Much of the discourse on this topic involves muddled, contradictory thinking that simultaneously argues "corporations aren't people" and "corporations are exercising autonomous agency as singular entities distinct from the people who constitute them". These two premises cannot both be true.
So while corporations aren't people, they do seem to be exercising autonomous agency as singular entities distinct from the people who constitute them. Because by definition that is what a limited liability corporation provides? It seems that this is the crux of a lot of angst?
Corporations don't function as a liability shield in the sense you're talking about. The idea that people can individually engage in criminal or tortious conduct without any direct accountability is a myth -- limited liability protects investors from financial liabilities that exceed their investment, but it in no way shields corporate managers from liability for their own criminal conduct in managing the firm.
> So while corporations aren't people, they do seem to be exercising autonomous agency as singular entities distinct from the people who constitute them. Because by definition that is what a limited liability corporation provides?
No, it does not do that in any way, shape or form. Limited liability means that creditors can't foreclose on your house to cover the debts of a firm that you own $100 of stock in. It does not shield anyone actually managing the company from civil or criminal liability for their actions.
> It seems that this is the crux of a lot of angst?
That angst is attributable to believing in misinformation pushed advanced by factions who benefit from increasing conflict and controversy in our society.
So why then does it seem that corporations do in fact shield executives from criminal charges? Is this just collusion among the well-off? Money buys verdicts?
I’m happy to take your word on limited liability as IANAL (obviously) but it sure as hell seems like executives ought to go to jail a LOT more than they do. Corporations do terrible things in the world and are seemingly never held to account.
Finally, looking to my own education, can you suggest a place to read up on this topic so I am not flatly wrong in the future? Thx in advance :)
The issues at hand seem distinct but related.
Anecdotally, most of the large corporate scandals that involved actual criminal conduct that I'm aware of did result in prosecutions and, often, convictions of the culpable parties. For example, Jeffrey Skilling, Bernie Madoff, and Elizabeth Holmes all went to jail.
You could also just look for examples of officials trying to explain why they won't bring charges against banking officials.
https://financialservices.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx...
https://www.propublica.org/article/why-havent-bankers-been-p...
https://www.npr.org/2011/07/13/137789065/why-prosecutors-don...
I should state that this reply is mostly for other people reading our comment thread, as I can think of no adult American who would present your argument in good faith.
Misinformation, propaganda, urban legends, etc.
> but it sure as hell seems like executives ought to go to jail a LOT more than they do.
Based on what? Which executives are you talking about, and what crimes do you suspect them of?
> Corporations do terrible things in the world and are seemingly never held to account.
Again, what "terrible things" are you talking about, and what level of accountability do you see lacking in the way existing police forces, regulatory agencies, and the courts respond to their behavior?
> Finally, looking to my own education, can you suggest a place to read up on this topic so I am not flatly wrong in the future?
I'd start with any basic intro-level textbook on business law.
Before you start, given the extent to which your previous comments indicate you're relying on how things feel or seem to you, I'd recommend considering the extent to which you are reading your own assumptions and emotional attachments into your perceptions of the outside world, and the extent to which you're relying on echo chambers and biased sources of information to validate your theories and assumptions.
You can act in your capacity as a person and exercise your rights, taking on personal liability.
You can act via a fictive legal proxy, which has no rights and shield yourself from some liability.
Trying to blur those two is madness.
That's not really correct. Corporations are recognized as distinct entities as a legal fiction to make application of law to them easier, but the law "pierces the corporate veil" routinely where that legal fiction is not applicable, and in those cases, recognizes the factual nature of corporations merely as methods of coordination employed by the underlying people using them.
> You can act via a fictive legal proxy, which has no rights and shield yourself from some liability.
No, this is definitely not correct. Limited liability implies that you can separate your financial accounts from that of the business, such that creditors can't target your personal assets to cover the debts of the organization, but doesn't necessarily shield you from legal liability for the actions you personally undertake in with in the context of the business.
The idea that the organization has no rights insofar as it is being regarded as an entity unto itself is also false, as a great deal of extant jurisprudence demonstrates.
"Corporations aren't people" and "corporations are singular entities unto themselves capable of exercising independent agency" are direct contradictions.
> The law doesn't seem to have any issue taking them both as true either. Corporations are considered their own entity under the law, but they do not enjoy all the rights of people
Corporations are treated as persons as a legal fiction to ensure that the methods for applying the law to their activities remains consistent and uncomplicated.
No legal framework has ever treated corporations as natural persons able to formulate their own autonomous intentions and act on those intentions unilaterally. The law is not unaware of its own abstractions.
The arguments for restricting "corporate speech" are confounding these distinct concepts together. If we are attributing rights only to natural persons, and hold that legal persons that are not natural persons do not possess rights on that account, then by the same account, we cannot attribute the power of speech to corporations, and must understand any speech that appears to originate with them as actually the product of the people who are merely using the corporation as a method of coordination.
If we are attributing the power of speech to corporations, then we must likewise recognize their right to speak freely. In fact, the first amendment explicitly protects speech itself without regard to its origin, such that any entity capable of speech must by that very fact have the right to free speech.