In the spirit of providing more than one side of an argument, this week I decided to post a link to an article from Detroit News.com, written by two authors, including Hans Bader, a right-wing market advocate and senior attorney/counsel for "Special Projects" at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
The aim of the article is to explain the reasoning for why corporations need human rights, despite not being an actual human being. The main gist of their argument is that without human rights, corporations could not realistically function, and without them the modern world economy would collapse as well.
As examples, they point out that if a a person/company wanted to buy a product from a corporation, without corporate personhood it would be necessary for all of the shareholders of that corporation to agree to sell, whereas corporate personhood allows the corporation itself to decide to do so. Their next example was that if someone wanted to sue the corporation, without corporate personhood it would be necessary to sue all of the shareholders instead, because the corporation otherwise would have no legal standing as an entity. And finally, they referenced the inherent inefficiency and cumbersome problem of having to pay all of the corporation's employees if the corporation itself was not allowed to issue the pay checks.
And in typical slippery-slope fashion, their argument becomes that by curtailing some human rights enjoyed by corporations weakens the rest of them, until they could all be taken away.
The context of their article arose in light of an antitrust lawsuit by the European Commission against Intel, where Intel objected to fines of $1.45 billion on the grounds that such a large penalty could only be imposed by a criminal court, not a an administrative civil matter as had occurred, and thus its human rights were violated due to a violation of due process.
Now, the problem I have with the arguments presented by the two authors of the article is that they are essentially just examples of procedural realities. It goes without saving that it is impractical and outright stupid to require all shareholders of a corporation to agree to all decision matters and the like; corporations run through a board of directors and managers for this very reason. However, I don't see how one can make the logical jump that affording corporations the practical considerations enumerated by the authors equates with corporations enjoying the same rights as human beings. They are not living, human beings, and should not be treated as such, plain and simple. They should be afforded the essential rights needed for practical operation of business, but anything beyond that should be a matter of legislation, not constitutional protection, as they are artificial entities.
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The authors use specific scenarios, such as the one in which a person would allegedly need to hunt down thousands of shareholders, to argue that corporations need "human rights," which is a general and vague idea. I agree with you that corporations ought not be treated as if they are actual persons.
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