I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. I certainly did. And amid the revelry, I hope everyone stopped to remember why we celebrate this day — to honor the sacrifices of the brave men and women who have fought and died for our country and our freedom.
Apropos of that, I had the following exchange with Loyette, paraphrased as accurately as I can from memory, on Sunday night shortly before bedtime. By way of explanation of the punch line at the end, this entire conversation took place with Loyette sitting near the edge of her bed, and me sitting on the floor, in position to catch her if she were to stand up and jump off the bed to me (a favorite pastime of hers). Also, shortly before coming upstairs for bed, she’d been eating ice cream, and just before that, we’d been singing songs and dancing around the living room. Anyway…
LOYETTE: “Daddy, tomorrow, will it be the weekend or the week?” [Editor’s note: She asks this exact question almost every single day before bedtime. She and Loyacita love the weekend because, of course, the weekend means Daddy’s home. 🙂 ]
BRENDAN: “The weekend. It’s the last day of the three-day weekend. Tomorrow is a holiday! It’s called Memorial Day.”
LOYETTE: “What’s Memorial Day?”
BRENDAN: “Well, [Loyette], Memorial Day is a day when we honor the soldiers who fight* so that we can have freedom. Do you know what ‘freedom’ means?”
LOYETTE: “No.”
BRENDAN: “Well, in some places, people can’t do the things they want to do. Like, they can’t sing, or dance, or eat ice cream.”
LOYETTE: “Or share bananas with their sisters?”
BRENDAN: “Right. Or share bananas with their sisters. They can’t do those things because they don’t have freedom. But we live in America, and in America we have freedom, so we can do things like sing and dance and eat ice cream and share bananas with our sisters, because there are people — soldiers — who fight to make sure we get to keep our freedom. And on Memorial Day, we honor those people. Does that make sense?”
LOYETTE: “Not really. Can I jump to you?”
Heh. I tried again today, en route to the Commerce City Memorial Day Parade (pictured above and below) with the girls. This time, I made an analogy to the climactic battle in Loyette’s favorite movie, Sleeping Beauty, in which Prince Philip fights Maleficent in order to get to Princess Aurora, rescue her, and (as I put it) “give her back her freedom.” Sometimes, I explained, people in real life are mean like Maleficent, and soldiers have to fight them, like Prince Philip does with his Sword of Truth and Shield of Virtue, so the mean people can’t take away other people’s freedom. She still doesn’t really understand, of course — and obviously it’s a horribly simplistic explanation anyway — but you’ve gotta start somewhere…
*Yes, I’m aware that, technically, Memorial Day honors those who have died while fighting — my broader description is more appropriate to Veterans Day. But I’m not about to burden my 3 1/2-year-old with a detailed discussion of the concept of death, on top of trying to explain freedom and war.
I was about to bludgeon you for conflating Veterans Day and Memorial Day, but your footnote saved you. Seriously it’s been annoying me all day. The sentiment is nice, but it’s like celebrating Fathers on Mothers Day or putting up a Christmas tree for Easter. Learn the purpose of the day folks!
Heh. Honestly though, in addition to my reasoning in this particular case, I don’t really have a problem with the conflation of the two, given that Veterans Day is a relatively minor holiday that most people don’t even get a day off work for, whereas Memorial Day is one of the five biggest holidays on the U.S. calendar (Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas). The emphasis should be on soldiers who died in service to the country, but if people want to take a moment to also honor those who fought but didn’t die, I don’t think that’s really a problem.
I think that if Loyette & Loyacita were to rank their civil liberties by Importance, the Freedom to Jump to Daddy would be #1. 🙂
Re the meaning of the day: at Arlington on Monday, Admiral Mike Mullen’s short speech put it in what I thought was an exceptionally thoughtful, and eloquent, perspective. While employing (as is appropriate to Tradition) the customary & familiar sort of rhetorical formulations, he also probed Beyond them. In essence, he proposed that it’s not so much about the death of the soldiers — grateful though we are for their service and their sacrifice — as it is about the Life of the nation for which they fell.
