| | Corporations are currently prohibited from donating money to political campaigns. This extends to creating and distributing purely political products, and taking part in elections in similar ways. Some people are opposed to this, as it “takes away peoples’ freedoms.” I’ve never understood how that can be, since everyone within the company can still say whatever they want; my opinion, however, is not important here.
As you probably know, however, corporations legally speaking have the status of “persons.” They are *legal* persons and not natural persons, and as such there are debates about how many of the rights of natural persons a legal person should have. There is a case headed to the Supreme Court that challenges the prohibition mentioned earlier. There is legal precedent that monetary donations to a political campaign are considered “free speech” and are therefore protected by the first amendment. Therefore, they say, corporations (since they are people and entitled to the protections of the bill of rights) should not be prohibited from donating money. From what I’ve read, it’s likely that the Supreme Court will rule in favor of allowing corporations to donate money.
An interesting twist on this situation is that currently, individuals have a cap on how much money they can donate to a political party or candidate (http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/contriblimits.shtml). Presumably, those limits would apply to corporations as well. However, if money is considered “free speech,” how can you limit it? You can’t allow some level of free speech and then say “that’s enough.” Soon there will be millions of well-funded lawyers challenging this limit. Unless the idea of corporate personhood is overturned, it seems certain that before long, corporations will be able to donate unlimited money to political candidates and parties.
Okay, so all of that is what it is. I know I’m a pinko communist liberal for even questioning whether corporate political donations are a bad thing. (I’m of the opinion that in a capitalist system, the only way to protect the rights of individuals is for big corporations to protect them or for big government to protect them; I don’t like either, but I think big gov’t is going to do a better job than big corporations. The most important thing, though, is I like to maintain the illusion that there is a difference between government and corporations.)
So I’ve been dealing with all of this; whatever. But I was listening to talk radio today, and I heard an interesting discussion that seems to die in with the above. The guest was talking about the importance of oil independence. I have not double-checked these statistics, as I certainly would if I were publishing this article for a reputable outlet, so take them with a grain of salt. She said that at the peak of oil prices, when they were exceeding $120/barrel, the annual profits of OPEC were (some amount, I’ve forgotten now and can’t find the statistic online.) She also stated that that same year, the total profits of all of the Fortune 500 companies was $18 trillion. The specific numbers don’t matter, as long as the following is accurate—for illustrative purposes, she stated that OPEC, led by Saudi Arabia, could purchase majority shareholder stock in all of the fortune 500 companies.
If corporate personhood is preserved, financial contributions continue to be recognized as free speech, and free speech cannot be limited, the only thing standing between foreign individuals, companies, or countries from literally choosing the heads of our state for us is the fact that the financial strength of a campaign doesn't *actually* determine the winner of the election. However, it's naive to think that it's not one of the largest factors, and the less educated we become, the more influence those dollars have.
I don’t say this just to be a doomsayer, I say this because I am strongly opposed to both the idea of corporate personhood. I also don’t think money should be considered free speech, although I haven’t read much about that and could certainly be persuaded either way. Hopefully if more people think about the fact that corporations are *not* individuals, and that their ideas and opinions can be bought by anyone in any nation, both conservatives *and* liberals can come together to oppose permitting corporate donations to financial campaigns.
|
| | Posted 9/18/2009 11:36 PM - 3 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
- recommend
  - recs0
- share
- email
 - sent0
|
