So, history has spoken.

You still buy in implicitly to the fiction that corps are somehow the same as a person. They are not, and even run by a person, they have legal protections a person lacks.

GD: 'Corporate charter rescinded, all assets to be auctioned off by the govt. Now that would be a powerful incentive against corporate “persons” willfully doing harm to actual persons. In fact, if we start terminating corporate charters for corporate crimes, the shareholders will do the job for us. They'd flee at the thought that Ford could simply cease to be.'

Exactly. If they wanna leave the country? Great. Fuck'em, and ban their products as we shd all Chinese toys. Think another entrepreneur will fill the vacuum and play by the rules, even if it means making only a great, and not obscenely great, profit? Damned straight. CS simply does not get this. Corporations are expendable! People should not be.

'But having corporations have to bear responsibility for wrongdoing is different than trying to punish them through the tax code for not paying their workers enough- that's the sort of thing that just doesn't work (for the reasons I've already stated- all of the companies in the industry will face the same pressures, so if their product is inelastic enough they'll pass costs to consumers- and they'll find creative ways around paying anyway.)'

***High taxation is not a punishment, for that to be true one would have to grant that low taxation is a RIGHT! It is not. Again, the very basis of your assumption has no factual reality. A society can tax as much or as little as it wants, on whom it wants. But, as I demonstrated, that tax can be used as great incentives- pay your CEO 100 mill a year when the median worker makes 30k, but allow the corp to only write off ten times the median amount- 300K. The rest is counted as legit profit and taxed accordingly. wanna bet you'll see CEO salaries and bens plummet to realistic levels? They don't like it- get a real idea that innovates and own your own non-corp co. And, again, there will be plenty of folk willing to work under the terms outlined.

There's simply no evidence against this because it has never been tried, and your analogy of the tax rates, even if one bought your argument, is a no go since enforcement is all- w/o it great legislation can fail. We need more IRS auditors, not less.

I thought it would have been obvious that I wasn't claiming that creating new bureaucracies would be cheaper or better than expanding Medicare. On the contrary, that would obviously be even worse, but what I argue for is doing neither.'

***It was obvious you were arguing for doing neither, but you offered no alternatives.

'Irrelevant to my point, because I was specifically talking about the demonstrable effect when Reagan lowered the top marginal income tax rate. The tax increases you're talking about had nothing to do with that, and even when GHB knuckled under and raised the top marginal rate, it didn't go up to the absurdly high level that it had been at prior to Reagan (to reiterate my main point: that was the overly confiscatory policy that had led to most income of the high earners being sheltered via loopholes.)'

***But the irrelevant point is that the tax cuts were behind the increases, for when GHB raised taxes at the end of his term, the early 90s saw tax revenues grow, too. When JFK cut taxes before he dies, it raised revenues, but W's tax cuts have seen less revenue. The lesson? That the tax rate really makes little difference on revenue- that depends on other things in the economy. The recession that Ford and Carter dealt with came to an end before Reagan's tax cuts took effect, and new bizes were sprouting. More bizes, more tax revenue. When Bush raised taxes, by the time they took effect, the recession he got from Reagan's voodoo economics was ending, and bizes sprouted. More bizes, more revenue from taxes.
You make the chronology is causality fallacy. And history shows that throughout out nation's life, tax revenues have not been dependent on the tax levels of the time.
However. the healthiest economies have had a parallel with the highest tax rates over extended periods.

'Instead, in that analogy, what I'm suggesting is akin to a parent realizing that if he/she takes too much freedom from the child, the child will rebel- and it isn't possible or desirable for the parent to do the things that would be necessary to prevent that (locking the child in his/her room 24/7, or having surveillance cameras, inspections, and the like.)'

***No, because that analogy only goes so far. Children do not poison wells, cook books, nor steal from their employees and customers at every opportunity. Too stay with that analogy, the child, in this case, is a young Ted Bundy. You have to box in the range of damage that can be done. In short, corporations are the most powweful and largest form of organized criminal enterprise going. Are all corps crooked? No, but most are, in the banal ways of cooking the books or forging customer signatures on contracts to outright grand larceny and market manipulation like Enron. I worked at the pre-SBC takeover SBC, and they did as bad or worse than Worldcom. They just knew when not to push it too far. They were better crooks.

