Are Stock Exchanges Unconstitutional?

[Wolf Frankula]

The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations are persons, with right. Under the US Constitution, it is ILLEGAL to buy and sell persons, which is what you do when you buy and sell stock. You buy and sell the corporation.

Therefore, all stock exchanges are illegal and unconstitutional. It is a violation of US law to trade in persons. Slavery is illegal. All stock exchanges must be closed immediately.

My private view is that corporations are not persons, they are property. Money is not speech, it is property.

What think you?

Wolf

[SDuderstadt]

1. Probably one of the...

silliest posts ever to appear on DU.

[Wolf Frankula]

2. It was in response to a silly decision by the Supreme Court

[SDuderstadt]

3. Well...

you outsillied them. Congratulations.

[white_wolf]

4. Well it makes sense.

If they are persons in one issue than they are persons in all. Therefore, stock exchanges should be illegal. Personally, I think that decision was a terrible one, but it does raise some very interesting questions.

[SDuderstadt]

5. Critical thinking seems...

always to be in short supply here on DU.

[cali]

6. I think that's ridiculous.

[Occulus]

17. Yes, corporate personhood IS ridiculous,

but we're stuck with it, and the Constitution is very clear on the prohibition upon persons buying and selling other persons.

If corporations are persons, they are and have been engaging in slavery amongst themselves, and that's patently illegal. The law is clear: persons cannot buy and sell other persons; thus, no corporation- being that the SCOTUS has agreed that they are in fact persons- should be able to own any other corporation.

We've long wanted to abolish corporate personhood, but I'm starting to think it might be better to apply the rules and responsibilities of being a person instead. They want the rights of personhood: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to bear arms, the right against self-incrimination, etc. Corporate persons should therefore be willing to accept the responsibilities as well.

[LARED]

7. Just out of curiosity, if you were able to outlaw stock

exchanges, how is that helpful to anyone?

[The Magistrate]

8. An Excellent Exercise, Sir, In Reductio Ad Absurdum

If one accepts the court's premise, that corporations are legally persons, entitled to every right and protection accorded living persons under the Constitution, by which their right to political speech is untrammeled, then obviously corporations, like any other person, have the right not to be bought and sold as chattel. Doing exactly that is a primary activity of our economy, yet doing it, and facilitating it, and providing premises and venues for doing it, ought not to be Constitutional, if corporations, as the court's five conservative partisans insist, are entitled to all rights and protections accorded persons under our Constitution..

[Statistical]

18. That is isn't the courts premise.

The court never said corporations ARE people. They stated corporations have some but not all rights similar to people.

[The Magistrate]

22. Kindly Enumerate, Sir, Those Rights Denied a Corporation Viewed As a Legal Person

It should make an interesting list....

It is true enough that the rot involved long pre-dats this particuar decision, which simply extended partisan interests of the ultra-reactionary defenders of wealth in our political life well past any bounds of common sense and past practice.

[Statistical]

30. Really the only radical concept is that legal entities have right to freedom of speech.

No other "esoteric" rights have been confirmed by the court. There is no precedent that corporations have a right to vote, hold office, own firearms, petition the govt, have access to jury trial, can plead the 5th, can violate state sovereign immunity. The Roberts court did find that corporations have no right to privacy. The rest of the "rights" there is no precdent.

Legal entities have long since (for hundreds of years) had the "right" to own property, incur debt, enter into contracts, and sue for damages. Likewise legal entities can be held liable in civil court for damages incurred by others due to their negligence.

The only radical change by Roberts court is that legal entities (including corporations) have a "right" to freedom of speech (free expression). I grant you it was 100% a mistake but it is a logical fallacy to think:

1) Human Beings have freedom of speech protections.
2) Corporations have freedom of speech protections.
3) Thus Corporations are Human Beings.

Likewise:
The sky is blue.
The ocean is blue.
Thus the ocean is the sky.

[customerserviceguy]

9. Following your logic

If the sale of persons is illegal, then the sale of the part of a person's day (such as a work shift) is also illegal.

Put down the bong, or better yet, pass it over this way...

[The Magistrate]

10. Not Really, Sir: That Is Simply An Exchange Of Services Between Independent Agents

Nowhere in the transaction is a person treated as property, in the sense of an ownership being established or conveyed.

[customerserviceguy]

12. Good point

Maybe I did have the bong passed to me. In any case, selling shares of corporations just doesn't seem 'wrong', in the same way slavery was. I guess I didn't hit upon the right analogy.

[The Magistrate]

24. That Is The Point, Sir, In Reductio Ad Absurdum

In point of fact, and of common understanding, a corporation is not a person, as it has 'neither a body to be kicked nor a soul to be damned': it is merely a legal construct that allows the pooling of capital by individuals, and the shielding of individuals from certain personal liabilities should the enterprise fail. It is absurd to treat such a paper creation as in any way a person, with the rights of a free citizen in political life, but it is no more absurd to state that as a 'person' a corporation has a right to freedom of speech to be expressed by making unlimited expenditures on political campaigns than it is to say that as a 'person' a corporation has a right to not be sold as chattle, whether in whole or part by purchase of its stock.

