• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Corporate Personhood

Do you believe in corporate personhood?

  • Yes

    Votes: 2 6.5%

  • No

    Votes: 24 77.4%

  • Other (Please explain)

    Votes: 5 16.1%
  • Total voters
    31
Kandahar said:
And since that is a criminal act as well as a civil tort, he would be.
Click to expand...

The whole point is that the individuals who commit the tort should be wholly liable.
Should not be able to hide assets behind the legal person.

As it stands, the legal person is made liable in most instances, when it does not have a will of it's own.
 
Harry Guerrilla said:
The whole point is that the individuals who commit the tort should be wholly liable.
Should not be able to hide assets behind the legal person.
Click to expand...

Depends on the circumstances. There are lots of times when it would NOT be a good idea to hold employees personally liable for the actions of the corporation. They may not know it's illegal, or may not be aware of what the corporation is doing. If you hold them liable regardless of the specific circumstances, it will discourage employees from taking on responsibilities.

The situations in which employees can be held personally liable are spelled out, as they should be. And they're typically limited to situations where the employee obviously knows what he's doing is unethical, or where he's acting outside the scope of employment.

Harry Guerrilla said:
As it stands, the legal person is made liable in most instances, when it does not have a will of it's own.
Click to expand...

Well, if the action was done on behalf of the corporation, the corporation's assets should be held liable. Typically corporations have more money than employees, so this makes sense. If a major car manufacturer makes parts that they know are defective and causes tens of millions of dollars of civil damages, who are you going to go after? The car manufacturer with a market capitalization of many billions of dollars, or the individuals who signed off on the defective parts, who are worth maybe $100,000?

The corporation itself might then turn around and then sue the individuals responsible for costing them money. But the corporation is going to have to eat most of the cost, assuming that it was done within the scope of employment.
 
Last edited:
Kandahar said:
Depends on the circumstances. There are lots of times when it would NOT be a good idea to hold employees personally liable for the actions of the corporation. They may not know it's illegal, or may not be aware of what the corporation is doing. If you hold them liable regardless of the specific circumstances, it will discourage employees from taking on responsibilities.

The situations in which employees can be held personally liable are spelled out, as they should be. And they're typically limited to situations where the employee obviously knows what he's doing is unethical, or where he's acting outside the scope of employment.
Click to expand...

The employee situation is a different argument altogether.
My original argument is framed from the position that it is one of the owners, but it doesn't matter if a person is ignorant of the law.

At least, that is what the law common tells us.

Kandahar said:
Well, if the action was done on behalf of the corporation, the corporation's assets should be held liable. Typically corporations have more money than employees, so this makes sense. If a major car manufacturer makes parts that they know are defective and causes tens of millions of dollars of civil damages, who are you going to go after? The car manufacturer with a market capitalization of many billions of dollars, or the individuals who signed off on the defective parts, who are worth maybe $100,000?
Click to expand...

In the principal-agent relationship, the principal is responsible for the actions of the agent.
So unless the employee just went out completely on his own and it can be proven, then the owner is still responsible for the tort.
 
What if...? said:
A corporation can't have intent.
Click to expand...

Why not? The board of directors can. Let's say they intend to invest $1 bln in some new technology. Are they going to ask you for your concent?
It's not verry different from running a country - you hand the rule to the elected and they make the decisions, not you personaly.
 
Corporate personhood is wrong and is a primary factor in the current economic, political, social and moral decay of our modern society. I am aware of the benefits such as the liability shield but we all know that the powers of personhood have been taken far, far beyond that.

Our legal system is inventive and so are the people behind it. We could remove corporate personhood and come up with an alternative that honors liability but without giving companies the power to form divisive, political and economic factions in our civilization.

I agree with Ikari. Corporate personhood was invented to shield the aristocracy.
 
Guy Incognito said:
I think you're mistaken about this. Victimless crimes do not typically give rise to tort claims.
Click to expand...

I certainly could be. I'm not an attorney. Can you give me an example of a victimless crime? I went looking...

Riding a motorcycle or bicycle without a helmet
BASE jumping from city buildings
Individual purchase and consumption of recreational drugs
Driving a motor vehicle without a seatbelt
Prostitution and/or soliciting for prostitution
Public nudity and fornication
The consumption of pornography (not involving children or coercion)
Click to expand...

Dang. I'm wrong. Again.

(Who eats pornography?)
 
