3.5: Does a corporation have rights?
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This article is from the Lawful Arrest/Search/Seizure FAQ, by Ahimsa Dhamapada ahimsa@mu.clarityconnect.net with numerous contributions by others.
3.5: Does a corporation have rights?
This is a long answer, but when people are being accused of
all kinds of "pretended offenses" against corporate "victims",
it is important to understand. In many ways, the oppressions
against the people by the government pales in comparison to
the harm that corporations cause.
There is actually a long history of the abuses
of corporations, and how they, under the pretense of being
organized for commerce, become non-democratic systems of governance:
One of the major accomplihments of the [American]
revolution was to kick private corporations out of
this country, to kick some out (like the Hudson
Bay Company), which were very powerful private
corporations of the day, and to transform what
had been private stock corporations chartered by
the king.
Massachusetts Bay Corporation ..., the Virginia
Corporation, the Carolina Corporation, the
Maryland Corporation, the Pennsylvania Corporation,
these were business corporations that settled and
created the 13 colonies. They were dictatorships,
there was no pretense. The people who ran those
companies decided what you could grow, where you
had to ship your products, what kind of work you
did. They could conscript you into the militia.
They were dictatorships.
The revolution fundamentally transformed those
companies into constitutional states. Not perfect
by any means. But it shifted the source of political
power. It shifted the nature of sovereignty so that
there became institutional processes for making
decisions: legislatures, the courts, separation of
powers, terms of office for those holding office....
So in effect, by force of arms, the colonists
transferred the sovereignty that had set with
the King of England to the people. The king was
the sovereign; he got his sovereignty allegedly
from God. All his rulers ruled in his name. That
sovereignty, with the revolution, passed to
"the people."
-- Richard Grossman, _Revoking the Corporation_
WHAT IS A CORPORATION?
A corporation by definition an "artificial person", a legal
fiction, let's call him Ersatz Ernie, created immortal by
men (and the government that charters it). The purpose is
to reduce tax liability, raise money through stock sales,
and to protect the personal assets and otherwise limit the
liability of the human founders in the event of civil or
criminal wrongdoing.
(Wait! What was that last part again!??)
HOW DO THEY FUNCTION?
For corporations to work, they need to be endowed with the
"rights" of property ownership and the ability to engage
in contracts. But while we humans evidently claim to
have figured out how to create artificial life, we have
certainly not figured out how to endow little Artificial
Abbott, Ltd., with a soul, or a conscience, or a moral
code. Corporations "live" for one purpose: profit. They
consume natural resources and human labor in the process.
"IF I ONLY HAD A BRAIN..."
Yep, Pretends to be Pete (Inc.), Not Really Nick (LLC),
False Fran (Corp.), Made Up Marvin (Ltd), Mimeograph of Mike,
Nowhere to be Found Norman, Isn't Isabelle, A Figment of
Fred, Never Was Wally, Cardboard Charles, Polystyrene Pam,
Surrogate Sam, Victor the Invented, Propped Up Paul,
Silhouette of Alice; Substitute Sue, Spurious Steve,
Pat Placebo, Mock Mike, Faux Roe, Artificial Wanda, Image
of Ivan, Negative Ned, Mary the Marionette, David the Dummy,
Pete the Puppet, Howard Handupme, Opposite of Opie,
...whatever, has no soul, has no moral conscience, no memories,
no values, cannot suffer injury, cannot strive to seek
self-redemption, cannot feel guilt or be punished. It has
no consciousness and is not Sui Juris (responsible, adult)
and thus is closer to insanity than other living states.
Dave Ratcliffe (of http://www.ratical.com/corporations)
calls them "corpses" as a play-on-words, and to indicate their
non-living nature.
Why would such a fiend (or living agents thereof),
driven by profit alone, act properly amongst living
creatures? They won't and they don't.
THE LIVING DEAD? IMMORTAL ZOMBIES?