[Odin2005]

11. Excellent point!

[Motown_Johnny]

13. The Supreme Court has Not ruled that corporations are persons

they ruled that corporations have some of the same rights as persons.

False Premise = Silly Post

[philly_bob]

14. Points out the silliness of Supreme Court stance.

I've been waiting for someone to come up with the perfect reductio ad absurdum.

Those who take OP as silly don't get the point. Corporations having the same rights as persons is a ridiculous idea. Good work, Wolf.

[Statistical]

15. As horrible as the SCOTUS decision was they never said corporaitons ARE people.

Rather they have some (not all) of the rights that people do.
Corporations are not people and owning them (or portions of them) is not equivalent to slavery.

I don't support SCOTUS decision but your post is silly and based on a flawed premise.

Similar to:
"Since SCOTUS has ruled that ice-cream is people, anyone eating ice-cream is a cannibal".

[Occulus]

19. Are corporations persons, or are they not?

For the purposes of law, that is.

[Statistical]

20. Are they PEOPLE? No. Do they have some of the rights people have? Sadly Yes.

At least according to SCOTUS.

[Occulus]

21. Do corporations have some of the same responsibilities under the law as real people do?

Do they have all the responsibilities, perhaps? Or do they possibly have no responsibilities at all under our various legal jurisdictions? Are corporations, in effect, lawless, paper entities not bound by any particular legal code?

I only ask because it seems as though corporations are about 3/5 of a person. Haven't we been down this road once before?

[yawnmaster]

25. stretching...imo. because some of the same rights are given does not...

make a corporation a person.

the grass is green.
my car is green.
therefore my car is grass.

A person has right "a".
corporations have right "a".
corporations are persons.

(the logic above is false btw).

[The Magistrate]

27. Here Is Your Problem, Sir

1 U.S.C. §1:

In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise-- the words "person" and "whoever" include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals....

Other tit-bits could be readily cited to drive the point home deeper....

[yawnmaster]

28. Not really a problem...The US code using a broad definition of "person"...

in determining meaning does not change the meaning of "person" in the constitution.
it might be clearer if the US code used "entity" or something similar in place of person.
Also, "unless the context indicates otherwise" is not a trivial clause.

[The Magistrate]

31. The Statute, Sir, Makes The Default Position That A Corporation Is Equivalent To A Human Person

The court's partisan majority has picked that up and run with it in the question of political speech. By claiming the corporation has the rights of speech a person does, they move the identification to a completely different level, one that is absurd on its face. The illustration set at the opening post here is simply one line of reasoning exposing the absrdity.

[yawnmaster]

33. It is a line of reasoning that is illogical. Using absurdity to highlight absurdity is sometimes...

a successful methodology, so the goal of the OP may have been met.
The OP question then becomes rhetorical; again just fine to meet the ends desired.

Actually arguing the logic, though, is a bit absurd on its own, but it does lead to discussion of the SCOTUS decision.

[Statistical]

29. Hardly. Person has long been used by many countries to indicate more than human beings

it has been that was for centuries.

Some inclusion of legal entities into legal framework is required. People should be able to sue corporations for damages, corporations should be able to sue each other and people for damages. Corporations need to be able to own property (and be protected by property rights), and enjoy due process when it comes to seizure of assets. Likewise legal entities need to be able to enter into contracts and incur debts. There needs to be legal mechanisms to protect the rights of both parties in such an arrangement.

What makes the SCOTUS decision radical isn't introducing this as a new concept, legal persons as an entity exited prior to the creation of this country. What makes the SCOTUS decision radical is the extreme expansion of scope of the rights these non-human legal persons are entitled to.

None of this makes a corporation having some of the same rights as human, actually a human. Thus buying and selling shares isn't slavery.

[The Magistrate]

32. Again, Sir, This Is An Exercise In Reductio Ad Absurdum

We agree that the 'Citizens United' decision is a radical expansion of the concept of coprporate personhood, by endowing the legal fiction of embodiment with the right of speech in political action. This crosses an old line from 'mute instrument' to 'vocal instrument', and suggests that indeed the corporate 'person' is and ought to be interchangeable with a human being in all legal senses. If the logic by which the corporation is endowed with the human right of free speech is followed down the rabbit hole it opens, then indeed the sale of a corporation, and the purchase of a corporation, is properly described as the sale and purchase of a chattel slave. The idea that a corporation has a person's right of free speech is no more or less absurd than the idea that a corporation has a person's right not to be sold at auction in a slave market.

[slackmaster]

16. You have failed to comprehend the basics of our system of government

:nuke:

[moondust]

23. I wish.

The heart of organized greed.

[yawnmaster]

26. the logic doesn't follow.

"A" has property "x".
"B" also has property "x".
"B" = "A"
doesn't work. Can't show it's true under the premises given.