Turns out it's not simple. I really don't think corporations are people, and yet they are treated that way when it comes to the First Amendment. Teir contributions of money to political causes and to politicians are protected because they enable and amplify speech. They can't be people, because they do not have consciences. Their proper motive is profit, so their speech reflect a search for their own profit, and not the common good. Because they are brought into being to pursue profit, their speech doesn't even properly reflect the views of their shareholders as persons.
I found today's Opinionator in the New York Times particularly helpful: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/how-the-first-amendment-works/ although the dreary truth is that we are stuck with the results of highly refined legal redefinition of terms and reinterpretation of events.
I say, not people. I also say, the giving of money is not really speech but action, and actions can be regulated. Having our government turned into an instrument for promoting the profitability of companies cannot be a good thing.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Corporations, People, Rights, and Values
Apparently corporations are people, with first-amendment rights to participate in electoral campaigns, just like anyone else. True, they are treated in some ways as people, a way to limit the liability of Boards of Directors for their actions. This is important: it's probably one of the reasons for the popularity of corporations as a way of organizing business.
But look, corporations are collections of people. They are made up of workers and shareholders, in whom the true personhood and the rights associated with it are properly lodged. One of the arguments corporations used about income taxation, if I remember my economic history correctly, is that they are actually not people themselves, because look, they belong to these people who also pay taxes, so any tax on their corporate "personal" income would be a second tax on top of the tax the actual humans behind them pay. We ended up with a system that taxed corporate income at a lower rate, and not all of it, in effect asking them to pay for the privilege of being considered people under the law.
So for some purposes, corporations are people, but for taxation, they are not. I say, the right of using money to talk in political campaigns should be like the taxation thing. The people who make up the corporations have the right to express themselves. Having the corporation do it too is double expression, just as taxing corporate income is double taxation.
Should people who own corporate shares have double expression? That doesn't square with my values. In citizenship, it should be one person, one voice. That way, I get to say what I think, and I don't have to worry about whether the corporations in which I own stock say what I think or something else. It's more efficient, and it's the right thing to do.
But look, corporations are collections of people. They are made up of workers and shareholders, in whom the true personhood and the rights associated with it are properly lodged. One of the arguments corporations used about income taxation, if I remember my economic history correctly, is that they are actually not people themselves, because look, they belong to these people who also pay taxes, so any tax on their corporate "personal" income would be a second tax on top of the tax the actual humans behind them pay. We ended up with a system that taxed corporate income at a lower rate, and not all of it, in effect asking them to pay for the privilege of being considered people under the law.
So for some purposes, corporations are people, but for taxation, they are not. I say, the right of using money to talk in political campaigns should be like the taxation thing. The people who make up the corporations have the right to express themselves. Having the corporation do it too is double expression, just as taxing corporate income is double taxation.
Should people who own corporate shares have double expression? That doesn't square with my values. In citizenship, it should be one person, one voice. That way, I get to say what I think, and I don't have to worry about whether the corporations in which I own stock say what I think or something else. It's more efficient, and it's the right thing to do.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Church and Community Change
They are starting a program to explore making Belfast a "Transition Town" of the kind that develops resilience for the coming changes of climate and energy use. I haven't read the book that goes with it yet, and as usual, I have to be at work during about half the discussion group meetings that are about to happen -- one of the perils of a line of work that requires meeting with people who have normal jobs during the day. But that book is on order, and I'll go when I can.
I have been reading another book, though, $20 Per Gallon, by Christopher Steiner, subtitled "How the inevitable rise in the price of gasoline will change our lives for the better." Steiner works for Forbes magazine, coming to business journalism with a background in engineering, so his investigative choices are interesting and his analysis is mostly sharp. He outlines the changes that the market system will bring into being as the price of petroleum products rises, giving some attention to the global warming question, but focusing mainly on changes in lifestyle that will come. Mass transit, dense urban centers, food production near point of use, rebirth of manufacturing.
Coupled with a reading of Jim Wallis' Rediscovering Values On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street, a Moral Compass for the New Economy, $20 Per Gallon opens some interesting vistas on the future.
The most important vista I see, through the lens of these two books and my own experience, is that we have some really important choices to make about our values and how we use them to shape our lives and communities. Change is coming. The big question: Is it going to be governed by the Wall Street ethos that considers demand and costs of production and not much else, or is it going to be governed by something more human- and planet- oriented?
