Zephyr Teachout: What the Clintons Can Learn From Ben Franklin's Foreign Money Scandal

[HereSince1628]

13. This is, in part, about the absurdity of corporate identity unique from it's officer & owners

A corporation, whether profit or non-profit--whether charitable or exploitative, is a group of people, that group may only be as large as the officers who make all the decisions about it, or it may be a group of people who appoint a smaller group of people to administer the activities of the group.

In common sense terms, the corporation cannot be separated from the interests and desires of the people who make up the group. When someone makes gifts, or grants good will to the corporation, common sense suggests those gifts and grants devolve to at least some of the people who are the group.

But under the law, corporations were constructed to make the group a mostly separate entity, particularly so that risks and liabilities of group action would be limited to the value of investments of the individuals who are the members of the group.

Consequently, foundations are constructions that serve, at least in part, as foiles to protect the people who operate them.

Clever people outside foundations can use these structures to obfuscate the generation of very valuable 'goodwill' (aka chits, political capital), that can be drawn upon at a later, distant time making quid pro quo more tenuous to reveal.

The capacity to create such irresolvable grayness and appearance of conflicts is a strong reason for a person contemplating a political career in the US to avoid them.