One of my well-worn soapboxes concerns Corporate Personhood. An introduction to a 19th-century Supreme Court Case (
Santa Clara County vs Southern Pacific Railroad) asserted personhood for corporations and various subsequent rulings have continued the proposition. What this means is that corporations enjoy, among other things, the right of free speech. The danger is that this personhood carries with it the implicit acceptance into our society of non-human entities.
A society is shaped by it's members, indirectly through the leaders we choose (either by election or acclaim) or directly through our behavior and our acceptance, or not, of the behavior of other members of our society. Each member's internal moral compass reflects what they consider acceptable, and is in turn calibrated by what society considers acceptable.
But Corporations do not have a moral compass. They have no concept of right or wrong, only legal and illegal.
They are, in effect, sociopathic. In a purely human society, sociopaths would be culled because their behavior is so antithetical to the functioning of society. But in our brave new world they are allowed to be members of, and continue to influence, our society.
Corporations, aside from having no moral compass, have another interesting difference from the human members of our society: life span. Few people can expect to live past 100, no matter how well they take care of themselves, but corporations can and do live for 150 years or more.
A third major difference? Wealth. The richest man in the country cannot hold a candle to the richest corporation.
So, we've accepted into our society a race of rich, immortal, psychopaths. What could be wrong with that?
