The Lawnmower People

@Just Desserts: Good arguments, but I don't believe that denying First Amendment rights to corporations restricts anyone. It restricts corporations, but corporations are not an anyone; they are an anything. Any individual person within a corporation, including company owners, should of course remain free to express their political opinions however they like.

Corporations are not people. They're just not. They don't get free education. They don't get healthcare. They can't be elected to office. They have been granted personhood in a limited legal sense where it makes economic sense (easing capital-raising, for example) and this should in no way imply they are morally entitled to all the other rights as well. They are a thing.

@SoylantGreen: You are absolutely correct. Strictly speaking the Bill of Rights does not actually grant rights at all, but prevents the government from making particular kinds of laws. I still find it deeply troubling that its protections have been extended to corporations, though. It's the Bill of Rights. It's meant for people.

The Greenwald article is a great one, thanks. Lots of intriguingly sticky arguments. I'm no Constitutional scholar; I don't know how to straighten out the legal issues he raises. (Neither does he, I gather.) But I really take issue with this:

> I'm also quite skeptical of the apocalyptic claims about how this decision
> will radically transform and subvert our democracy by empowering
> corporate control over the political process. My skepticism is due to one
> principal fact: I really don't see how things can get much worse in
> that regard.

Really? He cites the fact that corporations often skirt existing laws to support the idea that we'll be no worse off if we throw out all such laws altogether. I find that mind-boggling. It seems unbelievably short-sighted, like someone who thought in the 1950s that advertising couldn't get any more pervasive.

That's not the core of his case, of course; as you say, he's arguing that whether or not this will produce "bad results" is irrelevant. Which is frickin scary, by the way. Supportable, but scary.

My position is that we need a separation of state and commerce. The power used to be religion, and we recognized that we needed to separate that from government; the same principle should apply to corporations--for the simple fact that unless it is prevented from doing so, any self-interested body with sufficient power will bend the government to act in its favor.

@SoylantGreen: I get the feeling you're mostly (or entirely) arguing that the Supreme Court did not make an error of law, while I'm mostly arguing that corporations shouldn't enjoy the same rights as people. Which is not necessarily contradictory: I'm happy if the great gaping hole opened by this decision is closed via new legislation, for example. For all I know, the court reached an entirely appropriate result based on prevailing law. It's just produced a horrifying situation.

The "bad results" argument is reasonable. But I strongly disagree with this sentiment:

> The money is already in the system; this ruling won't change that. Corporations
> have been funneling cash through 527s and advocacy groups like the NRA and
> Moveon.org.

... at least insofar as it appears to imply that we have reached the bottom, so there is really nothing to lose. That argument I think suffers from a serious lack of imagination. Tobacco companies (to pick one) routinely exploit every possible avenue to market product; however, if bans on their advertising are lifted, their voice will become a hundred times louder. So too will the sums of money spent in the political game by corporations vastly increase if the gates are thrown open. It doesn't just acknowledge what's already happening: it creates vast new opportunities for the entire corporate set, and legitimizes what was previously dubious. At the risk of stretching an analogy too far, it sounds like, "Murders already happen every day; there's nothing we can do to stop that so the law against murder is pointless."

> I don't think abridging the free speech of Exxon
> or the ACLU will solve that problem.

I object to that notion: "the free speech of Exxon." You're not talking about the free speech of the employees of Exxon, or of the CEO, or the majority owner, or any number of actual beings. You are talking about a legal entity that was granted a specific set of powers and subject to a specific set of laws in order to grease the wheels of commerce. That legal entity exists only and entirely because it makes doing business easier.

Any group of people wants to get together, pool some cash, and make a political ad, I'm all for that. But corporations are not a group of people. They are a manufactured entity whose shape we choose to serve a purpose. They have zero moral claim to rights and should never be equated with real human beings.

I'm supposed to be cooking dinner so sorry if this response is more rushed than it deserves. I just wanted to say that Soylant Green may be people but corporations aren't.

jas wrote:
> "They [corporations] have zero moral claim to
> rights and should never be equated with real human beings."
>
> Does that mean that you won't hold them to moral standards?
> If it's wrong to uphold a corporation's moral claim
> to rights, wouldn't it be equally wrong to accuse them of unethical practices?

