I saw a fellow taking down a sign he had been displaying over the freeway that said "Corporations are Not People." As I understand it, it is the "money in politics" that corporations are free to spread around that has the left exercised. And just so, corporations, like so much in USA, no longer bear much resemblance to their original purpose, such as a group of people pooling resources to build a bridge across a ravine and charge a toll to those who use it for the maintenance. Today's corporations are literally calling he shots in politics and the economy.
A corporation is what they call in the law a "legal fiction." It's just an idea, someone made up, and others have agreed to it. The legal fiction is useful, and pleases enough people, to where it is integrated into the patterns and practices of our society. Incorporation, or turning ideas on paper into a body (corpus, a human body) does not really make a person, that is a fiction. The state is the entity that creates the corporation. Legally recognized, but a fiction nonetheless.
The corporation metamorphosed into the monster today by a series of permissions from courts and protections from the state. Enough people have benefitted that it has become so. To end this particular avenue of abuse will certainly be a good thing, but it will not stop the mischievous from getting together with the venal and abusing the rest of us. The very people denied the avenue of the corporation to abuse us will simply find another avenue. They found the last one. They will find another one.
The problem is not this particular manifestation of collusion between the corporations and the state. The problem is we have an even more destructive legal fiction: the state.
And state is a legal fiction in its own right. They do not really exist, there is not really any such thing as the state of "France." We can find the place on the map, we can go to a place where we will be standing within the lines on the map, and surely we will be told we are in "France" but it is just an idea that enough people, often enough agree about. And when the idea changes, the map changes. For example, what is "Mexico" changed when the USA invaded and took that legal fiction's land in an effort to spread slavery into new territories, and the Mexicans were defeated in the effort to stop the spread of slavery and defend slavery-free "Mexico."
To end corporate personhood, or more importantly, to end the leverage needed by the few to abuse the many, we must end the legal fiction of the state. The state creates corporations. The state is the legal fiction to which mischief makers apply when they want their nefarious deeds protected. So sure, get rid of corporate personhood. But it will not solve the problem.
To solve the problem of people leveraging the power of the state to evil ends, we must withdraw our consent to be governed by the state. We all love government for its benefits, the kind of government that comes from the spontaneous order out of chaos we call anarchy. We love the government of our co-ops, our bookstores, our baseball games, none grounded in state Government. We love our volunteer firefighters and our arbitrators, none of which are state-provisioned. If we withdraw our support from the legal fiction that is a State Government, we can end the power of the mischief makers, without any loss of good government.
This is not pipe-dream. Almost all in our lives is governed voluntarily, almost nothing is under Government (as in state Government) quantitively. And what is under Government qualitatively is unnecessary or if necessary, poorly provisioned and better provisioned by non-Government government.
Where Government is least, better government flowers. And abuse finds purchase difficult.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
A corporation is what they call in the law a "legal fiction." It's just an idea, someone made up, and others have agreed to it. The legal fiction is useful, and pleases enough people, to where it is integrated into the patterns and practices of our society. Incorporation, or turning ideas on paper into a body (corpus, a human body) does not really make a person, that is a fiction. The state is the entity that creates the corporation. Legally recognized, but a fiction nonetheless.
The corporation metamorphosed into the monster today by a series of permissions from courts and protections from the state. Enough people have benefitted that it has become so. To end this particular avenue of abuse will certainly be a good thing, but it will not stop the mischievous from getting together with the venal and abusing the rest of us. The very people denied the avenue of the corporation to abuse us will simply find another avenue. They found the last one. They will find another one.
The problem is not this particular manifestation of collusion between the corporations and the state. The problem is we have an even more destructive legal fiction: the state.
And state is a legal fiction in its own right. They do not really exist, there is not really any such thing as the state of "France." We can find the place on the map, we can go to a place where we will be standing within the lines on the map, and surely we will be told we are in "France" but it is just an idea that enough people, often enough agree about. And when the idea changes, the map changes. For example, what is "Mexico" changed when the USA invaded and took that legal fiction's land in an effort to spread slavery into new territories, and the Mexicans were defeated in the effort to stop the spread of slavery and defend slavery-free "Mexico."
To end corporate personhood, or more importantly, to end the leverage needed by the few to abuse the many, we must end the legal fiction of the state. The state creates corporations. The state is the legal fiction to which mischief makers apply when they want their nefarious deeds protected. So sure, get rid of corporate personhood. But it will not solve the problem.
To solve the problem of people leveraging the power of the state to evil ends, we must withdraw our consent to be governed by the state. We all love government for its benefits, the kind of government that comes from the spontaneous order out of chaos we call anarchy. We love the government of our co-ops, our bookstores, our baseball games, none grounded in state Government. We love our volunteer firefighters and our arbitrators, none of which are state-provisioned. If we withdraw our support from the legal fiction that is a State Government, we can end the power of the mischief makers, without any loss of good government.
This is not pipe-dream. Almost all in our lives is governed voluntarily, almost nothing is under Government (as in state Government) quantitively. And what is under Government qualitatively is unnecessary or if necessary, poorly provisioned and better provisioned by non-Government government.
Where Government is least, better government flowers. And abuse finds purchase difficult.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
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