Mullen’s no scintillating Orator; his delivery was simple and plain. But I thought his words, themselves, still soared.
Not sure how much freedom we have left… Supreme Court is regularly making me want to vomit these days. If these yahoos had been on the Nuremberg court everyone would have walked.
Common Dane, everyone knows the founding fathers TOTALLY meant corporations when they put the whole free speech clause in the first ammendment.
I’m more talking about allowing the I was just following orders excuse for false imprisonment. And also completely ignoring the fourth amendment a few weeks ago. This to go along with decimating property rights a few years back. It’s sickening and disgusting.
I don’t necessarily mind that they say corporations are entitled to free speech. I do mind that they seem to think the average citizenry is not.
Brendan #2 – “… given that Veterans Day is a relatively minor holiday that most people don’t even get a day off work for, whereas Memorial Day is one of the five biggest holidays on the U.S. calendar “
In the US, November 11 may be a relatively minor holiday – in a lot of Europe, and in the UK, it is at least as significant as (and possibly more so) than September 11 here …
November 11 is probably more respected than celebrated, in that it is otherwise known as Remembrance Day – when we remember the end of the War To End All Wars – and when we remember and reflect upon just how important it is to try to not let wars happen cuz they get very messy for way too many people …
Sometimes, they end up inevitable, due to one side not accepting attempts to make them unnecessary … sometimes they end up inevitable because one side bends over backwards for “Peace In Our Time” … sometimes they happen for both those reasons and other reasons, too …
Memorial Day is, indeed, more celebrated … could it be that the occupants of this planet might be better off if more people respected Remembrance Day ?
Venerable Loy – it sounds like Admiral Mullen understands and respects Remembrance Day …
David, of course corporations are entitled to free speech. Corporations are made up of people, and people are entitled to free speech. It would be very odd if the government was barred from regulating the speech of individual citizens, but when those same citizens band together to form a group, the government could regulate their collective speech to its heart’s content. Just because we don’t always like the result of corporate speech doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve constitutional protection, any more than the American Nazi Party or those Westboro Baptist morons don’t deserve free speech rights because we don’t like the results when they open their mouths.
Alasdair, my comment was meant specifically to refer to U.S. holidays (hence “the U.S. calendar”). I suspect the 4th of July is also less of a major holiday in Europe. 🙂
Brendan put it better than I did vis a vi free speech rights. Now you could argue we live in an age where some corporations have more power than government and that that is a problem. But it certainly doesn’t mean a company doesn’t or shouldn’t have the right and power to petition the government.
The real problem is campaign finance. Which is not really something that is readily fixable by simply say a company can’t give money to a campaign. There are ways around that.
If a corporation is granted the same standards of free speech as an individual it should also be held to the same legal standards as an individual in other ways as well and yet they clearly are not. The law differentiates between the two on a regular basis.
David, can you elaborate? A corporation can be sued (and can sue), a corporation can be charged with a crime, etc. Large corporations obviously have much more political power than just about any individual, and can afford the best lawyers, etc., but that doesn’t mean the law itself systematically discriminates in corporations’ favor, at the expense of individuals. Maybe it does, but you’re going to need to provide some examples if you want to make that argument.
The Scalian interpretation of corporations as groups of individuals banded together is a bit innocent. A for-profit corporation is property; an assembly is not. The distinction is crucial when it comes to democratic participation. Managers of a corporation are tasked to consider ONLY the corporate interest in making political donations; no selfish individual or free assembly would ever rationally support ONLY a corporate interest. They would also consider externalities that affect them as individuals. In the presence of externalities (which are ubiquitous), corporations will not efficiently represent the voting interests of their constituents (stockholders and/or stakeholders) in the same way that an individual or free assembly would. They may even optimally pursue policies that harm the welfare of all their constituents.
If you think that corporations have a right to free speech, fine. Make that argument in terms which acknowledge the functional reality of the corporate form (it is possible to do this). Don’t pretend that Phillip Morris is functionally identical to the Rotary Club.
