Back in a moment to the economic angle, but Citizens United deserves a few words on its own. Basically, the reasoning is this: corporations are people. Money is a form of speech. So restrictions on corporate political spending are unconsittutional restrictions on political speech.
Which is the more serious problem with that chain of reasoning? That corporations are people, or that money is a form of speech? I’m uncomfortable with the urge to treat the Koch brothers as the focus of evil in the modern world, to steal a phrase from Ronald Reagan, but they could spend tons of their personal money spreading their poison and the issue of corporate personhood wouldn’t figure at all. Rich people have a long history in this country of buying elections and politicians. They didn’t, and still don’t, need the dodge of corporate personhood to do that nasty work.
Back to the economic argument. Critiques of corporate personhood tend to blur into critiques of bigness as an evil in itself. There is a great nostalgia for some kind of soft-focus version of the old days when enterprises were small and local. But there’s no way that small, local enterprises could make computers or high-speed rail equipment. Those things require both size and durability, things that the corporate form allows. Who’d buy complex, long-lasting equipment from a small firm that could die with its proprietor the day after tomorrow? How could such a firm design and build a train that does 350 mph while consuming minimal energy?
Of course, there may be some opponents of corporate personhood who don’t want a society that builds computers and fast trains. If so, they should tell us that explicitly.
All this doesn’t mean that we have to make peace with the status quo, however. In one of his more optimistic moments, Marx declared the modern corporation, owned by outside shareholders and run by their hired hands, “the abolition of the capitalist mode of production within the capitalist mode of production itself, and hence a self-abolishing contradiction” (Capital, vol.3, chapter 27.) That is, there’s no reason why such an enterprise has to be run for the benefit of its shareholders, and not by and for its workers, neighbors, and customers. It is now, but it doesn’t have to be that way forever. Of course, getting there from here isn’t one of those self-evident truths, but it’s a very enticing prospect to think about.
http://lbo-news.com/2011/11/15/fleshing-out-the-corporate-person/
The corporate form has existed since the middle ages, and similar entities have existed since ancient India. Arguably it is not the formation of social bodies towards material projects that is the issue with the modern corporation. How does this affect the Occupy Movement's common slogan regarding "the separation of corporation and state / business and politics"? Is attacking the corporate form misguided? Is the truly revolutionary stance instead a radical democratization of our corporate economy, via horizontalidad and whatever? Are the corporations our soviets?
Edited by babyfinland ()
Sat 09 Jun 2007 : The United what of America?
It has been frequently noted that many corporations exceed nation states in GDP. It has been less frequently noted that some also exceed them in population (employees). But it is odd that the comparison hasn’t been taken further. Since so many live in the state of the corporation, let us take the comparison seriously and ask the following question. What kind of states are giant corporations?
In comparing countries, after the easy observations of population size and GDP, it is usual to compare the system of government, the major power groupings and the civic freedoms available to their populations.
The corporation as a nation state has the following properties:
Suffrage (the right to vote) does not exist except for land holders (“share holders”) and even there voting power is in proportion to land ownership.
All executive power flows from a central committee. Female representation is almost unknown.
There is no division of powers. There is no forth estate. There are no juries and innocence is not presumed.
Failure to submit to any order can result in instant exile.
There is no freedom of speech. There is no right of association. Love is forbidden without state approval.
The economy is centrally planned.
There is pervasive surveillance of movement and electronic communication.
The society is heavily regulated and this regulation is enforced, to the degree many employees are told when, where and how many times a day they can goto the toilet.
There is almost no transparency and something like the FOIA is unimaginable.
The state has one party. Opposition groups (unions) are banned, surveilled or marginalized whenever and wherever possible.
These large multinationals, despite having a GDP and population comparable to Belgium, Denmark or New Zealand have nothing like their quality of civic freedoms. Internally they mirror the most pernicious aspects of the 1960s Soviet. This even more striking when the civilising laws of region the company operates in are weak (e.g West Pupua or South Korea). There one can see the behavior of these new states clearly, unobscured by their surroundings.
If small business and non-profits are eliminated from the US, then what’s left? Some kind of federation of Communist states.
A United Soviet of America.
Capitalism has created an accounting apparatus in the shape of the banks, syndicates, postal service, consumers' societies, and office employees' unions. Without big banks socialism would be impossible...our task is here merely to lop off what capitalistically mutilates this excellent apparatus, to make it even bigger, even more democratic, even more comprehensive... This will be country-wide book-keeping, country-wide accounting of the production and distribution of goods; this will be, so to speak, something in the nature of the skeleton of socialist society.
i don't see why corporations cant also fulfill this role. of course there is a parasitic component that needs to be lopped off, but before we can talk about the usefulness of keeping corporations for a future planning of society, we'd have to localize the exact coordinates of this undesired component.
perhaps maybe it is simply the unelected and dictatorial position of managers? it is one thing to submit to the discipline of an organization, it is quite another thing to not be able to dictate this discipline collectively
E: otherwise, without properly taking in such a position, how can we be certain that the multinational company isn't grotesquely warped? probably the Occupy movement is in a reactionary position towards this monstrous apparatus, but where is its heart?
