{}coin: good enough for election politics?

rysiek rysiek at hackerspace.pl
Wed Jan 22 03:19:56 PST 2014


OHAI,

Dnia środa, 22 stycznia 2014 07:35:10 James A. Donald pisze:
> On 2014-01-21 21:45, rysiek wrote:
> > Dnia poniedziałek, 20 stycznia 2014 05:10:58 J.A. Terranson pisze:
> >> The problem I think you are looking to "solve" is *Corporate*
> >> anonymity/pseudonymity.  Won't happen under todays paradigm: the *fix* is
> >> to go back to separation of "natural persons" and "Corporate/chartered
> >> persons".  The two types of personhood were never designed to be ewuals,
> >> yet her we are. :-(
> > 
> > Pretty much this. We need to dismantle the modern-day nobility:
> > http://rys.io/en/77
> > 
> > Corporations are "people" with their "free speech":
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commissio
> > n
> > 
> > ...trying to have their "privacy":
> > http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/01/us-att-privacy-idUSTRE7203UN2011
> > 0301
>
> Corporations are people.

No.
They are *made of* people. This is not the same thing.
 
> If you grant lesser rights to corporations than to natural people, then
> the state can, and will, make corporations fire anyone suspected of
> thinking politically incorrect thoughts.

What? I call bull. First of all, it's not the corporation's decision, it's a 
decision made always by *some person*. You don't have to give corporations 
these rights, as people that corporations consist of already have them. So, 
the government still cannot make *these people* fire other people for 
political views.

Secondly, it's all about the responsibility. If the responsibility for 
decisions stops at corporation level, we're fucked, as we are currently, 
because people that actually make the decisions (in the end people make 
decisions, not corporations!) think "whatever, even if something gets fucked 
up, I'm in the clear, so why bother".

> Turned on the news last night, they were interviewing some silicon
> valley people, and the interviewer asked about how corporations viewed
> this and that.  One of the interviewees replied "I am a corporation".
> He complained that he was subject to secret orders by a secret court,
> which lawless orders he could not tell anyone about, that he himself was
> being spied upon, that as well as being required to turn over
> information officially, his information was being stolen unofficially,
> and that foreign customers had (correctly) come to distrust him.

But that still can be solved by bringing the rights and responsibilities down 
to personal level. If a "secret order" issued to a corporation is in violation 
of rights of physical people working there (as it seems to be in this case), 
the order is unlawful, full stop. Solved.

> A corporation is freedom of association, a group of people that agree
> together to act as one.

Don't mix the freedom of association with the convenience of removed 
responsibility, or responsibility attached not to people, but to some legal 
fiction. The former is crucial, the latter is dangerous.

> In order to act as one, they delegate complete power over the collective
> assets of the project to one of themselves, the CEO, who is, often one
> of the major shareholders.  Thus a corporation is people, people
> agreeing to associate, and corporation is a person, in that the people
> agreeing to associate commonly nominate one of themselves to be that person.

But corporations are thus ubermensch -- they have all the rights and powers of 
a person, without many of the responsibilities, with no danger of being 
imprisoned, and the only real legal sanction the courts (and thus, the rest of 
people) have against them are fines. Which, if the corporation is large 
enough, can be factored-in as cost of doing business, hence being passed on to 
customers. So, passed to other people.

The problem is that our laws and constitutions had been written in times when 
governments had been by far the biggest threats to personal freedoms, 
possessions and life. They had posed (and continue to pose) a real threat 
because:
1. their sheer power (in terms of money, information, military power, etc)
2. human flaws (power corrupts, etc)
3. (perceived) removal of responsibility ("what could they do to me anyway")

Today all three (power, human factor and perceived removal of responsibility) 
is present in largest multinationals. I see no reason to fear them less than 
governments.

In fact, I am dreading the coming day the first corporation announces 
independence.

-- 
Pozdr
rysiek
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