'It's not that I think it's unfair for greedy economic behaviors to be controlled, I'm simply asserting that I don't believe they can be as controlled (or punished/incentivized to change) as you believe they can be. I think you'd agree with that argument for individual moral behaviors relating to sex or drug use.'

***The fundamental difference is that the state created corps, they have not created individuals, ad individuals have rights- civil and human, corps have no rights. Think of a corp as a moneymaking robot piloted by people. We have every right to disassemble a dysfunctional robot. And sex and drug bhavior are ethical choices that only become criminal due to others claims of morality. Accounting fraud and stock manipulation are clear crimes no one argues with, as well as affecting manifold more folk.

'When the govt regulates corporate behavior, it's still regulating individual behavior. The moral issues of liberty may be negated by having the corporate entity as the one that's subject to regulation- but the laws of human nature that lead individuals to find ways to do endruns around the rules still prevail.'

***Wrong, you do not grasp group psychology. I just read and will be sending Joe a review of The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo, who did the famed Stanford Prison Experiment, and it's a book where he dissects Abu Ghraib and shows it was not a few bad apples, but a rotten barrel that infected the guards. In short, all corps are rotten barrels and the fact that there are decent folk working there says alot. But the win at all costs attitude corrupts, and government can do something about it, if people like you actually did not take the copout so often.

'That's the meat of my argument- that when rules become too restrictive, people find a way to get what they want/need, and they rationalize the behavior instead of acting on more ethical principles.'

***And my point is that the rules are not restrictive enough, which is why deregulation has been a disaster. You claim they're tight. Sorry, you're crazy, and when was the last time you worked in a major corp? The gov't can make the rules and should, so that your and my money is not wasted bailing out the Chryslers or assorted pension plans that many Corps are legally required to fund, but did not.

BTW- forget SS or Medicare- the pension bailout that is not even spoken of dwarfs both as a problem- and all this while CEO salaries were obscenely increased.

If they want the rights of persons, how about the responsibilities. Ford decided not to fix the exploding Pinto problem because it would cost more to fix than the wrongful death settlements that resulted from their reprehensible decision. That, for an actual person, is premeditated murder, and Ford should have been given the death sentence. Corporate charter rescinded, all assets to be auctioned off by the govt. Now that would be a powerful incentive against corporate “persons” willfully doing harm to actual persons. In fact, if we start terminating corporate charters for corporate crimes, the shareholders will do the job for us. They'd flee at the thought that Ford could simply cease to be.

Citizen's petition to amend the constitution of the state of ______________

“For all purposes under _state_ law, “person” shall be defined as a living human being.”

It may need a clause to keep it from becoming a pro-life/pro-choice argument:

“Nothing in this amendment is intended to define the point at which human life begins.”

CS, I think enough people are outraged by corporate malfeasance that enough signatures could be amassed to put this on the ballot of most states. I know, corporations may leave the state, but there aren't many headquartered here anyway. And besides, each would need to abide by local laws to do business in the state, just as all food companies have to label food in accordance with California's prop 65.

As to your first amendment issue, it's not an issue for non-persons. The Bill of Rights clearly was not written for companies, but for humans. All corporate speech is “commercial speech” not “free speech”. They are not “individuals” entitled to speak their opinion, though all actual persons in the company are. Commercial speech, as opposed to free speech, must be “truthful and not misleading”. Let's see them adhere to that standard for a change.

It's like you're arguing with a libertarian that drug use is bad and that's why we need to continue the war on drugs, and the libertarian is responding that he doesn't want drug use to increase but his position is based on the evidence that prohibition doesn't work and leads to negative unintended consequences. Continuing to argue with him about the evils of pharmaceutical recreation isn't going to convince him- so if you want to convince me on this issue, show me how it is that you believe that an abolition of the concept of corporate personhood with regard to First Amendment could possibly work.

“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. ” Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864

Lincoln was right. 20 years later the robber barons of the railroad monopoly had rewritten a Supreme Court decision to falsely portray the decision as coming from the Court. It did not. It came from the clerk of the Chief Justice after his death. The clerk had been on the railroad payroll for 30 years.

