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Comment by saidajigumi | Hacker News Reader

Because corporations are not citizens. Corporations consolidate many orders of magnitude more financial power, skill at executing political leverage, and focus compared to individuals. They use that power to manipulate government in ways that are biased towards corporate need, but which don't balance other concerns. This is bad because it puts corporate power and influence very out of balance with personal power.

The aims of corporations are often dead-set against the wishes of affected citizenry, the company's employees, sometimes even the corporate executives (wearing their "private citizen" hats).

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Yes, because corporations are made up of Martians who hate Earthlings... no, wait, corporations are made up of people.

Stop all corporations and non-person entities from contributing to political campaigns! Stop unions! Stop the Sierra Club!

Still with me?

Are we down to allowing only individual citizen donations to political parties?

I donate to the Sierra Club, support unions (sometimes), and yes, I am still with you! I don't think any non-human entity (even if it's "made up of people") should have any sort of say in the democratic process.

Corporations don't represent the best interest of their stakeholders (employees etc), but the narrow interest of their shareholders in a competitive marketplace where shareholders are only looking for one thing. In other words, it is not the job of a company to do what its employees find most pleasing.

No. In a competitive marketplace (not saying Comcast is operating in a highly competitive marketplace in Seattle particularly) the corporation is incentivized to do what is most pleasing for its customers. And that's a good thing.

Unions aren't exactly geared toward the best interest of its members either, even though they pretend to be.

There is nothing about the broadband market in most major US cities that resembles competition. You generally have painfully slow DSL or fast but expensive and potentially unreliable cable internet from a single provider.

Well when I look around my room and see the things that I use: Television, computer, telephone, lights, etc... are things that I purchased from corporations.

Whatever their interests are, I'm certainly not knee-jerked opposed to them since I like their products and I like the effects that companies with good products provide to the economy.

At very least I think that corporations serve as a contrast to the inordinate megaphone that politicians, celebrities, and the mainstream media have.

Really, I don't think that the protestations against corporations contributing to the political process are all that well thought-out. Should Michael Moore no longer be allowed to make his documentaries? They're blatant political commercials. How about Sean Penn? Should he be muzzled from being a political spokesperson since he has such an inordinate amount of influence vs an individual citizen?

How about news organizations? Every single one out there has some sort of political bias. Should they be allowed to blatantly support political parties and candidates?

I don't like to see HN devolve into a political debate, so I'm reluctant to reply here. However, I'm passionate about this.

1. I'm a business student. I'm founding a company. I'm not opposed to corporations either. Just their involvement in politics.

2. Michael Moore and Sean Penn are individuals, not corporations. I support the right of the Koch brothers to speak out, though I don't much like what they have to say. I don't support the right of their corporation to pay to be heard on political matters.

3. It's paid advertising that I'm opposed to; corporations can make documentaries all day long if they want to, it's paying to have people watch them that I have a problem with.

4. Newspapers can blatantly support political parties and candidates. People choose to read them if they wish; they don't find them embedded in other content as paid advertising.

EDIT: in response to the below, see my post above (GP).

If corporations are banned from trying to persuade people (i.e., advertising), they'll turn to bribing politicians (i.e. hiring lobbyists). Which is worse? I think that's clear.

I don't agree with Comcast's position here, but I think they should be allowed to be heard if they want to be. Democratic societies are strong because they're made up of a lot of strong non-governmental institutions and groups, not just an all-powerful government and powerless individuals.

> If corporations are banned from trying to persuade people (i.e., advertising), they'll turn to bribing politicians (i.e. hiring lobbyists).

So, you are saying if corporations are allowed to advertise, they won't hire lobbyists?

(Not that marketing to the public is any less bribery or more trying to convince people than lobbying is, the only difference between the two is the universe of people being targeted for bribery/convincing.)

Straight up bribery comes with scandals and criminal convictions when detected, which is a plus. Because then you can start to weed this behavior out.

There are lots of ways to bribe, and most of them are legal.

So you started out with a principle, "Corporations consolidate many orders of magnitude more financial power...", but now you've thrown that principle out the window with every enumerated argument.

All I can now determine is that you just don't like the politics of many corporations and want them to be muzzled.

> Are we down to allowing only individual citizen donations to political parties?

I'd be a lot happier if no one could donate at all. But I also think price signaling is bullshit, so probably better not to listen to me.

I believe corporations are recognized as people due to Citizens United.

No, it had ramifications on First Amendment rights as interpreted for broadly for associations of citizens. But it did not go so far as to declare associations of citizens as, themselves, citizens. More details and citations at [1] and a whole bunch of other places on the internet.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United#Opinions_of_th...

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