If Corporations Aren’t People, How Can They Be Greedy?
22nd October 2011
A few weeks ago, Mitt Romney observed that corporations are people. This prompted hysteria on the left, including a video produced by the Democratic Party. But of course Romney was right. A corporation consists of its owners, i.e. shareholders, and its employees–people. It is an elementary principle of law that a corporation can act only through its employees and agents–people. The Democrats’ apparent belief that you can hurt companies without hurting people is absurd. The corporation is merely a legal form in which people do business, now several hundred years old. It is absolutely necessary for any major commercial enterprise because its existence can continue without disruption beyond any one individual’s lifespan. So being “anti-corporation” is equivalent to being pro-medieval.
And once again, ‘progressives’ are shown to be the true reactionaries.
October 22nd, 2011 at 20:58
Disingenuous. Of course corporations are constituted of people; that’s obvious on its face. What upsets many is the legal fiction that a corporation is a “person”.
October 25th, 2011 at 15:58
That’s because they don’t know that a “person” and a “natural person” are different things in legal jargon. A person is an entity that can be held to a contract or be expected to obey the law. Asking that corporations lose their “personhood” is asking that they no longer have to obey the law, pay taxes, or live up to contracts.