In the past, corporations were created for a specific
purpose, and for a certain time. Today, Corporate Charters
are "indefinite". This makes our Artificial Life, immortal.
We have created a God in the image of a man, so we claim.
Why should a "corp'se" be created immortal? What about punishing
bad ones by revoking the charter: corporate death? An argument can be
found to say that killing any creature with eyes and a
brain is wrong, but who can argue against dismantling a
misbehaving machine? A corporation (or the State) is a robot,
a servant, an automaton, designed and fabricated to do the will of
the people. When the masters find themselves slaves to
the machine, it becomes their duty to dismantle it.
BACK TO: RIGHTS OF "CORP'SES"
Lately we have also heard that corporations have the right
to free speech, and the right to make a profit. We will
examine these in detail, but first...
THE RIGHT TO CONTRACT
An essential right of all natural persons is the right to
engage in friendly agreements (contracts), which derives
from the natural right of free association (Remember when
TJ talked about Life, Liberty and pursuing happiness?).
Contracts are extremely important in civilized societies.
Not only are these voluntary agreements the basis of
commerce ("you give me A and I'll give you B"), marriage,
employment (as opposed slavery), etc., but Jefferson, Locke,
Rousseau, Bastiat, and others argued that the social contract
was the basis of government itself:
SINCE no man has a natural authority over his fellow,
and force creates no right, we must conclude that
conventions form the basis of all legitimate authority
among men. -- Jean Jacques Rousseau, _Social Contract_
Now think about humans moving about freely and acting freely in
public and making friendly agreements with other civilized
creatures. Now, consider the Corporation, an Artificial Person.
Can Invisible Eddie, Ltd. move about? Can something without a brain
agree to something?
"Sui Juris" (Latin: "Self Law") is a legal term used for
an adult natural person, able to engage in contracts
The following are generally considered incapable of
engaging in contracts, thus, defined to be non-Sui Juris:
children, animals, trees[*], buildings, and "the mentally
incompetent". (Whom that judges what "incompetent" is
another matter for further inquiry!)
( [*] It is interesting to ponder forming a contract with a
tree. Can a tree honor an obligation? Perhaps! Living trees can be
very reliable in providing oxygen, and homes for birds and squirrels
and insects. Related: In Athens Georgia, there is a tree which owns
itself. Gerry Spence in _From Freedom to Slavery_ suggests that a
tree may even have "legal standing". We encourage you to research
and debate this notion, but we assume that only conscious beings
with eyes and a brain have rights. We *DON'T* encourage you to go
burn an entire forest, or destroy a species, however :^)
ELEMENTS OF A CONTRACT
Contracts are friendly promises between creatures of honor,
and have the following characteristics [from Gifis]:
o mutual benefit
o mutual obligation
o mutual understanding
o mutual consent
o mutual right to remedy upon breech
o consideration (partial pre-payment, forfeitable offering,
given as enticement by the buyer to the seller; earnest money,
signing bonus, etc.)
o proper subject matter
o responsible, adult, honorable (Sui Juris) parties
AN ARTIFICIAL PERSON CAN'T SHAKE YOUR HAND
Yet a "legal fiction" is not a living thing. It is
without a soul and without honor. In a very real sense,
a corporation (like the State that created it) does not
really exist, nor ever existed. It is not a thing at all;
it cannot be touched or seen, it cannot act, and thus, it
*certainly* cannot act morally, or with honor. It does not
have a mind, thus cannot understand or consent. Something
which cannot act with honor, lacks understanding or the
ability to consent is, by definition, Non Sui Juris, and
thus not fit to engage in contracts.
ARTIFICIAL OWNERS?
Natural living beings need to possess and consume
the living capital of the earth (water, air, plants)
and occupy land in order to sustain life.
This necessary possession, occupation, consumption of land,
water, air, and plants, is the basis of the human notion of
"ownership", which is more like "possession by right".
