The abuse of rights Granted to Corporations

I have a good friend of mine who I frequently debate and discuss various topics with. He happens to be a friend of mine largely because he asks probing and thought provoking questions, such as the following example;

I have for quite a while been of the opinion that one of the gravest mistakes in political history was allowing for organizations to have similar rights to individuals.

Well, my friend called me out on it. He asked me to name specific ways in which this has been abused, and I found myself at a loss for words.

Perhaps it is a case of simply not knowing. I am sure that many here have had such a circumstance to encounter a question that had you reassess and wonder if perhaps your bias is unfounded or misplaced...

So I am posting this thread in the sincere request for people to put forward evidence for the abuse of rights that should never have been granted to Corporations, Businesses and Political Parties. Rights that should be specifically granted to individuals, but not to groups of individuals.

I am asking for the best and brightest at ATS who may feel the same as I do to put their best cases forward for Machiavellian and societally harmful uses of such rights granted to these organizations.

reply to post by TheColdDragon


There are two reasons why Corporations should NOT have the rights of individuals.
A) They are not people, IT is a paper construct designed to facilitate commerce with other Corporations.
B) By giving Rights to Corporations you place IT on the same plane as a CITIZEN and by so doing negate the rights of the citizen in seeking redress or favors from the Government. Why, because Corporations have far more Resources and can therefore shutout the CITIZEN from his government. Which is EXACTLY what has happened to "We the people" today.

The problem with allowing corporations the same rights as individuals is that they are not individuals. They are entities ran by individuals. Where the problem comes into play is that entities, unlike individuals, can not go to jail and they can not be put to death for their crimes. As a result, individuals are allowed to make decisions on behalf of the corporation with immunity from any criminal consequences.

Here is an example; When PG&E (of Erin Brockavich fame) took actions which were proven to cause the deaths of dozens of people, only monetary penalties were imposed upon the company. The individuals who actually made the decisions which lead to the deaths of citizens in their community essentially got off scott free. Had an individual decided to pollute an entire town an ultimately kill many of its residents, that individual would be held criminally liable, they may even be labeled a terrorist or a murderer and sentenced accordingly. This is how they abuse the rights given to them, they use them as a shield against criminal prosecution.

Basically, unlike most individuals, corporations abuse the right to be treated like an individual by refusing to be moral.

I am sure I could come up with many other examples. Really, you just have to think of any situation where a corporation made a profit conserving / generating decision which lead to the harm of an individual. A second example could be the decision by many Big Tobacco CEOs to not only lie about the addictive nature of their products but to also add chemicals to ensure their addictive qualities. These decisions have lead to literally hundreds of thousands of deaths. However, no individual was held personally accountable.

[edit on 25-2-2009 by BluegrassRevolutionary]

Here is a list of acts perpetrated upon individuals by corporations. All of these situations illustrate how corporations, and most importantly the individuals running them, are continuously allowed to get away with illegal and immoral actions.

www.doublestandards.org...

Okay, let me try and see if I can't re-frame the question towards the intent of it's asking...

I am looking for examples of specific rights that individuals have that corporations have been given, citing said right... and I need an explanation of how said right is being purposely and perpetually abused.

I am well aware that there are corporate abuses on many levels, from bribing the congress to a variety of other misdeeds, but these are not based in a rights substructure, they are criminal for individuals and groups.

One of my initial guesses was the corporate ownership of patents and copyrights, which in some ways I still hold to as Corporations are deathless entities. But apparently, some corporations have their copyright/patent laws dictated differently to them...

As example the Pharmaceutical companies are required by the FCC to allow generic production of drugs they've put on market if they've been on market for X number of years. How big Pharma gets around it is that before the expiration date when the drug becomes publicly available, they pull it from the market so that they never meet the required by date and thus never have to release said information to other companies/countries.

I'm looking specifically for abuses of the rights granted to Corporations and Groups that initially belonged to individuals. I know that a question as specific as this may be a challenging thing to approach, which is why I am asking ATS for any information or links that may be supportive of an argument against group-rights.

Originally posted by TheColdDragon
Okay, let me try and see if I can't re-frame the question towards the intent of it's asking...

I am looking for examples of specific rights that individuals have that corporations have been given, citing said right... and I need an explanation of how said right is being purposely and perpetually abused.

I am well aware that there are corporate abuses on many levels, from bribing the congress to a variety of other misdeeds, but these are not based in a rights substructure, they are criminal for individuals and groups.


I'm looking specifically for abuses of the rights granted to Corporations and Groups that initially belonged to individuals. I know that a question as specific as this may be a challenging thing to approach, which is why I am asking ATS for any information or links that may be supportive of an argument against group-rights.

Ok look, I completely understand your position. Let me explain my position. Before corporations existed , individuals who ran companies were personally responsible for the actions of their company. However, after the creation of corporations, individuals in charge of companies became essentially shielded from personal prosecution. It is this "right", the right to be considered an entity separate from the individuals calling the shots, that corporations abuse. In doing so, corporations are able to make decisions that can potentially end a persons life and essentially only face monetary penalties. Basically, it is the very right to be considered an individual that corporations abuse. Individuals are moral, corporations are not.

Reviving the thread from the dead, a unique example of corporate abuse as well as a warning shot concerning Corporate ownership of copyright and materials was recently brought to full attention in the case of 1984's deletion from all Amazon Kindle's without the owners permissions.

I have noted on various sites that there is a great deal of outrage and drumming on about how wrong this is, giving the overall impression that most individuals are not aware of the End User License Agreement details included in most software and electronic services nowadays;

Primarily that purchasing a service or product no longer qualifies the purchaser as an owner of the paid for merchandise. This is nothing new, despite the rather flamboyantly loud reactions concerning this Kindle debauchle. It has been going on for some time...

I would put forth that this, copyright, may be one of the biggest and worst abuses of the US Public that has been growing more and more severe as the years pass on. It is unabashedly ironic that 1984 was one of the books in question in this instance.