Kandahar said:
So you think that someone who bought one share of Enron stock for $50 and then forgot about it should have lost their life savings? What if they bought an index fund which happened to invest in Enron, unbeknownst to them?
Click to expand...

I think if anyone knew up front that they would be liable for actions carried out by their company, we would have a whole lot less unethical situations that arose with ENRON and Wall Street.
 
Catawba said:
I think if anyone knew up front that they would be liable for actions carried out by their company, we would have a whole lot less unethical situations that arose with ENRON and Wall Street.
Click to expand...

Why? The small-time investors who invested in Enron didn't have anything to do with the corruption; they suffered as much as anyone. And the people who actually WERE responsible for the corruption aren't going to be deterred by that. They already faced criminal prosecution and civil suits for their actions; why would they care if the investors were also held liable for it?

This would mean that no one would buy individual stocks, no one would invest in index or sector funds, and the whole idea of businesses raising money by selling equity through stock would disappear. Then they'd run to the banks for loans, and drive the interest rates sky-high.
 
Kandahar said:
Why? The small-time investors who invested in Enron didn't have anything to do with the corruption; they suffered as much as anyone. And the people who actually WERE responsible for the corruption aren't going to be deterred by that. They already faced criminal prosecution and civil suits for their actions; why would they care if the investors were also held liable for it?

This would mean that no one would buy individual stocks, no one would invest in index or sector funds, and the whole idea of businesses raising money by selling equity through stock would disappear. Then they'd run to the banks for loans, and drive the interest rates sky-high.
Click to expand...

People would invest. The stock holders, the sorta of standard folk, are already punished when their company does poorly. They are assessed the penalty according to their proportion of stock. If the stock values dive, they're out money. The people who escape any sort of negative consequence are the ones who cause it, the CEOs and Board of Directors, the Old Boy's Club. They see none of the fallout, in fact they often times use government to break contracts such as pensions so that they (the CEO's and pals) can get millions and millions of dollars as they drive a company into the ground. While there certinaly is argument for something similar to corporate personhood in so much as to make contracts easier and legal; the degree to which we have taken it is harmful. It's nothing more than a shield for the aristocrats and government buddies to hide behind to escape repercussions from their actions. In the end, if they break something real good, we'll even use government to take all our money and give it to them. And the SCOTUS recently got this completely ass backwards when they gave more personhood to coporations than they give to individuals.

Corporate personhood as we know it now must go.
 
Corporate personhood? What the hell is that.....................
 
Guy Incognito said:
Can you say respondeat superior?
Click to expand...

yep sure can.

Does it mean that the stockholders of a company that lost money are responsible to pay the loss to the stockholders of the company that lost money?


Cuz if it don't say that, it's not what catawba was posting and not what Mayor Snorkum was responding to.
 
Guy Incognito said:
Well said. These arguments Kandahar and Maggie are making are sort of silly. It's like saying, "Well if you abolish slavery, what about that poor little old lady who only owns one slave, and is really nice to him?" As if that's some sort of an argument. It's plainly ridiculous.

The fact is a shareholder is a part-owner of a company, and ought to be personally accountable just like any other owner of a company. Would that change the structure of business ownership? Certainly. But only for the better.
Click to expand...

But THEY ARE held personally responsible for the finacial obligations of the company. The degree of their obligation is measured as the value of the stock they own.

That's what a LIMITED LIABILITY corporation is for.

Without LLC's the British would not have invested in sailing ships. If a rich man's entire fortune was at risk because he put up 10% of the cost of a ship, then he would not have invested in the ship and the Indians in America would still be running around half-naked scalping each other with stone knives.

LIMITING LIABILITY is exactly what made the modern world possible.
 
What if...? said:
A corporation can't have intent. Another reason its not a person.

Thank you.
Click to expand...

Of course a corporation can have intent. It has a reason for existence.

It can't be a person because it's not a person.

That doesn't mean the persons investing in the corporation surrender their rights and freedoms under the First Amendment and other portions of the Constitution. Hence a corporation engaging in lobbyin activity is nothing more than an expression of the stockholder's freedoms to assemble, just as when a union takes dues money to try to buy a Democrat politician they're engaging in First Amendment activity, except that lobbying is a lawful activity and union bribery is not.

You people like to pretend the word "personhood" means the corporation is trolling the singles bars trying to get laid.

That's not what it means.
 