“There is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by … corporations. The power of all corporations ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses.” — James Madison

“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.” — Thomas Jefferson

“In this point of the case the question is distinctly presented whether the people of the United States are to govern through representatives chosen by their unbiased suffrages or whether the money and power of a great corporation are to be secretly exerted to influence their judgment and control their decisions.” — Andrew Jackson

“I am more than ever convinced of the dangers to which the free and unbiased exercise of political opinion – the only sure foundation and safeguard of republican government – would be exposed by any further increase of the already overgrown influence of corporate authorities.” — Martin Van Buren

“As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen is struggling far in the rear or is trampled to death beneath an iron heel. Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters.” — Grover Cleveland

“There is comparatively little difference in the strength of men; a corporation may be one hundred, one thousand, or even one million times stronger than the average man. Man acts under the restraints of conscience, and is influenced also by a belief in a future life. A corporation has no soul and cares nothing about the hereafter. …

“A corporation has no rights except those given it by law. It can exercise no power except that conferred upon it by the people through legislation, and the people should be as free to withhold as to give, public interest and not private advantage being the end in view.” — Secretary of State and 3-time Presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan

“I again recommend a law prohibiting all corporations from contributing to the campaign expenses of any party.… Let individuals contribute as they desire; but let us prohibit in effective fashion all corporations from making contributions for any political purpose, directly or indirectly.” — Theodore Roosevelt

Lots more, HERE

blockquote

in the WYSIWYG editor, then click the code view and paste. Easy, Wonderful. And links? easy too.

I'm short on time today so can't really continue going toe to toe, but will try to give some final thoughts before we leave it. Fortunately I see that I can now cut/paste in IE (I couldn't when using Firefox, for some reason, and it was maddeningly frustrating.)

Here is what I wrote: 'Expanding Medicare would be cheap, cost effective, and curtail the need for wasted billions in bureaucratic startups.' That is a comparison. Medicare ex
pansion would be FAR cheaper than all the needed bureaucracies needed to be created for a from scratch plan. It's always better to take a proven system and expand and improve than start from scratch with a system that has no track record. I can't believe you'd think otherwise. I thought you were smarter than that.

I thought it would have been obvious that I wasn't claiming that creating new bureaucracies would be cheaper or better than expanding Medicare. On the contrary, that would obviously be even worse, but what I argue for is doing neither.

'When Reagan cut the top tax rate, revenues increased because it was no longer worth the bother of finding all of the loopholes. Sometimes less really is better.'

Actually, revenues hit their high water mark in the 80s when Reagan reversed field and gave in to the then largest tax increase in history.

Irrelevant to my point, because I was specifically talking about the demonstrable effect when Reagan lowered the top marginal income tax rate. The tax increases you're talking about had nothing to do with that, and even when GHB knuckled under and raised the top marginal rate, it didn't go up to the absurdly high level that it had been at prior to Reagan (to reiterate my main point: that was the overly confiscatory policy that had led to most income of the high earners being sheltered via loopholes.)

Now to back up a bit to broad themes. My major premise is that all human behavior (economic as well as other behaviors that could be deemed moral/immoral) are difficult at best to control in a population. Even when most people agree that a particular behavior is immoral, unjust, or harmful to other individuals, we have to accept limits about how far govt can do to control that behavior. You say that this concept would be akin to letting a child dictate to a parent what the rules should be. Well- no, your mocking me by taking the point somewhere I didn't take it. Instead, in that analogy, what I'm suggesting is akin to a parent realizing that if he/she takes too much freedom from the child, the child will rebel- and it isn't possible or desirable for the parent to do the things that would be necessary to prevent that (locking the child in his/her room 24/7, or having surveillance cameras, inspections, and the like.)

It's not that I think it's unfair for greedy economic behaviors to be controlled, I'm simply asserting that I don't believe they can be as controlled (or punished/incentivized to change) as you believe they can be. I think you'd agree with that argument for individual moral behaviors relating to sex or drug use. I surmise that you see it differently on economics because you see the corporate structure interposed between the govt and the individual actors, but I say that's irrelevant. When the govt regulates corporate behavior, it's still regulating individual behavior. The moral issues of liberty may be negated by having the corporate entity as the one that's subject to regulation- but the laws of human nature that lead individuals to find ways to do endruns around the rules still prevail.

***I've talked of controlling the market, not denying the market. A free market I deny, but not a market. That's not an insignificant difference. BTW- this thread: http://themoderatevoice.com/politics/ralph-nade...
has a link by a poster named GereenDreams on Corporate personhood. Your link was a banal abstract that gave no real rationale, save for your pessimistic 'it can't be done' stance.

