How Corporate Personhood Works

them cool. But this one is something that probably a lot of your friends won't know about, so you can wow them at the next cocktail party, the next kid's birthday party, any kind of party. That's very succinct. Chuck, Um, Chuck. Let's talk about legal fiction. Okay, okay, you want me to talk about You're not talking about John Grisham. No, no,

who No, sorry, that was Creon that died. I think John Grisham is alive and well, yes, and he's an attorney and a novelist, right, yeah, and he's pretty good too. But we're not talking about Christam's work. Um, we're talking about it's actually a it's a it's a legal term that's used basically to describe, uh, anytime a court says something is true that's not true, just for the sake

of moving things along, keeping things tightier. It's kind of like if you and I were having a conversation, Chuck, and I said, you know, um my uh my right jab is a million times better than yours, and we were kind of debating that rather than stopping and saying that that's hyperbole. I don't agree with that. You're just gonna kind of nod and we're gonna stick to the meat of it, right, Or we should punch each other and we can find out that. It's one way to

find out. Yeah, although as everyone knows, we're not big fighters. No, I would miss your face, that's how bad I am. It would be clumsy. Uh. Well, let me give you an example of legal fiction specifically, Um, there's uh, there's this thing called a renunciation of a legacy. If you heard of this, No, So basically, let's say I find out that I'm in your will and I'm just like that Chuck, he's far too generous. I can't accept this.

You know, maybe if I if I take myself out of his will, uh, he will um go ahead and give that money to uh the poor or orphans or something like that. Okay, Um, the thing is is you're sticking to your guns. I'm in your will. You'll love me, You'll want to leave me some money. There's something I can do. I can renounce that legacy. I go to the court and the court says, Okay, you're dead. You

have the chuck has outlived you. As far as this will is concerned, I've predeceased you, which means that any claim I could have is no one void since I'm no longer alive. You see what I'm saying. That's legal fiction. They as far as that will concerned, I'm dead, You're still alive. Interesting, isn't that interesting? Is there's another piece of legal fiction called corporate person That's right, this is the meat of what we're talking about. Indeed, Um, corporate

personhood is exactly what it sounds like. Uh. There is a legal custom, not just in the US, but it dates back to the Romans. I believe the ancient Romans, not today's Romans. The original Romans um where a corporation which is really just a pool of investors money. That's that's that's taken together and used to conduct business. Is it's considered an actual artificial person under the law. Yeah, that that this is kind of blew me away me too,

to be honest. Yeah, there's this guy named Tom Hartman, um who I heard years ago on MPR talking about this, and he wrote this great book, um, and it's worth a read. I can't remember what it's called right now. I've got it written down on one of my notes that I can't find. But um, he turned me onto this. He has this radio show out west and he is very much against corporate personhood and a lot of people are. Here's why corporations if you treat them as a person. Well,

our punitive legal system, chuck. That keeps us from you know, stabbing old ladies for their purses or you know, just walking into grocery stores and opening up cash registers. There's a little thing called prison. Sure, there's also a thing called the gas chamber, the electric chair, the hangman's gallows. There is punishment out there for our actions and these these this punishment is designed to keep us from crossing

that line from upstanding citizen to you know, anarchistic criminal. Um. And and so we don't do things in large part because there's prison. There's consequences if not, I would be hitting old ladies over the head every day. Who wouldn't. Exactly, it's prison keeps our society intact. I'm just as that. So, Um, with the corporation, you have to kind of look at it. Since it's an artificial person, you have to look at it as a superhuman person too. It doesn't need food,

doesn't need water. You can't put it in prison. It doesn't feel pain, right, Um, it has no life space. It's it's limitless. As long as there's those shares are out there and it's making a profit, a corporation can live indefinitely. Um. So this is why it's kind of a sticky discussion. This is why people like Tom Hartman are very much against corporate personhood and the whole thing. Actually, um,

this has been going on for a while. Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson was very much an advocate of putting UH life lifespan limits restrictions, including UH lifespan limits on corporations in the constitution. And he failed. Yeah, he failed on each count. Yeah. So actually we almost had a constitutional provision that said corporations can only last this long. And there's this limitation because Jefferson in his usual capacity saw far into the future and all the problems that this random aspect of

you know, American society or global society will have. He was a pretty insightful dude, and he was absolutely right. We've run into some serious problems with the concept of corporate personhood, right, and I know the Fourteenth Amendment is kind of where it all comes together. Yeah. Actually, the irony of the whole thing is that rather than being restricted by the Constitution, corporations were actually detected by the Constitution as artificial people under the Fourteenth Amendment, which I

know you pointed out. The last word of the Fourteenth Amendment equal rights protection under the law to every person. Every person. That is a very significant word, because of course corporations are artificial persons, right right. So, um in very rapid succession that was I think eighteen sixty eight when that was ratified the Fourteenth Amendment. Very quickly, a um A court case came to the Supreme Court for decision that had to do with applying that to corporations.

