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vcmwBut I had to say that this makes me so happy... a town declaring that corporations aren't legally people.
I worked in a law library. I've read both the 1800s case that is the famous origin of the "corporations are legally people" line of thought, and several articles discussing it. If I'm remembering it correctly, the corporations-are-people bit wasn't even part of the formal decision - it was inserted in the summary by the note writer [Anyone who thinks this guy didn't get some form of kickback for that insertion, raise your hand. I'm not seeing any hands. Good.]. When subsequent caselaw quoted the summary, it became law. And then it grew and grew and bred and bred like Tribbles.
I personally identify "corporations are legal people" as one of the top things that is wrong with our current legal system. Any tiny step that we can take to change that meets with slavish, adoring, happy dancing feet approval on my part. Picture me breaking out the kazoos and New Year's Eve Noisemakers, with tiny little imaginary fireworks of joy like sugar-plums round my head.
Also note that this is taking place in a town which still holds town meetings. My experience of the role of town meetings in governance is that it is very positive and a huge bulwark against corruption. When the spending and decisions of the town have to be discussed in open meeting, you get a really different political perspective than when it all happens among a small group. My New England home town would not have a public library today if it weren't for town meeting - the townsfolk voted to spend money on the public library, where the council/board/watchamacallit wanted to vote to NOT spend the money for the public library. Town meeting is one of those key democratic institutions that so impressed Alexis de Tocqueville, and maybe the internet will give us a way to get it back in big cities - I have a warm fuzzy feeling for Town Meeting as the direct inheritor of the Estates General and other bodies like that that had taxation power over even the King back in medieval Europe - before early corporate wealth helped build the centralized state.
I worked in a law library. I've read both the 1800s case that is the famous origin of the "corporations are legally people" line of thought, and several articles discussing it. If I'm remembering it correctly, the corporations-are-people bit wasn't even part of the formal decision - it was inserted in the summary by the note writer [Anyone who thinks this guy didn't get some form of kickback for that insertion, raise your hand. I'm not seeing any hands. Good.]. When subsequent caselaw quoted the summary, it became law. And then it grew and grew and bred and bred like Tribbles.
I personally identify "corporations are legal people" as one of the top things that is wrong with our current legal system. Any tiny step that we can take to change that meets with slavish, adoring, happy dancing feet approval on my part. Picture me breaking out the kazoos and New Year's Eve Noisemakers, with tiny little imaginary fireworks of joy like sugar-plums round my head.
Also note that this is taking place in a town which still holds town meetings. My experience of the role of town meetings in governance is that it is very positive and a huge bulwark against corruption. When the spending and decisions of the town have to be discussed in open meeting, you get a really different political perspective than when it all happens among a small group. My New England home town would not have a public library today if it weren't for town meeting - the townsfolk voted to spend money on the public library, where the council/board/watchamacallit wanted to vote to NOT spend the money for the public library. Town meeting is one of those key democratic institutions that so impressed Alexis de Tocqueville, and maybe the internet will give us a way to get it back in big cities - I have a warm fuzzy feeling for Town Meeting as the direct inheritor of the Estates General and other bodies like that that had taxation power over even the King back in medieval Europe - before early corporate wealth helped build the centralized state.