'You talk about using tax code to incentivize lower CEO compensation, but you ignore the evidence I gave that this hasn't worked, and now you're falling back on the part of your argument that really says the market will respond to the bloated salaries as consumers will choose to support companies that treat their employees better (when did I ever argue against that?) In that first paragraph that you quoted from me above, obviously I was talking about your proposed govt punishments on business, not what the market would do.'

***There has never been any plan to reduce CEO compensation via a method I outlined, and your link provides none. In short, you say the 'weak' efforts of the past show that a real effort is doomed to fail. I disagree. But you are not willing to try because you feel this is government interference. It is not. It is the gov't exercising its very raison d'etre- protect and provide for the citizenry that empowers it.

'That's the whole point- generally (not in all cases, but as the default position) remedies are more effective when they work with the market forces'

***Which describes my remedy to a T. Make the market react to the forces that impel change for the better, rather than play to the mere greed of the few. You seem to trust in the ability of money and power to not corrupt. History and I know better. Again, this is why gov't exists.

'When I oppose regulation, it's not just because regulation and govt interventions are repugnant as an assault on freedom.'

Deregulation has been an attack on the safety and well-being of consumers since the 80s. And corporations are not real things, so they have no freedoms to lose. They are paper-based money machines that the rich hide behind to avoid personal responsibility. Bill gates cannot be sued if Microsoft uses some toxic substance in its PCs' His fortune is safe even if the co. he founded tanks.

'I certainly have a preference for as much liberty as possible, but quite often in the case of corporate regulation, my disdain is due to the fact that the regulations don't work.'

But the airlines were safer w regulation, service in telecoms were better w regulation. There was more transparency w regulation in the food and drug industries. Media conglomeration has stifled varied voices, politically and artistically. I could go on and on, but the point that deregulation has failed is MANIFEST, whereas regulation worked. You may not want a big game hunter with you in the corporate jungle. Bye-bye tiger food to you. But I'll take Teddy Roosevelt any day!

'Why do we have all the tax loopholes that we have? Because people will find a way to beat a system that attempts to regulate or tax them above what they think is fair.'

Why do we have security systems. Because thieves think that their not owning what they want is unfair. This is your silliest argument yet, save for claiming the Constitution is a Conservative document. One does not let the child dictate to the parent what it deems its punition should be nor what the rules of the game are. The parent (i,e,- society at large, tells the individual what behaviors are tolerable or not. If the individual does not like it, they are free to move to another country, or work to change it legally. But if they break the law (even by tax cheating) they need to be disciplined. You do realize your analogy is the same as many of the excuses Left wackos made for welfare cheats? Choose you enemies well, and all that….

'When Reagan cut the top tax rate, revenues increased because it was no longer worth the bother of finding all of the loopholes. Sometimes less really is better.'

Actually, revenues hit their high water mark in the 80s when Reagan reversed field and gave in to the then largest tax increase in history.

'Can't even believe you'd make the argument that Medicare could be expanded easily and cheaply- even the existing system is a mess and costs are already almost unmanageable, and set to rise exponentially with the boomers aging.'

Here is what I wrote: 'Expanding Medicare would be cheap, cost effective, and curtail the need for wasted billions in bureaucratic startups.' That is a comparison. Medicare expansion would be FAR cheaper than all the needed bureaucracies needed to be created for a from scratch plan. It's always better to take a proven system and expand and improve than start from scratch with a system that has no track record. I can't believe you'd think otherwise. I thought you were smarter than that.

That's the whole point- generally (not in all cases, but as the default position) remedies are more effective when they work with the market forces instead of against them (not sure if at this moment you're accepting that there is such a thing as market forces, but I'll throw it out there and see which way the winds are blowing in your mind at the moment.) Increasing public awareness always adds a layer of transparency so that consumers can decide if they want to use a moral compass in regard to their purchasing; sometimes this works, as in recent trends for consumers paying upcharges for green products. It's not perfect, but instead of comparing it to the utopian ideal you have to compare it to the actual effects that regulation would have- which are often pretty lousy.

When I oppose regulation, it's not just because regulation and govt interventions are repugnant as an assault on freedom. I certainly have a preference for as much liberty as possible, but quite often in the case of corporate regulation, my disdain is due to the fact that the regulations don't work. Why do we have all the tax loopholes that we have? Because people will find a way to beat a system that attempts to regulate or tax them above what they think is fair. When Reagan cut the top tax rate, revenues increased because it was no longer worth the bother of finding all of the loopholes. Sometimes less really is better.

