Comment by foolswisdom
3 months ago
The argument is that the need for abstraction doesn't mean we must reuse an existing concept. We should be able to talk about corporations as entities and talk about what laws or rights should apply, without needing to call them people.
But the existing concept by and large has the properties we want. The ability to form contracts, to be held civilly or criminally liable for misconduct, to own property, etc. That we say something is a juridical person isn't some kind of moral claim that it's equivalent in importance to a human, it's just a legal classification.
Corporations can be held criminally liable, but they can't go to prison. And while lots of countries have gotten rid of the death penalty, a corporation can actually be "executed" by getting dissolved.
I think these are some pretty big deals.
Are those things unique to corporations though? A dead person can be held criminally liable but can't go to prison.
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At least for me, the problem is that making them completely equivalent in a legal sense has undesirable outcomes, like Citizens United. Having distinct terms allows for creating distinct, but potential overlapping sets of laws/privileges/rights. Using the same term makes it much harder to argue for distinctions in key areas
But they aren't completely equivalent. Natural persons can vote; juridical persons cannot. Natural persons have a constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination; juridical persons do not; etc. There's just a lot in common between the two, because it makes sense for there to be a lot in common. Citizen's United v FEC was a transparently terrible ruling, but it was in no way implied by the mere existence of corporate personhood. It was a significant expansion of the interpretation of corporate personhood that directly overturned a prior supreme court ruling on campaign finance regulation.
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It also has a lot of properties we don't want, no? Freedom of travel, enlist in the army, drink alcohol after a certain age, get married, etc etc.
A few. But weighed against pretty much all of tort law and contract law, which heavily lean on the similar treatment, those are some pretty tiny edge cases that it's easy to say only apply to natural persons.
But then why does a corporation need freedom of speech etc?
Because a corporation is a group of people, and a group of people don't lose their freedom of speech just because they joined a collective.
And corporations can stand for things. They can have missions and use funds to effect speech in support of causes that align with their beliefs.
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If a group of workers create a Union, should the Union be allowed free speech?
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> The argument is that the need for abstraction doesn't mean we must reuse an existing concept.
but that's not what is happening, there are two concepts: "natural person" and "legal person". you could call them "foo" and "bar" if you prefer, those are just legal variable names.