And it all sucks. I think tethering legislation to making corporations exempt from income taxes, and refactoring taxation on profits and loans secured against corporate ownership might be the only way to get it through.
And it all sucks. I think tethering legislation to making corporations exempt from income taxes, and refactoring taxation on profits and loans secured against corporate ownership might be the only way to get it through.
There is a legal concept of "corporate personhood", but it has nothing to do with "being people", it's a legal term of art. For example, it makes it possible to sue a corporation instead of trying to sue each of its shareholders and executives individually. And it wasn't used in Citizens United v. FEC at all.
I don't like it, I really don't agree with it, but the reality is that's what it would likely take to overcome counter arguments in favor of continuing corporate personhood. As I mentioned, it might be tolerated if it came with tax exemption, in leiu of new taxes against corporate/stock loans and more taxation on profit distribution.
Of course it should, that's the whole purpose of the corporation. That's the premise whole western financial system is built on - that the corporations are right-bearing entities. That doesn't mean they are people - it means that in the western legal system, certain rights can attach to entities other than people. That's no surprise to anybody who would look into how corporations work and why they were invented in the first place.
> as though to cast a second vote
Voting rights have never been part of corporate personhood, what are you talking about?
> Money is not speech
Money by itself is a resource. This resource can be spent on speech - I can pay money to facilitate my speech. If you prevent me from doing that, you essentially shutting down my speech - what is the use of it if nobody can hear or read it, because publishing costs money, and I am prohibited from that? In a separation of labor society - which by now is every society - money is a necessary prerequisite to use the services of society. And no (significant) societal activity can be performed without involving money, one way or another. Thus, money are not speech, literally, but money are a necessary gateway to speech.
> This is tge court's error.
No, that's your error by trying to misrepresent the court's decision in a way that is convenient to you for criticizing it. The court did not say "corporations are people" or "money is speech" - they said something that the opposing side activists turned into such slogans, but if you want to understand and not just scream out your rage, then you need to go to the actual meaning, beyond the slogans.
You don't lose your right because you act collectively, though some things get conceptually awkward.
Stripping unions of their rights might be a bit controversial. On the other hand, "collective representation" is essentially the definition of a union.