Handling Finances

Corporations have no guaranteed rights. Corporations are simply legal constructs that allow people to limit their taxes and to limit their liability in business arrangements. Corporations are also not inherently evil, but as citizens with constitutionally guaranteed rights, we have to be careful not to treat corporations as if they’re more important than citizens.

What’s the big deal?

When I see how much corporations are contributing to political campaigns (and not toward one political position) I worry that the corporations have become as influential or perhaps even more influential than citizens in our political system. It’s often argued that strong corporations help the masses through a strong economy, but I think that misses the point. As corporations are owned by citizens, it’s really strong citizens who are willing to invest in business that produce a strong economy.

One thing that consistently bothers me is when corporations are handed money from our government when they perform poorly. We are essentially rewarding inefficiency — if a company can become large enough that bankruptcy would negatively affect a large portion of a state’s employees, that company no longer has to worry about efficiently producing a product. It can simply threaten to lay off thousands of citizens and we are happy to give them our tax money to keep them employed. Instead of rewarding inefficiency, wouldn’t it be much more effective to allow poorly-run companies, or companies that make unwanted products to go bankrupt and put that money toward helping unemployed citizens find and become trained for new jobs?

Similarly, when we pass laws to make it much more difficult to declare bankruptcy or limit the amount of money that can be awarded in negligence lawsuits, we are again saying that the corporations should have more protection than the citizens. Do we really think that there are more citizens trying to fraudulently declare bankruptcy than there are banks that are selling loans they know their customers can’t afford?

I’m not saying corporations should be powerless, or that citizens are blameless. However, corporations are much better organized and focus much more of their resources toward favorable laws than citizens. As citizens, it’s just important to remember that while we have rights given by the constitution (in America anyway), if we fail to exercise those rights through understanding the issues and voting, we can give those rights up to non-entities that only care about profits and shareholders.

What can we do?

In the upcoming elections, consider the implications of giving rights to corporations in your decision to vote and be sure to vote no matter how disillusioned you are with politics. Unless citizens band together and become better organized and better funded than corporations (something I find highly unlikely) our greatest tool toward preserving our rights as citizens will be our votes.

Comments?

I’d love to hear other views on this subject — especially ones that disagree with part or all of my conclusions. I’m far from certain where the best balance between citizen rights and corporate protection lies so although I might have some basic opinions, I think it’s incredibly important to keep learning and listening so my votes can be as informed as possible.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 6:42 am and is filed under Economy, Taxes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.