Either way, it won't be a catastrophe. Still, I have become weary of realizing time and again that my body and mind are being used as ATM's for some corporation. I'm going to get to as many of those "Transition Town" meetings as I can and try to get a glimpse of an alternative.
I have been reading another book, though, $20 Per Gallon, by Christopher Steiner, subtitled "How the inevitable rise in the price of gasoline will change our lives for the better." Steiner works for Forbes magazine, coming to business journalism with a background in engineering, so his investigative choices are interesting and his analysis is mostly sharp. He outlines the changes that the market system will bring into being as the price of petroleum products rises, giving some attention to the global warming question, but focusing mainly on changes in lifestyle that will come. Mass transit, dense urban centers, food production near point of use, rebirth of manufacturing.
Coupled with a reading of Jim Wallis' Rediscovering Values On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street, a Moral Compass for the New Economy, $20 Per Gallon opens some interesting vistas on the future.
The most important vista I see, through the lens of these two books and my own experience, is that we have some really important choices to make about our values and how we use them to shape our lives and communities. Change is coming. The big question: Is it going to be governed by the Wall Street ethos that considers demand and costs of production and not much else, or is it going to be governed by something more human- and planet- oriented?
Either way, it won't be a catastrophe. Still, I have become weary of realizing time and again that my body and mind are being used as ATM's for some corporation. I'm going to get to as many of those "Transition Town" meetings as I can and try to get a glimpse of an alternative.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Report from the Hermitage
It really is small, but it's not as small as Thoreau's cabin. It has inside plumbing, which is a good thing, because it's in town rather than out in the woods. But it's an experiment in living simply. Thoreau lived in a time of great cultural and economic change, the dawn of the industrial-commercial America we have lived in from that time to this. Now, that way seems to be in trouble, and something new begins to take shape. Thoreau stepped aside to look, and I find I am doing that too. But from a different kind of cabin.
Somebody asked, so I measured it: 300 square feet, with an additional unheated back room of perhaps 80 more, counting the closet space. That includes a bathroom, which Thoreau did not have, and room for lots more clothing than he would have found right ("Beware of all enterprises that require a new suit of clothes"). I have more chairs: one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society, he said. He also had a bed people could sit on if there were more. I have a couch, plus a nice comfy rocking chair, and four chairs.
He had his fireplace for cooking, and drew water from the pond. I have a little kitchen with a stove, fridge, sink, and cupboards. I figure I can have three guests for a simple meal -- so far two is the most I've had for supper -- and five for sitting and conversing.
I have more books than he did, most of them stashed at my office nearby. Although I have been reflecting a bit on The Iliad, I will not be reading it in the original Greek as he did. I have my computer, and radio, though I'm living without TV in its usual forms. Electricity, which he lacked, and central heat. I have a car, which seems like a necessity and might not be. I experiment with leaving it parked for days at a time. Maybe a day will come when I declare it surplus.
My regular job is half-time, so my days have space for the meditation, sauntering, and journaling that went with cabin living for Thoreau. He stood aside from the rapid social change of his day to reflect and find words to comment. May it be so for me.
Somebody asked, so I measured it: 300 square feet, with an additional unheated back room of perhaps 80 more, counting the closet space. That includes a bathroom, which Thoreau did not have, and room for lots more clothing than he would have found right ("Beware of all enterprises that require a new suit of clothes"). I have more chairs: one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society, he said. He also had a bed people could sit on if there were more. I have a couch, plus a nice comfy rocking chair, and four chairs.
He had his fireplace for cooking, and drew water from the pond. I have a little kitchen with a stove, fridge, sink, and cupboards. I figure I can have three guests for a simple meal -- so far two is the most I've had for supper -- and five for sitting and conversing.
I have more books than he did, most of them stashed at my office nearby. Although I have been reflecting a bit on The Iliad, I will not be reading it in the original Greek as he did. I have my computer, and radio, though I'm living without TV in its usual forms. Electricity, which he lacked, and central heat. I have a car, which seems like a necessity and might not be. I experiment with leaving it parked for days at a time. Maybe a day will come when I declare it surplus.
My regular job is half-time, so my days have space for the meditation, sauntering, and journaling that went with cabin living for Thoreau. He stood aside from the rapid social change of his day to reflect and find words to comment. May it be so for me.
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