In the US, (IMO very bad) court decisions have made it so that businesses — corporations — are commonly treated as if they were persons under the law. This leads more or less naturally to weighing the rights of the corporations against the rights of a flesh-and-blood person; and when a corporation contributes more to the public trough than the citizen does, the outcome is often a foregone conclusion.
Lately, it's been rattling around in my head that perhaps, instead of treating corporations like persons, we should treat them like useful, but very dangerous, viruses. Comparable to one that generates some useful end product, but would eat your flesh off if you got any on you. Because other than the end products they make, I'm really hard put to think of much good corporations do unless they're legislated into a corner and forced into it.
In this case, the nagging thing is that if there's a corporation on the one hand, and it thinks it has a right to look at your credit history, your online activity, or how you crap in the bathroom, and an actual person on the other, who thinks they have a right to privacy... you know, I'm probably going to side with the person. Perhaps we should be thinking how to best rein in corporations instead of how to rein in employees. Legally.
Might this disadvantage the corporation? Yes, it might. Just like the constitution disadvantages (well, is supposed to) the government. My response to that is that if the corporation wants to ensure the person's loyalty and fidelity, that they do so by ensuring that the person in question has every reason to feel that serving the corporation is the best choice. Rather than depending on rights-eroding legislation to trap the employee into a regimented behavior pattern they really don't support.
Perhaps they could start by paying a little less compensation to the top staffing levels, pruning the ridiculously incompetent middle management, and compensating the people who do the actual work a little better. Maybe even provide decent healthcare, you know? Radical, I know, but it's late, and I'm riding the caffeine monkey, or vice versa. All I'm sure of right now is that the ringing in my ears isn't the damned liberty bell.
If Congress and the court system want corporations to be treated as people, they should also be punished as people.
I agree. I also think that congresspersons should be punished for creating unconstitutional laws, such as ex post facto laws, 4th amendment violations, etc., and justices should be punished for enforcing such laws.
One of the really major problems with the US constitution is that as "the highest law in the land", there is absolutely no punishment structure for violating it. The obvious consequence is that violations will be attempted, and in fact succeed, as there is no reason whatsoever not to try to do it. Which is why we have a large corpus of outright unconstitutional law.
As for the rest, the only thing I think is over the top is:
If a corporation does a capital crime, put them to death if they are in such a jurisdiction — that would include their board and senior management. The corporation would no longer exist. Their assets would be sold and put into a fund for their victims.
There are two problems here. First, any particular corporation may not have a lot of assets, but may have earning potential; so arbitrarily liquidating it could reduce the compensation to those affected by the capital crime(s.) Second, the primary victims — as they are dead — can't be paid anything. Only secondary consequences can be remediated.
I do agree entirely with your suggestion that the members of the board and the top responsible executives be punished as if they had personally committed the crime.
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If Congress and the court system want corporations to be treated as people, they should also be punished as people.
If a corporation does a crime that would result in a prison sentence for a human, put their board of directors and senior management in prison. Do not allow the corporation to conduct any business during the prison term. Do not allow their stock to be traded during this period — even privately. Investors would have frozen assets until the prison term was over.
If a corporation does a capital crime, put them to death if they are in such a jurisdiction — that would include their board and senior management. The corporation would no longer exist. Their assets would be sold and put into a fund for their victims. Their stock would be permanently frozen, with no trading allowed, even privately.
Instead, we fine them — even for capital crimes in which their board and/or senior management were clearly complicit; they have "limited liability" for the actions of the corporations. Those fines get paid by higher costs to their customers, perhaps resulting in a loss of market share and some small impact to shareholders, but more likely resulting in competing corporations raising their prices.
But if they were truly treated as people as outlined above, you can bet that shareholders would take a greater interest in corporate affairs, boards would take greater interest in management malfeasance, and the bad effects of misbehaving corporations would go way down.
Jan Steinman, VA7JHI