The author asserts this notion of ownership is seriously
flawed in all cases. Humans owning land, humans owning animals,
humans owning other humans... there is something arrogant about
each of these, because the assertion of the "right" of ownership
always DENYS this right to others. The denial of any proper right
produces an injury. "Property rights" is a paradox!
"In India, people believe that you should give generously
to beggars. Why? Because the thing was never yours to begin
with. It belongs to God; so give it back to God." -- Julius Victor
But even if you accept that humans can own things, what does it mean
that an artificial person can own? Can a legal fiction own property
and exclude living creatures from it? Can an artificial person
own cattle or slaves? Can an artificial person own an ocean? Why?
This could only be for an evil purpose.
Please see a later question for other problems with so-called
"property rights" in general.
THE RIGHT TO SPEAK FREELY VS. THE RIGHT TO SPAM
It is absurd to think that something without a mouth,
tongue, or vocal chords has a right to free speech, yet
today we hear that Corporations do. Of course there is
no right to corporate "free" speech, which ironically is
usually *paid* advertising.
ADVERTISING IS NOT TRUTH OR FACT OR EVEN OPINION!
Advertising has interesting properties:
o It is by definition unsolicited and biased.
o It uses "registered marks of trade", which may
resemble statements of fact, but aren't. They
resemble statements of truth, but are not. They
are more like intentional falsehoods intended to
deceive.
Consider this slogan (not to pick on one corporation
over another):
"Serta. The World's Best Mattress (TM)"
Well, it sort of looks like a statement of fact:
"Serta *is* the world's best mattress."
...which itself is rubbish, for claiming to make the world's
best anything is simply an opinion! Now: the opinion of
*whom*? There is no antecedent speaker. No brain ever
conceived this thought, except the brain of an advertising
executive for sloganization, which doesn't count. Even in
the ad-man's mind, it is unproven. Should we burn coal
and cut trees to "expose" millions of people to an unproven,
biased, and quite likely deceptive and misleading statements?
Advertising is not news, it is not truth. Advertising
is not even opinion! It isn't really a lie, because
only something with a brain and a honor could choose
to lie. It is NOT FREE SPEECH, it is PAID SPEECH;
corpo-speak; profit-speak. It does not inform, it does
not educate. Should the government grant protections to
this sort of "speech", especially when it is at the expense
of the people expressing themselves, or perhaps should we
should ban it!?
"TV: Just say NO!
Why do you think they call it *programming*?"
-- David Neff
The Founders couldn't conceive of Nike Ads on Television,
but they wrote the First Amendment to prevent a corrupt
government of giving aid to ANY entity that would subvert
communications with such bias as we have today. When
the government grants special protections to artificial
person advertise-speak, and by not giving similar aid to
natural-person free-speak, this is equivalent to
establishing the Religion of Capitalism, and violates the
letter and spirit of the First Amendment in several ways.
ADVERTISING: MIND CONTROL
Commercials are designed to make real persons think they
are lacking, diseased, in pain, deficient, and that the
product the corporation makes is the cure for this malaise.
Advertising is mind control propaganda, Manchurian
programming designed to make us shop. Commerce-Speak
dominates and controls all media and drowns out the speech
of natural persons. And since the government created the
corporations, and the political candidates are funded
by corporations, and the television stations are owned
by corporations, and the government and banks make most of
the money available to the corporations, and we need this
money to pay taxes to the same state which chartered/created the
corporations ...
...Is it any wonder that speech that is critical of state oppression
or corporate crime is rarely heard over the din of jingles, slogans,
and registered marks of trade?
"Corporate speech" is of a different nature than natural speech,
and does not deserve the same protections as the speech
of natural persons.
THE RIGHT TO "MAKE A KILLING" DOWN AT THE FREE MARKET
And if we consider that corporations have a right to make a
profit, then we might consider "loss of corporate profit"
a felony, such as assault. Of course, this is absurd!
Humans are living, breathing creatures which bleed and
suffer injury and thus deserve rights, corporations can
not suffer injury and thus do not have rights.
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