Our ancestors hundreds of years ago were vexed by how to treat public stock companies. They invented the common sense idea of an “incorporation” which literally imagined a tissue of laws and ownership as a flesh and blood creature. Gradually that simple metaphor _which allowed an application of legality to an abstract concept _became embedded in world capitalistic culture.
So far, so good. The modern mistake has been in extending that phantom concept not as a domestic animal, but as a full citizen. Domestic animals are subject to restrictions and laws, but nobody mistakes them for their owner. The racehorse does not pay taxes, the dog does not vote, the cat does not hire a lawyer to mandate better meals. Unlike the famous lines of Mitt Romney and pet lovers everywhere “hamsters are not people.”
A legal convenience has become a legal absurdity. A corporation should be completely stripped of citizen status _ by constitutional amendment if necessary. No political good comes of treating a dog as a somewhat disabled human.
Corporations, in fact, are simply a disguising mask thrown onto a bureaucracy that may or may not produce things, but definitely can own and manipulate things. But we should never think the corporation itself “wants” anything nor has any citizen rights any more than a racehorse does.
The fact that humans using those masks can severely impact society and government is a major travesty of the age.
HuntingtonHarborThoughts 