Santa Clara County, the Southern Pacific Railroad, and if you think about it, basically applying a constitutional amendment that protected freed slaves, newly freed slaves, and trying to get it to apply to corporations. And I didn't have the pinnacle of tastelessness. Ye. So yeah, Well, nineteenth century Robert Barons weren't above anything. And one of the things they did

was in that case, the Union Pacific case. Um, they they finally applied the the Supreme Court, I can't remember who was at the head at the time basically said you know what, we realized what this case is saying. And ultimately what the case did was it upheld the longstanding custom that it was up to a state to tax and to charter corporations. And that's still going on today,

like as UH President elect Obama excruciatingly pointed out. And I think the second debate, Delaware is a big haven for credit card companies, which is where the vice president elect hails from, because of the tax benefits. Correct. Yeah, it's set up in a certain way so that credit card companies benefit the most from that state. The same Florida as a tax haven for I think real estate businesses or something like that. I think Florida doesn't have

an income tax, is that right? Don't They don't have an income tax. Yeah. No, they just operate on borrowed time. Right. I'm moving to Florida. Yeah, same here, buddy. UM. So, in this case, Santa Clara versus Southern Pacific Union Pacific, one of the two Southern Southern Pacific thank you. Um that was established. But here's where everything just gets totally hinky. I know, and I couldn't believe this. Yeah, the the court reporter for the Supreme Court wrote a little head

note which is exactly what sounds like. It's a note at the head of the briefs of the ruling, and it's said, court decides that under the fourteenth Amendment, UH, corporations are afforded detection equal protection under the law. And that was it, right. But where it gets hanky, as you say, is that the Chief Justice did not say this. No, he actually wrote a personal note that was uncovered later on that said that the Court specifically did not rule

on that. I knew that that's what the case came down to, written down, prepared to do that, right, just written down by the court the court reporter who turned out to be I believe an ex president, which I this is that a step back or not? You know, there's a long tradition of high finance, of huge industry putting their own people into public government. And as somebody said recently, you know, um Paulson's from Goldman Sacks, and somebody said recently, there is a revolving door between private

and public service, very linked. And I apparently this was been going on for a very long time. Well it worked in this case. It did because since it was a head note, it wasn't law, but it did set precedent right, And I don't understand how that works, to be honest. Well, somebody can say, look, it's written right here and and you can use it as part of your argument, and they did. I think two years later there was another case, I think another railroad case or something.

They pointed to it, and the Supreme Court finally ruled and said, yes, corporations have equal protection under the laws, artificial person, because this schmuck wrote it down, because he wrote it down at the head note of a ruling that had nothing to do with Yeah, I had no idea that the court reporter was such a position of power. Well apparently no one else did either, But yeah, so that's how we've gotten to the point where corporations have

the same protection as you, chuck. The cops can't just come into your house and start looking around and the hopes that they find something incriminating because you're a person and you're protected under i think the Fourth Amendment from unreasonable searchers. So to our corporations, yeah, um, there was a case in the seventies where ocean inspectors, you know, they could just walk into a corporate headquarters business something like that for inspection and yeah, looking for violations, that

kind of thing. Somebody sued that, you know, the corporations enjoy the same protection under the law in the Fourth Amendment and one. So now if you want to find violations, you have to make an appointment with the you know, a manager the store. Um, that one of the corporate officers, right, And I know, uh, I don't think this applies for food restaurant inspections because I used to work in restaurants and remember we were always caught very much off guard

when the health inspector showed up. Yeah yeah, um, I don't know why that would be any different, but yeah, well maybe just we'll take a restaurant to file a suit for it to happen. Maybe so maybe so, um, there's also a really sterling example. I love Nike. Nike um as we all know, as is common knowledge now, uh, Nike was running some really abuse of corporate practices overseas and it's one word for him. Definitely in the nineties, this is not widely known. I mean a certain subversive

section of the of society understood this right. People that did their homework right. Most people didn't really walk around going, oh, Nike run sweatshops over and you know, I think Malaysia UM one M I T student actually managed to break it into the public view. And uh, I can't remember. Do you remember when this was when Nike would allow you to have anything you want stitched on their shoes. I don't remember that, but it was in two thousand one.

You could get something stitched, a personal message or whatever your name something yeah, yeah, And this guy from M I T wanted the word sweatshop embroidered on his Nikes yeah, and they said no. So he forwarded the email around and in a very short order got picked up by some of the major news services and people started investigating Nike's practices more and more. Well, Nike, it started this huge pr blitz where they said no, that's absolutely not true.

This is this is completely unfounded. We treat all of our employees very well. I mean, just lie after lie after lie. Finally, somebody went to Malaysia some of these countries, these developing countries where Nike was running these sweatshops and filmed the practices. Somebody made a pretty decent documentary out of I can't remember what it was called, but apparently

the living conditions were important. Factory workers were um, living in shannytown's next to the factory, and the roofs were made of discarded souls, like the stuff they used to for the souls of the Nike. Um. You know, it's just really bad business practices. So finally Nike is forced to say, okay, fine, you know that's right. Was brought

by man in California. And what was Nike's defense. Uh, Nike's defense was, and this is just unbelievable, was that because they are granted the same righteous people, they are allowed to lie under the uh fourth Amendment first freedom of speech. Yeah, so the sadvertising, you can't be sued for it because you're allowed to lie because your corporation and an artificial person didn't didn't really hold water though it didn't and uh, but no one ever ruled on it. Well,

it's because they settled. Nike settle smartly. Yeah, and so they I think showed out like fifteen million or something like that. It's actually just one point five unless you're decimal point was off. It's terrible. Um, well it did go to some sort of labor protection group. One point five million. You know, that's not a lot. It's not although that will buy you a couple of houses in Malaysia, I imagine. Um, But the the the fact is that still the jury is still out whether or not a

corporation can lie the fact that. But that's a how this whole thing has been established over time, it's been kind of um whittled away and added to and taken from the the The I guess happy ending to this story is Nike was finally put in such a bad light that they wrote a lengthy report on the working conditions of their factories, all of them, and basically, you know, self reported that they were mistreating their workers overseas and clean up their acts. So yeah, freedom, freedom of speech

goes both ways. And in our ligitious society, it's good to have good lawyers if corporations of the same rights as you. It's a shame it took that kind of action though, for Nike to to realize that, you know, the greed that was going on. That's just my opinion. I agree with you. I don't know who wouldn't. Well, thanks for listening. Go tell everybody that all corporations have the same constitutional protections of you. Just do it. If they exactly and if they don't now they soon will. Well.

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