I do find it a little odd to expect ethical behavior from corporations. And I see a clear correlation between how ethical a corporation acts and how strongly it is controlled by people. Small businesses, for example, or corporations where the Founders are still active, act a lot more socially conscious than larger, older corporations, which have outlived the people who begat them. I wrote a little about this in the blog I linked to above:

http://maxbarry.com/2005/01/20/news.html

... i.e. this: "(By the way, I suspect that the increasing personification of corporations might turn out to be their Achilles’ heel. The more society buys into the myth that companies are real people, the more we expect them to adhere to human-like standards of ethical behavior. People like me would allow corporations to get away with murder, because we expect nothing better. It’s the people who get shocked when they discover that designer-label clothing is manufactured for ten cents an hour by children in China who cause trouble for a brand’s image and force companies to improve their behavior.)"

Essentially, I'm glad people expect moral behavior from corporations, and I'll object to immoral corporate behavior myself, but I don't really believe corporations are moral creatures. They have morals exactly so far as their sales demand.

That aside: no, it wouldn't be wrong to simultaneously deny corporations moral rights and require moral behavior from them. Because they're not people! They don't get their feelings hurt, they don't get oppressed, they don't have an inherent claim to life. Is it morally wrong for lawnmowers to be forced to adhere to safety standards they don't even get to participate in drafting? Corporations are just a legal construction, assumed to exist because to do so benefits us.

@jas also wrote:
> I also noticed you took issue with "the free speech of Exxon" but not of the
> ACLU or unions. Those particular groups of people have access to vast
> amounts of money and won't be shy about promoting their political beliefs,
> especially if it's in reply to a message with which they disagree.
> Just think what this ruling will mean to George Soros.

I'm not sure of the organizational format of the ACLU or unions, but I sure don't see them in the same class as limited-liability public corporations. For that matter, I don't see non-profit corporations in the same class, or small corporations, because they don't share the same systemic qualities as a large, public corporation. They may be theoretically similar, but they're practically different: they do not behave the same way.

I didn't address this earlier because it's fairly irrelevant. I'm arguing that commerce must not get involved in lawmaking; the ACLU and (to a lesser extent) the unions are not commerce. They're only getting mashed together with corporations due to the legal objection of, "If we consider the First Amendment right to free speech as residing in people only, what about these organizations?" I just don't see that as a big deal. Let 'em speak, or require them to be non-profit; whatever. This is only a tough question if you think there are no legal protections except those in the Constitution.

But I definitely don't consider that the ACLU or unions have "vast amounts of money," at least not compared to corporations. There's just no comparison. The ACLU's revenues are $85 million. The 1,000th biggest corporation in the US has revenues of $1.7 billion. The ACLU would be... what? The 10,000 biggest? The 100,000th?

SoylantGreen wrote:
> I'm sorry but I don't see how our corporatist political system could become
> any more corporatist, fundamentally.

We've discussed this already, but until now corporate influence has largely been limited to lobbying, which works against public interest like a tug-of-war with the politician in the middle. If corporations get to influence the public as well, sapping the opposing force, politicians will experience a stronger force in the corporate direction.

No argument from me that corporations have too much influence over lawmakers already, of course. But I honestly see lobbying as a relatively weak political tool compared to manipulating mass public opinion. If you look at where corporations have been most effective in repelling the tide of overwhelming public interest (tobacco, asbestos, product safety, global warming), you'll see media campaigns aimed at citizens. I'm really starting to think it's possible to convince someone of anything, at least for a while, given sufficient resources. And there's not much that would be of more value to corporations than shaping the laws that govern them.

> I'd much rather see some sort of public financing of campaigns.

Me too, but any public financing scheme will be insignificant in comparison to the kind of spending you could see from an interested major corporation. If I'm ExxonMobil--a single corporation, albeit a very large one--a law that allows me to increase my revenues by 1% is worth $4 billion to me. If we're talking about a bill that would enhance corporate profits *across the board*, that's worth hundreds of billions of dollars--that is, it would be rational for corporations to spend hundreds of billions of dollars in order to get that bill passed. We have never seen political campaigning on that scale, and I really hope we never do.

