If corporations were really legally treated like individuals then they wouldn’t be prosecuted for organizing like unions and engaging in collective bargaining with labor organizations.
The View From North Central Idaho
Ramblings on explosives, guns, politics, and sex by a redneck Idaho farm boy who became a software engineer living near Seattle.
Because corporations….the oft spoken of “Big Business” that is the villain in many conversations own SO many people in government to include the usual
politicians plus judges PLUS the high level directors of many agencies they can
essentially dictate the terms of how laws are written and how these laws are interpreted and ruled on. Because of this salacious incestuous relationship companies are people in those instance when it serves their purpose and they are NOT people whenever it best suits their needs to be considered as a company and not a person. In essence when you own the government you can be whatever you want whenever you want…..very convenient.
But the evidence contradicts your claim. If they really “own” the government then they could get laws passed such that the could organize like labor unions to negotiate wages with the labor unions. But they haven’t done that. Hence your claim appears to be false.
Here’s another question:
If Corporations are ‘individuals’ (people), then why are *they* allowed to deduct damn near every penny required to maintain their existence (rent, utilities, food, clothing, travel, etc.) when a natural born human being is not?
Do *you* (as a natural human being) have a zero-cost basis for existence? (and before someone trots out the ‘standard deduction’ argument, I DARE you to figure out how to feed, house, clothe and transport yourself to/from work for an entire year on the ‘allowed’ amount for the SD)
Under current law, an artificial entity (Corporation) has a greater ‘right’ to keep that which it receives than a natural born human being does.
Corporations are “individuals” for the purposes of _ownership_of_corporate_assets_, including buying and selling such. ALL other variations of corporations being treated as “people” are based off that. (You don’t buy a car from every single Ford shareholder signing off and releasing their individual interest in the car – you buy it from the Ford Corporation. Likewise, when your Pinto blows up, you don’t have to file a lawsuit against each indidivual Ford sharehold; you file a lawsuit against Ford Corporation. Etc., etc.)
The Citizens United case is generally misrepresented. The right protected was not an “individual” corporate right to free speech — it was the right of multiple individual humans to pool their resources together in a corporate structure to express their free speech.