Corporate personhood should not be a novel concept in a liberal forum

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

The widespread DU discussion of corporate person-hood as if it's something that started in 2010 is odd. It's a big deal and a very old deal.

Corporate person-hood is a central problem in American life and has been since at least 1886.

This is one of our ancient progressive struggles, not breaking news.

The general concept is enshrined on the very first page of the US Legal Code:

1 U.S.C. §1

"In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise-- the words "person" and "whoever" include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals;"

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/1/1.html

Corporations (and other types of associative entities) must have some de facto person-hood insofar as they can enter into contracts, be able to sue people for not honoring contracts, etc..

That, the limited 1819 state of things, is not very controversial.

The problem arises when that person-hood is expanded beyond the bare minimum legal fiction of person-hood that is requisite to corporations being able to act on par with individuals as economic entities.

Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad (1886) held that the person-hood of being able to enter into contracts meant that corporations are covered as persons by the 14th Amendment. This has always been one of our most controversial Supreme Court decisions. The 14th Amendment is very powerful and broad.

The downsides of over-extrapolation of corporate person-hood are endless. One famous one is that corporations cannot go to jail for crimes like negligent homicide but individual corporate officers who commit negligent homicide don't go to jail either because it's the corporation's fault.

(There was a pip of a negligent homicide trial involving Ford Motors employees/officers who knowingly went ahead with the flammable Ford Pinto. Everyone was acquitted because it was really Ford inc. that was doing it. Ford inc. was, however, never tried in criminal court because it's not THAT much of a person.)