> I don't think corporations should be exactly equated with people (but again, remember that
> the free speech clause says nothing about people) but if you truly believe they have no
> claim to any constitutional protections then I'd be very interested to hear your answers
> to these questions: http://bit.ly/6kluNF
>> Could Congress pass a law tomorrow providing that
>> any corporation - including non-profit advocacy
>> groups -- which criticize American wars shall be
>> fined $100,000 for each criticism? What possible
>> constitutional objection could you have to that?

I'll answer that, but first, I don't like how it smashes together corporations and "groups," as if a corporation was no different to any random collection of people. Second, it supposes that we have the Constition or nothing--that all laws other than the Constitution are suspect and could be corrupted; it is the only bulwark against bad government. Greenwald sets up an impossible premise: "Assuming the Constitution is the only reliable law, and it doesn't protect advocacy groups, how would you legally protect advocacy groups?"

Greenwald argues that unless corporations are given free speech under the First Amendment, no group can enjoy any of the current protections of the Bill of Rights, and that's only true if you suppose that we are incapable of passing new laws to provide the same protections. Now okay, there's nothing quite as solid as an Amendment. But I live in a country with no Bill of Rights. I would wholeheartedly support one, but I know we get good laws from the power of the people, not a 200-year-old piece of paper. In my Bill-of-Rights-less nation, the secret police still can't "enter and search the offices of the ACLU without probable cause or warrants, and seize whatever they want."

Greenwald says he will only accept "constitional objections," so I have none. I am A-OK with the entities construed under corporate charter law having no constitutional rights to reasonable search (nor, for that matter, the right to bear arms and run for President). That is not to say I am necessarily opposed to corporations having any protections; I just don't think, as Greenwald suggests, they must be derived from the Constitution or nowhere.

Just to add, I think Greenwald's analysis of the Supreme Court decision is excellent and illuminating. I don't mean to imply that I disagree with him on any interpretation of the law. My objection is to the notion that we have to shrug our shoulders and accept corporations will get involved in political campaigns, no matter how bad that will be, because we can't figure out how to get the law right.

@SoylantGreen:
> Now they can just throw up their own commercials. Like I said before,
> easier but not fundamentally different.

Well, compare the marketing from tobacco companies before and after advertising controls (or in advertising-controlled countries versus nations without controls). One is pervasive, the other is muted. You can certainly argue that either way, the public is getting persuaded, but the difference of degree is vast.

Will corporations throw open their treasuries tomorrow? No. It'll happen bit by bit, the same way every other form of marketing has. At first, the public will resist the idea of corporations messing in politics, because it's new, and because of that, it won't be very profitable. But as more of it happens, we'll become desensitized. Twenty years on, what would be shocking today will be routine. That's the way it happens.

> How do you separate one type of non-person legal entity from another?

You're asking the legal question again! The legal question is interesting. It's just not one I can answer. You don't want legal opinion from authors. There are smarter people than me to figure out the law. I just refuse to believe those smart people are incapable of distinguishing between a book club and Wal-Mart.

> Without a Constitutional protection, what stops a government from passing that law fining
> corporations that criticize the government? "Good laws from the power of the people" you say.
> Firstly, the people don't pass laws, the government does. Second, if the government has
> gone bad and passes that bad law, again, what recourse does the corporation have?

Our recourse against bad law is the ballot box. I don't argue that's superior to a Bill of Rights, just that it exists. Honestly, while I do admire the US Constitution, I really doubt it's the only thing preventing the US government from falling into dictatorship. People power does that. When you say, "What if the government goes bad," you actually mean, "What if the government goes bad in some respects but still respects the courts." Because if it went really bad, it wouldn't matter what the Supreme Court said, either. What would matter is who had the guns.

But again this is the legal question. I guess it sounds like I'm dodging the question to you, because I'm saying, "I can't tell you how you pass the right law, but I think it can be done." But I similarly think it's wrong to say, "Unless you can provide me with a legal framework consistent with constitutional law that provides the outcome you want, you may not argue that we need one." I can't tell an engineer how to build a bridge across a river, but I can argue we'll be better off if we have one. I don't think this debate should be closed off to non-lawyers, and I don't think the core issue is about the detail of the law (except to lawyers).

I wrote:
> But again this is the legal question. I guess it
> sounds like I'm dodging the question to you,
> because I'm saying, "I can't tell you how you pass
> the right law, but I think it can be done."

Maybe this is an answer:

http://www.callaconvention.org/pages/proposed-amendment/