Newman
> 
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