(I’m pissed at Scalia here, not Brendan. Scalia is not supposed to be intellectually lazy. Brendan has to be in order to create time for family and blogging and such.)
end rant
I didn’t say the law systematically discriminates in corporations favor, I said it distinguishes between individuals and corporations. Different laws apply to each because they are different entities entirely. Trivial example (and amusing), a corporation can purchase and choose to serve alcohol to its employees at a function, yet there is no restriction that such corporation have existed for 21 years to do so correct? Corporations aren’t allowed to vote, hold office, get a driver’s licencse, register for the selective service, etc. When was the last time you heard of a corporation being summoned for jury duty?
Quickly, one could solve the inefficiencies created by corporate political influence by just outlawing it. The individual members of a corporation could still be permitted to organize independently if they wanted to — just not under the umbrella of authority of a for-profit corporate form.
one could solve the inefficiencies created by corporate political influence by just outlawing it.
Is efficiency now a sufficient justification for curtailing inherent rights? Frankly given Kelo and Obamacare, I wouldn’t be surprised. However, just for the record, our system of government was deliberately designed to be inefficient.
Well, *I*, for one, hope that corporations are not permitted to yell “Fire” in a crowded theatre any more than any of us is as individuals … well, except as part of a theatrical performance, that is … (grin) …
For once I agree with gahrie, efficiency is not a sufficient justification.
Casey #15 – I would hope that, rather have have that corporations “could still be permitted to organize independently if they wanted to”, I would prefer it to be that corporations not be prevented from their wish to organise for political influence independently if they wanted to …
And, given the wieners currently in control of the government apparatus in DC just now, the less “efficient” they can be, the better …
While I try not to drop the fascist bomb if I can avoid it, “one could solve the inefficiencies created by corporate political influence by just outlawing it.” is as remarkably succinct statement of fascist political/philosophical belief as I have seen/heard uttered in quite a while … it’s not that important to me that the trains run on time …
Facism? Really? Suddenly talking about efficiency makes on a facist or is a facist argument?
By “efficiency”, I intend to mean the degree to which individual preferences are reflected in government policy. If I can change policy X, and by doing so increase the efficiency of the political system, then policy X is in effect not a right but a constraint on individual political representation. And as I argued before, corporate decisions differ from those made by individuals or free assemblies of individuals, and constraining them is substantially different from constraining individual choice.
It sounds a bit Robespierrean, I know. But I’m more trying to make a point about social choice than to suggest an actual policy change. In the real world, I think that corporations should have some voice in governance, and the only way to get that voice is through monetary influence. But there is a point where too much corporate influence is a bad thing, and I think we’re wayyyyy past that point, which is part of the reason government has not worked for 30+ years.
But there is a point where too much corporate influence is a bad thing
I agree totally.
The only way to reduce corporate influence however is to reduce the government’s control over business. When the government is in the business of picking corporate winners and losers (I’m looking at you Bear-Sterns and Lehman Brothers) you would be a fool not to curry influence with politicians. Then you get into the ability to influence legislation and regulations to either help you or hurt competition, and convince politicians to seize land and give it to you for a song. Then you have tax policy, subsidies, etc.
Just to distance myself a bit further from the radical sentiment in #15, I did say “one could”, not “I would”.
For example, “one could” wish that LeBron James suffers several accidental groin kicks during the course of Game 1 tonight. That does not mean that “I would” wish for that specifically to happen. Really, any kind of catastrophic groin damage would be fine.
(SIGH) …
Fascism – one of its classic characteristics is the outlawing/banning/physically preventing dissenting expressions …
Facism – apparently, is a davidkian philosophy, characterised by the taking of offence both when offence is offered and even more so when offence is not offered … (grin) … *and* wants to shut down non-conforming views, as by banning …
Those who understand the former (with the two occurrences of “s”) can differentiate between the two …
Casey #23 … sadly, such thinking is not sufficiently radical … some of it is mainstream …
In the UK, the National Union of Students folk more than once proudly physically chased a speaker off the stage where he was scheduled to speak to students “because he is a Fascist” … and the participants didn’t realise the irony involved … students over here seem to be just as unaware of the irony, when they try to prevent speakers from being heard …
Al, point of the definition of words, outlawing the involvement of corporations in politics and or political speech would be the exact opposite of fascism (I’m unaware of a specific term for this as communism presupposes no corporations). Please see also, the fucking dictionary before throwing the f bomb.
Seriously Alasdair, since when does preventing corporations (who are not people) from being granted free speech rights as if they were people mean outlawing dissenting opinion. No one is saying you can’t hold a specific opinion or view, Casey was merely suggesting one option to prevent corporations specifically from being given that ability while SIMULTANEOUSLY suggesting a way in which CEO’s could still excercise their free speech rights. Do you have a reading comprehension problem or just a comprehension problem?
Ahhh … the d-list strikes again …
So shutting down the corporation which is a newspaper isn’t a problem, eh ?
Or a radio station ?
Or a TV/Cable network – as long as it is Fox, I suppose ? As long as MSNBC keeps broadcasting ?
Ahh – so only *some* corporations should have free speech …
And just what is the difference between a corporation which produces goods for sale and a union, as far as free speech goes ?
Or are our d-list folk proposing that Unions be banned from political speech, as well ?
Al, that’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is you don’t know what the word fascism means. As one of the characteristics of fascism is collusion between a dictator and corporations that are members of the party. C.F. the use of Jews and other undesirables as slaves before killing them, and or working them to death in Nazi Germany. Removing corporate free speech rights is undesirable, but it isn’t fascist per se. This discussion was going quite fine before you started throwing fascism about willy nilly like a complete ass who walks in drunk starts talking loudly and has not fucking clue what they are talking about.
The Scalian interpretation of corporations as groups of individuals banded together is a bit innocent.
Innocence or guilt has nothing to do with it. A corporation is just one of many ways a group of individuals can band together as a legal entity to advance their interests. Since individuals have rights accorded to them under the Constitution (actually they are not “accorded” to them by anybody or anything except their Creator — their rights are inherent and inalienable, but that’s besides the point here), how does any conception of an aggregation of individuals and their rights result in less rights? In other words, how can the sum possibly have less rights than the parts? That makes no sense, unless you’re trying to advance some awkward ideological agenda that declares certain groups of individuals as having less worth than others.
A for-profit corporation is property; an assembly is not.
So what? They are both groups of individuals.
The distinction is crucial when it comes to democratic participation.
How so? Why? Again, how can an aggregation of individuals (who as individuals have rights) have less rights than the individuals of which it is composed? That simply makes no sense!
Managers of a corporation are tasked to consider ONLY the corporate interest in making political donations; no selfish individual or free assembly would ever rationally support ONLY a corporate interest.
This is a distinction without a difference. The motives of the speaker (whether religious, economic, or political) do not matter. Neither does the content of the speech. How is a “corporate” interest (and corporate could mean non-profit as well) any less worthy of free speech rights than a club or an assembly? And how can you possibly distinguish between the “corporate” interest and the “managers” interest? The corporation’s interest is what its managers say it is!
Let’s rewrite in more generic terms so you can see the ludicrousness of your argument: “Members of a group are tasked to consider ONLY the group interest in making political donations”, therefore the group should have less free speech rights than its members. Do you not see how silly that is?
They would also consider externalities that affect them as individuals. In the presence of externalities (which are ubiquitous), corporations will not efficiently represent the voting interests of their constituents (stockholders and/or stakeholders) in the same way that an individual or free assembly would. They may even optimally pursue policies that harm the welfare of all their constituents.
Where in the Constitution does it say that the only speech that is protected is that which considers externalities and accurately reflects the best interests of the individuals or constituents on whose behalf the entity is speaking? In the Founding Fathers’ terms, individuals tend to bind their common interests together and form “factions”, and these factions are an unavoidable if detestable part of the system politic. Nowhere did the Founding Fathers ever contemplate, however, that the formation of a faction necessarily bounded its members’ collective rights to speak and influence the government. Nor did they propose a system of measurement to ascertain which factions ought to enjoy speech protection (political interest groups, religious interest groups), and which ought not (racial interest groups, profit-oriented interest groups).
If you think that corporations have a right to free speech, fine. Make that argument in terms which acknowledge the functional reality of the corporate form (it is possible to do this). Don’t pretend that Phillip Morris is functionally identical to the Rotary Club.
Again, that’s a distinction without a difference. Functional realities of group behavior and interests do not matter when it comes to civil rights — they all have the same rights.
As one of the characteristics of fascism is collusion between a dictator and corporations that are members of the party. C.F. the use of Jews and other undesirables as slaves before killing them, and or working them to death in Nazi Germany.
What?!?
While the NAZIs were fascist, not all fascists were/are NAZIs. One of the first thing fascists do is seize effective control of the corporations.
So you are trying to argue that a fascist government does not traditionally act in collusion with corporations that also belong to the party?
What part of seize effective control of the corporations was too difficult for you to understand?
You guys can stop arguing about the nexus between corporatism and fascism — I resolved that conundrum for you last year.
@AML #30 — I don’t think that you really believe that the distinction between corporations vs. free assemblies is a “distinction without a difference”.
In a free political assembly, an individual is free to leave if he does not like the politics of the group. No individual in the United States can withdraw from the corporate form without suffering massive welfare losses. You’d have to go live with the Unabomber. So long as you buy groceries or do business with utilities, you’re a corporate stakeholder.
In a free political assembly (IE, a political “faction”), the form of the group assures that it will reflect the politics of its members. In a corporation, the form assures that it won’t (IE, it will with probability 0).
You have to find a meaningful distinction between:
A. A group which you are coerced to join and (by design) does not reflect your politics
B. A group you freely join because it (by design) reflects your politics
Now, there are valid real world reasons why your representative citizen might want corporations to have significant political speech (it is costly to organize politically, costly to gain industry specific knowledge in order to lobby optimally, et cetera). I would rather see those articulated than submit to the lazy argument that corporations are just like free assemblies, or that all groups of people however constituted should have unlimited rights to political speech. (How about the group consisting of those convicted of treason? Are they entitled to publishing materials?)
Also — corporate managers are not hired to represent the political interests of the stockholding/stakeholding group. The political interests of that group go well beyond those of the manager. The real world manager tries to maximize the value of the future corporate income stream — he is not tasked to consider stockholder/stakeholder preferences beyond that (though some managers do that anyways). He is not the political representative of the group, or even the true economic representative (his decisions may impair the value of other businesses or resources which are held by his own investors).
To clarify, by “true” economic representative, I mean someone whose choices will be the same as those which would be chosen by the individual being represented.
“So shutting down the corporation which is a newspaper isn’t a problem, eh ?
Or a radio station ?
Or a TV/Cable network – as long as it is Fox, I suppose ? As long as MSNBC keeps broadcasting ?”
Alasdair you are an idiot, plain and simple. No one is talking about shutting down corporations, or making corporations illegal. Casey was talking about making corporate campaign donations illegal.
I swear its like you are trying to make Sarah Palin look like a member of Mensa.
dcl #26 – unless your planet’s history is different from *my* planet’s history, fascism dodn’t give corporations freedom of speech – it gave favoured entities – people, parties, corporation – ‘freedom’ of speech (as long as such speech conformed to approved expressions) – while banning/outlawing/preventing expression by people, parties, corporations who tried to express opposing viewpoints …
Your jump to Nazism, while sorta naive, is not unexpected … the various flavours of fascism, as AMLTrojan observed, have been all over the map, from socialist to totalitarian … one of the defining characteristics of all of ’em has been the seizing of control of communications and expression, and a clamping down on dissent …
Feel free to disagree with me – I’m not going to demand that you shut up or that you be banned, cuz I don’t believe in nor do I practice fascism … just please try to do so in an informed way …
In a free political assembly, an individual is free to leave if he does not like the politics of the group. No individual in the United States can withdraw from the corporate form without suffering massive welfare losses. You’d have to go live with the Unabomber. So long as you buy groceries or do business with utilities, you’re a corporate stakeholder.