Sorry to have bored you with realities about why things can't be done. I'm equally bored by the notion that things can be done so easily (when anyone that takes the time to study an issue sees that that's not the case at all.) Can't even believe you'd make the argument that Medicare could be expanded easily and cheaply- even the existing system is a mess and costs are already almost unmanageable, and set to rise exponentially with the boomers aging.

And not reading. I explicitly described a system wherein good and responsible corp behavior is rewarded by the market and the bad punished. This is the thing that is really aggravating w most online threads. You can say A in neon lights and someone argues as if you said B because they are not intent on real dialectic, merely ruminating to themselves.

'but you never acknowledge that it can't possibly be committing infractions (certainly not treason- if it doesn't exist and doesn't have rights, then it doesn't have responsibilities either) if it doesn't actually exist.'

It is a LEGAL fiction. Did you not read that adjective. The argument you pose has no heft unless you elide that word. You did. I didn't. No weight to your claim.

'But your rationale is completely punitive- tax the hell out of them, dare them to pass it along to consumers (the ability to do that or not do that depends on whether or not their competitors are similarly taxed, and the ability of the market to put the restraints on depends on the elasticity of demand for the particular product or service.) If they decide to close shop, you'll want the govt to use tariffs to remove the advantage of going overseas- but what good does that do when an entire industry goes overseas and there's no domestic competition left?'

Reality check. Again, it is NOT punitive, but it levels the playing field. Again, that you see taking away the gamed advantages that corps use and leverage says much of where your midfield in an argument starts. Those that play by the rules will thrive, and be incentivized vis taxes to do well, and those that do not will be fined and taxed more heavily. They can certainly pass on their 'burden,' but wise consumers will reject their product, and force them to get in competitive line, or face extinction. And if you think there are not willing entrepreneurs to fill the consumer hole, you are delusional. Like nature, economies abhor a vacuum. If GE doesn't wanna make product A specify to safety norms you can be damn sure there's a startup waiting to takeover their market. Fact- we are not Ghana. We are the largest most powerful market in the history of our species. No one is willingly going to abandon that.

'On the fairness bit, who is 'we'? You already demonstrated that sometimes the collective 'we' is wrong and isn't advocating for the just solution, so then who gets to step in and declare a foul? That's what I mean about allowing the adversarial system to work as much as possible- because the least worst way to determine fairness is to let both sides fight it out and see where you end up.'

We is the citizenry, and of course errors will be made- but HONEST errors. The gaming that goes on now is willful criminality. There is a bog difference. You may still be dead if I accidentally pick up a gun and it misfires and if I deliberately assassinate you. But in the former I'm exonerated and in the latter incarcerated. Motives do matter.

'On the specific issue of universal healthcare, we could all say that it's fair for everyone to have it but that doesn't mean it's possible for unlimited access to healthcare services to be available at a rate that we can afford either as individuals or a society. I'll wrap with a reference again to that Buckley quote about costs being prohibitive.'

Appeals to authority are a sign of a weak argument. Expanding Medicare would be cheap, cost effective, and curtail the need for wasted billions in bureaucratic startups. If the whole of the nation is the base pool, and used to collectively bargain rates down, healthcare becomes much simpler, more cost effective (4% overhead vs. 30%+ for HMOs), and everyone is happy, w/o resorting to the so-called punitive measures we, as the gov't, have every right to impose on the gouging drug corps.
Like many, you like to create problems where there are none, then use these problems as reasons for inaction. This is why Hillary is sinking, BTW.

'It's quite obviously not- it's an artificially imposed floor that is above what the market cost of the labor would be in a totally free market.'

There is no such thing as the free market. And just as corps and big players game the system so does the gov't have every right to impose a minimum wage. Since the market is not a natural phenomenon, but a manmade one created by consent of individuals, companies, LLCs, corps, and the gov't, the players can all determine the rules, and the realities- such as minimum wages. A truly free market would have great incentives to reinstitute slavery, but the modern market shuns that, child labor, and other forms of exploitation. You are confusing reality with your theoretical construct of an Adam(ic) Smith non-reality.

And yet another argument of why something cannot be done. Yawn.