Harry Guerrilla said:
Only temporarily, as time goes on the effects of the actions are limited, because of limited liability, so it doesn't really present a problem.




No not every person should of been sued but the people responsible for the operations, should be liable.
With their skin on the line, it would cause them to act with greater care to avoid losing their shirts.
Click to expand...


But employees are perfectly aware of when their actions may come under prosecution for negligence. That's why engineers with any sense to the analysis, they don't blindly sign drawings. Their signature makes them liable for jail time if something goes seriously wrong. And cases where Joe Schmoe the chemical dumper gets prosecuted happen often enough in the media, too.

Then again, it was the Niagara Board of education's fault that the chemicals stored in Love Canal were able to poison and kill people, but it was Hooker Chemical Company that bore the costs and the blame, even though Hooker refused to sell and sold for $1 only reluctantly under threat of eminent domain to ensure the transferred title carried one hell of a scary warning, which the Board of Education promptly ignored.

Yet, not Board members went to jail. Where was the justice in that? Hooker complied with 100% of extant laws at the time.
 
Mayor Snorkum said:
That doesn't mean the persons investing in the corporation surrender their rights and freedoms under the First Amendment and other portions of the Constitution. Hence a corporation engaging in lobbyin activity is nothing more than an expression of the stockholder's freedoms to assemble
Click to expand...

I could maybe buy that if the stockholders had any say on the issue. They don't. I've never once been petitioned by anyone I own stock in for opinions on lobbying. It is a decision made with stockholder money essentially by the CEO's, CFO's and/or BoD's. So as such, it isn't the aggregated power of the stockholders coming together to petition government. It is a corporate entity petitioning government for its own means and desires. It is bribery, it is no different than your Union example (except I think you like one and hate the other so you're trying to make it seem like they're different). The stockholder really has very little say or influence in the system. It's one of the broken aspects of our current market.
 
Ikari said:
I could maybe buy that if the stockholders had any say on the issue. They don't. I've never once been petitioned by anyone I own stock in for opinions on lobbying. It is a decision made with stockholder money essentially by the CEO's, CFO's and/or BoD's. So as such, it isn't the aggregated power of the stockholders coming together to petition government. It is a corporate entity petitioning government for its own means and desires. It is bribery, it is no different than your Union example (except I think you like one and hate the other so you're trying to make it seem like they're different). The stockholder really has very little say or influence in the system. It's one of the broken aspects of our current market.
Click to expand...

Don't be foolish. The pinko leftists were doing everything they possibly could to get state and local governments, and people, divested of stock of companies doing business in South Africa. They did that to influence corporate policy.

Anyone who doesn't like a corporation's policy has every freedom to sell their damn stock. Their decision to retain that stock is their sign of agreement with corporate policy.

The free market is such a wonderful thing when explored by real libertarians.
 
Guy Incognito said:
The fact is a shareholder is a part-owner of a company, and ought to be personally accountable just like any other owner of a company.
Click to expand...

Only if the stockholder knows what the CEO is doing, and has signed his approval. You can't be held responsible for things out of your loop, beyond your control.

ricksfolly
 
ricksfolly said:
Only if the stockholder knows what the CEO is doing, and has signed his approval. You can't be held responsible for things out of your loop, beyond your control.
Click to expand...

Where are you getting that idea from? It is incorrect. The principal is liable for the actions committed by his agent in the course of business.
 
Mayor Snorkum said:
Don't be foolish. The pinko leftists were doing everything they possibly could to get state and local governments, and people, divested of stock of companies doing business in South Africa. They did that to influence corporate policy.

Anyone who doesn't like a corporation's policy has every freedom to sell their damn stock. Their decision to retain that stock is their sign of agreement with corporate policy.

The free market is such a wonderful thing when explored by real libertarians.
Click to expand...

They aren't in on all the decisions and books and information. They go by what the company says its doing. If this were more educated decision making process, I would maybe be more inclined to agree. But as it stands, stock holders have relatively no influence but if a company does bad, or cooks its books, or uses some form of government privilege to look better and then fails; who pays the price? The stock holders loose out on that money, but the ones in charge feel no negative repercussions for having performed badly in the business world. If you think this sort of government subsidy and bail outs are part of "free market" policy, I'd have to question your understanding of what free market it.

In the end, free market economy is a very wonderful thing where people can succeed or fail by their own ability and luck. What we have now is not free market economy, however. It is entangle government corporate economy; which is well different than the free market.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom