by evilgenius » Thu 27 Sep 2018, 12:08:53
When viewed from the perspective of history, it's very easy to see how both labor unions and corporations ought to receive personhood. They each have distinct voices which, by their natures, speak for what could be either a person or group of like minded people. They are each a conduit for the expression of people who might have trouble expressing themselves, for whatever reason. In the union's case it is because a worker by themselves may not achieve the clout they require to get what they want or need. In the corporation's case it is because the capital resources of a single individual might not be enough to overcome the obstacles to achieving success. Insofar as that success is absolutely necessary for the other to even exist, or there would be no employment, not as a foil, even those who want to see only unions get status should rethink their position. They are both required for the scalability under modern capitalism to succeed. There are obvious limitations implied in both of these structures in terms of scope, but they definitely speak for people. Therefore, they ought to gain consideration as persons.
I can see a problem that has developed with corporations as the scale has reached new heights over the previous decades, however. What does it mean to "return value to shareholders?" Does every shareholder think alike when it comes to what they want out of owning a corporation? Isn't there a hustle going on? It's kind of lame to expect those who would like their point of view to be expressed in the operations of a company to accept that their only option is to sell their shares if they don't agree with what is going on. In the age of broader stock ownership, where there are many disinterested owners, this is even more of a problem. The perceived method of voting for members of the board doesn't work as well today as it used to. You might expect pension funds especially, but maybe also mutual funds to stand in the gap for those who want something else other than blatant stock price increase at the expense of derived income, but they trade as often as anybody else. How many companies do you see in tech, as a big for instance, that operate under a growth model when the growth phase of their existence was arguably over years ago? One could say that there is a tyranny of the majority taking place, but it may actually be a tyranny of the minority masquerading as a tyranny of the majority, as companies are run in the interests of the few. Mostly, those few are in management. They don't have to be, but when you look at how this works out it is typically management that pushes returning value to shareholders as a mode of operation. And, since management these days is enriched primarily through stock options, the situation is self-reinforcing.
This situation is particularly relevant when it comes to the relationship between labor and management. Here, I mean management as truly representing the standard operation of a company, not extracted from shareholder oversight. Years ago I had the opportunity to work on a particular Labor Day. I was working in a payroll department. I soon discovered that while I didn't have Labor Day off, just about the entirety of the management structure of the company did. It was a big company. I couldn't do the problem solving aspect of my job that day. Don't worry, there was plenty of brute force data entry work that still needed doing, so my boss was essentially justified in not letting us have the day off. The point of this is that there is a sense of fairness coming from what brought Labor Day about, which was engendered even within those who worked as managers. That sense of fairness entitled them to a day off for Labor Day. That sense of fairness straddled the us vs. them arrangement that labor and management used to squabble under, and which gave us Labor Day. That same sort of transference can be said to take place in the attitudes of stockholders. If that voice is silenced, and the one which applauds only real or potential stock price growth drowns it out, then where is the suggestion for restraint going to come from in the activities of a corporation? It isn't just the lack of worker's wages increasing where one sees this either. It shows up in whether companies operate in their own long term interests or not. The folly of the dictates of the youth, who don't have any experience with the long term consequences of their money making schemes winning out over those who may have ordered a more cautious approach, was displayed quite well in the recent crash, I dare say! This issue speaks directly to that of free speech, if you will, when it comes to whether companies speak as they ought, for the money going into election campaigns is almost all sent there with one message in mind, and that one is probably not the one held within the sense of fairness.