Modulator

Corporate Rights

Emma at Late Night Thoughts joins Dave Pollard and Thom Hartman, author of Unequal Protection, in taking on corporate personhood. A thorough fisking of these folks arguments would find some individual points to argue but I think the essence of what they are saying holds true:

our elected and appointed legislative, executive and judicial 'public servants' have enacted, approved and upheld laws that imbue corporations with rights that should belong only to natural persons*

Read Emma's post and then the Pollard/Hartman material and give it some thought.

Emma observes that:

The screams you hear from the corner are coming from those conservatives that want to protect "capitalism" and "free markets".

I can't think of reasons why folks who truly support capitalism and free markets would disagree with the essence (see above) of this discussion. Capitalism does not thrive in an environment wrapped in special protections, subsidies, etc. Most likely those screaming are more of the statist variety and come from both the right and the left.

Thanks to Jeanne at Body and Soul for the pointer.

*orginal text read

our elected representatives have approved laws that imbue corporations with rights that should belong only to natural persons

Posted by Steve on June 27, 2003