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Originally Posted by Martian
I've always thought the concept of corporate personhood to be particularly bizarre.
And to expand on what Baraka_Guru has been saying (and perhaps depart from it entirely), no I don't think corporations should have any direct influence on the state. They require means to redress greivances and contend unfair laws or practices -- such means can and do exist in the form of the court system and governing entities such as the FCC or FDA (CRTC would be a Canadian example). If the people believe that these controlling bodies are insufficient or are acting in bad faith, the people can take action to address that. That's where the power belongs -- with the people.
A democratic government exists to protect the good of the people. A corporation exists to make profit. These two ends don't have to conflict necessarily, but they often do. This is why it's important that a government be answerable to the people, and only to the people, and also that a government be able to exert control over corporate bodies. It's the only way to ensure that corporations continue to act in good faith.
You call this a dictatorship. That's a bit alarmist, I think. A dictatorship is a government that is not answerable to anyone. Removing corporate influence from government activities hardly causes that to be the case.
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I do not think that corporations should be able to donate money to anything in politics. I do not believe corporations should be granted "person" status. I believe that setting term limits on congress to two terms would dramatically curtail the influence of lobbyists on the government. I support government oversight to standardize interstate commerce, set safety standards, etc.
My point is that you guys will easily support dramatic government control over private industry and then scream when there's a hint of private industry control in government. This brings us to our basic ideologies: you guys think the government is a good thing, and I view it as a necessary evil. I will grant it no more power than is absolutely necessary. I want to place that power as close to the "people" as possible. Instead, you place the power as far from the people as possible: i.e. a "wage czar" to POTUS in the Washington, D.C. It seems you trying to argue that the "people" have better control over that person than they do a CEO in a publicly traded company. I disagree.
I did not call it a "dictatorship", I called the actions of this government (for decades) tyranny. Tyranny which is ramping up drastically under the current government.