Should Corporations Have Rights?

by Liberty and Power

Robert Reich, Bill Clinton's Secretary of Labor, has written a new book, Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy and Everyday Life (Knopf, 2007). There he argues corporate social responsibility is a diversion and an illusion, the corporate income tax is inefficient and inequitable, and corporate criminal liability is based on an anthropomorphic fallacy that hurts a lot of innocent people.

But with Reich, it's a package deal. While he would eliminate corporate criminal liability and get rid of the corporate income tax, he would also strip corporations of their constitutional rights.

"Corporations should have no more legal right to free speech, due process, or political representation in a democracy than do any other pieces of paper on which contracts are written," he writes."Legislators or judges who grant corporations such rights are not being intellectually honest, or they are unaware of the effects of supercapitalism. Only people should possess such rights."

Russell Mokhiber discusses the book here.

What do readers think of this proposal? I invite you to post below.

UPDATE: Here is an interview with Robert Reich in Business Week. And thank you, Bill Stepp, for the link.

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More Comments:

Mark Brady - 9/12/2007

The question is whether corporations ought to have legal rights apart from the legal rights of their owners. Aeon, you don't seem to address that question in your response.

Regarding your second point, my understanding is that Reich's proposal to deny corporations personal rights implies, for example, that a corporation itself could not initiate legal action over a free speech issue nor could it be sued.

Aeon J. Skoble - 9/12/2007

Reich's point is silly. It's true that "only people have rights" if we're discussing moral or natural rights. But legal rights are borne by whatever the legal system says. So if business law is set up such that corporations have legal rights by virtue of having incorporated, then they have the rights. Sliding to "only people have rights" is thus a sleight-of-hand, since that expression is true for one sense of the word "rights" and false for another.

Furthermore, I fail to see how corporations could be said to lack free speech rights no matter how you slice it: the corporation's speech is simply the speech of the owners of the corporation - if they're citizens of the republic, they certainly have the right to free speech.

Mark Brady - 9/11/2007

If I understand Robert Reich correctly, the individual stockholders, directors and employees of the New York Times and other media would continue to enjoy First Amendment rights and the right to due process of law.

Regarding your second question. Not-for-profit corporations are corporations. And with regard to unincorporated organizations such as partnerships and cooperatives, my guess is that Reich would want them to lose any personal rights they may have acquired under U.S. law.

Bruce Ramsey - 9/11/2007

If corporations don't have rights, then the New York Times does not have the freedom of the press, because it is owned by a corporation. Virtually all newspapers, radio stations, TV stations, news networks, etc., are owned by corporations.

Another right they have, but wouldn't under this proposal, is the right to due process of law. Do we really want politicians to be freed from having to follow the law in their dealings with the New York Times, or General Motors, or Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream?

For those who would deny rights to corporations: How about partnerships? Cooperatives? Not-for-profit corporations?