Edited by Crow ()
Crow posted:Lenin:
Capitalism has created an accounting apparatus in the shape of the banks, syndicates, postal service, consumers' societies, and office employees' unions. Without big banks socialism would be impossible...our task is here merely to lop off what capitalistically mutilates this excellent apparatus, to make it even bigger, even more democratic, even more comprehensive... This will be country-wide book-keeping, country-wide accounting of the production and distribution of goods; this will be, so to speak, something in the nature of the skeleton of socialist society.
i don't see why corporations cant also fulfill this role. of course there is a parasitic component that needs to be lopped off, but before we can talk about the usefulness of keeping corporations for a future planning of society, we'd have to localize the exact coordinates of this undesired component.
perhaps maybe it is simply the unelected and dictatorial position of managers? it is one thing to submit to the discipline of an organization, it is quite another thing to not be able to dictate this discipline collectively
otherwise, without properly taking in such a position, how can we be certain that the multinational company isn't grotesquely warped? probably the Occupy movement is in a reactionary position towards this monstrous apparatus, but where is its heart?
babyfinland posted:
The corporate form has existed since the middle ages, and similar entities have existed since ancient India. Arguably it is not the formation of social bodies towards material projects that is the issue with the modern corporation. How does this affect the Occupy Movement's common slogan regarding "the separation of corporation and state / business and politics"? Is attacking the corporate form misguided? Is the truly revolutionary stance instead a radical democratization of our corporate economy, via horizontalidad and whatever? Are the corporations our soviets?
yes but this particular corporate form took prominence around the 1900's with railroads. there are all kinds things to cover in detail, depending on what aspect you're looking at, but i think the focus should be on corporate autonomy rather than "corporate personhood" because the former is much easier to define relatively explicitly.
back in the colonial days, they were granted charters for explicit and limited purposes that they were not allowed to alter themselves. the next few centuries saw a gradual shift towards granting autonomy to business corporations in particular via the court system itself, all the way to the Supreme Court. the internal dealings were shielded from the surrounding community as charters became less and less restrictive: corporate leadership and governance structures could be determined privately rather than set out in the charter and they were granted the ability to alter their own charters after incorporation.
Edited by dm ()
He came slightly unstuck in time, saw the late movie backwards, then forwards again. It was a movie about American bombers in the Second World War and the gallant men who flew them. Seen backwards by Billy, the story went like this:
American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for the wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.
The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the plans. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.
When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.
Slaughterhouse-five by Kurt Vonnegut
dm posted:
that's a worthwhile topic, but fuck Doug Henwood until he gets some shit straight: http://lbo-news.com/2011/10/30/angela-davis%E2%80%99-advice-identify-with-the-defeated/
yes but this particular corporate form took prominence around the 1900's with railroads. there are all kinds things to cover in detail, depending on what aspect you're looking at, but i think the focus should be on corporate autonomy rather than "corporate personhood" because the former is much easier to define relatively explicitly.
"corporate personhood" is a funny boogeyman term because I don't think people understand it's just a concept for tax paying and liabilities? like in the citizen's united case if the ruling had any thing to do with personhood then why does it apply to unions as well
Edited by crustpunk_trotsky ()
crustpunk_trotsky posted:
dm posted:
that's a worthwhile topic, but fuck Doug Henwood until he gets some shit straight: http://lbo-news.com/2011/10/30/angela-davis%E2%80%99-advice-identify-with-the-defeated/
yes but this particular corporate form took prominence around the 1900's with railroads. there are all kinds things to cover in detail, depending on what aspect you're looking at, but i think the focus should be on corporate autonomy rather than "corporate personhood" because the former is much easier to define relatively explicitly.
"corporate personhood" is a funny boogeyman term because I don't think people understand it's just a concept for tax paying and liabilities? like in the citizen's united case if the ruling had any thing to do with personhood then why does it apply to unions as well
Edited by crustpunk_trotsky (yesterday 12:38:37)
so a bank and a library are hurling slander @ each other in the woods, but the trees have no ears.
crustpunk_trotsky posted:
"corporate personhood" is a funny boogeyman term because I don't think people understand it's just a concept for tax paying and liabilities? like in the citizen's united case if the ruling had any thing to do with personhood then why does it apply to unions as well
managing resources might be more precise, with taxes being inextricably connected to that (dues in the case of unions). after all, the root "corp-" always designates a "body" of one form or another