to robert.benson@lls.edu
date 3 July 2010 21:28
subject Idea on How To Challenge the Legality of Corporations
Dear Mr Benson,
I am a 27 year old male from Sydney, Australia. I am not a lawyer and have no legal experience whatsoever, but do manage a team of people for a multi-national corporation. I have also just completed the first semester of an MBIT program at the University of Technology, Sydney. Though I am not an expert in the field of law by any measure I write to you seeking the informed opinion of a person I believe to be committed to helping forge a path to greater corporate accountability.
Recently I watched the documentary "The Corporation" and was deeply impacted by it. Of particular interest to me was the case of Unocal whereby yourself and what appears to be a coalition of lawyers attempted to use the state laws of California to revoke the corporate charter of the company, thereby dissolving it. Whilst the action proved unsuccessful it did cause me to think about something that appeared earlier in the film.
The film starts by outlining exactly what a corporation is, its original purpose and how it came to be in law. In goes on to state that corporations were first given legal status as a person through interpretation of the 14th amendment - a set of laws brought in to eliminate slavery in the United States once and for all. What struck me as ironic was the fact that corporations, and indeed people, may purchase and consequently own other corporations as though they were property. The question that comes to mind therefore is; what law (constitutional or otherwise) provides for the dual nature of a corporation as both person and property simultaneously? If the corporation is truly a person, under law, surely this ownership poses a challenge to the tenents of "life, liberty, or property" as set out in the amendment. Therefore does the ownership and/or shareholding of a corporation not involve a form of slavery?
Has anything like this ever been tried? My rather rudimentary thinking on the matter reasons that if such ownership was ruled illegal or unconstitutional it would seriously impede the growth of corporations, if not undermine their legitimacy altogether.
I appreciate your time is valuable and wish to thank you for reading this. I very much look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
David Kuhn
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from Robert Benson
to David Kuhn
date 9 July 2010 13:54
subject Re: Idea on How To Challenge the Legality of Corporations
Dear Mr. Kuhn,
I am heartened by your passion and creativity on the question of corporations as persons. Your idea is highly original and should be useful in stirring more political opposition to the absurd practice we have of calling corporations persons. If they are persons, you say, then anyone who owns one or part of one is holding a person as property, which was abolished with the abolition of slavery. Amusing. And ridicules the lack of logic on the other side.
But it is not a legal idea, and would have no traction in legal circles. The law doesn't claim corps are natural persons, only that they are called persons for practical convenience though that is a "legal fiction." It is simply a useful shorthand expression, the law says. Only natural persons can be slaves, and no one claims corps are natural persons. You and I might say, "well the judges have damn well forgotten that corps are not natural persons in many cases where they have extended the rights that natural persons have to corps too." Sad, but true. Still, if you look at the various rights extended to corporations via the word "person" in the 14th Amendment you can usually find some practical reason for doing so that has nothing to do with being a natural person. You and I will disagree with the practical reasons and would decide they are not as good as practical reasons for denying the corp. what it wants. But you and I are not the conservative judges who made all these horrible decisions over the decades.
Corp. accountability will only come with more enlightened judges and with long-term legislative majorities who share the common sense that corps need to be severely controlled because they are destroying society and the planet.
Hope you keep up the struggle.
--Bob Benson