Huh? What the hell are you talking about?!? If I transact with any business (buy groceries, consume electricity, etc.), I am “a corporate stakeholder”? WTF does welfare have to do with anything?!? I seriously am not comprehending whatever you are trying to say. Are you trying to argue that American society has a “corporate form”? If so, so what? How does that have anything to do with the free speech rights of corporations? I am free to leave the Republican Party but not equally free to leave my corporate employer? No, I am sorry, when it comes to speech rights, I see no difference between the Elk Club, the GOP, and my employer: all have the same rights to speech.
In a free political assembly (IE, a political “faction”), the form of the group assures that it will reflect the politics of its members. In a corporation, the form assures that it won’t (IE, it will with probability 0).
On what logic or data do you base this judgment? Do you think the Democratic Party in the post-FDR, pre-JFK era represented the interests of its African-American members? Do you seriously NOT think that my employer doesn’t accurately reflect the interests of its employees? If that’s the case, why does my company actively expend effort to organize its employees and suppliers to fight for certain regulatory or legislative causes it believes in? Methinks you have abstracted the idea of the corporation to such a high level, in your head you’ve somehow negated actual reality on the ground.
You have to find a meaningful distinction between:
A. A group which you are coerced to join and (by design) does not reflect your politics
B. A group you freely join because it (by design) reflects your politics
How is an employment contract any different than club membership when it comes to interest of speech? How am I “coerced to join” a corporation? I freely sought employment with this corporation, and insofar as I want the business to be successful so I can stay gainfully employed, absolutely our politics are the same for that narrow set of issues!
Actually, the way you describe A is much more representative of unions in closed shop states, not corporations.
Now, there are valid real world reasons why your representative citizen might want corporations to have significant political speech (it is costly to organize politically, costly to gain industry specific knowledge in order to lobby optimally, et cetera).
It has nothing to do with whether I want corporations to have speech rights — they simply do! This isn’t about passing laws to grant certain rights to some entities but not to others, it’s about what the First Amendment actually says and means!
I would rather see those articulated than submit to the lazy argument that corporations are just like free assemblies, or that all groups of people however constituted should have unlimited rights to political speech.
If my argument is “lazy”, yours is downright incoherent.
(How about the group consisting of those convicted of treason? Are they entitled to publishing materials?)
If you are convicted of treason, you’re either dead or sitting in jail. In either case, you thus belong to a class of citizens whose rights have been severely restricted. Since corporations are neither inherently treasonous or law-breaking, this area of case law would not apply to them.
Also — corporate managers are not hired to represent the political interests of the stockholding/stakeholding group. The political interests of that group go well beyond those of the manager. The real world manager tries to maximize the value of the future corporate income stream — he is not tasked to consider stockholder/stakeholder preferences beyond that (though some managers do that anyways). He is not the political representative of the group, or even the true economic representative (his decisions may impair the value of other businesses or resources which are held by his own investors).
Again, you have clearly conceptualized the corporation to such a degree of abstraction, you apparently have no idea how companies actually operate. There are multiple types of corporations — some seek profits, some do not; some have shareholders, some do not; some struggle with balancing the interests of ownership with the perceived interests of management, customers, or employers, and some do not. You simply can’t generalize these things.
As smart as you are, Casey, this is one of the dumbest arguments I think I’ve ever participated in. I feel like I am arguing with a child who refuses to concede that the sky is blue. I am willing to entertain the possibility that corporations should not, in fact, be treated like individuals, and that therefore they should not be considered to have the same level of speech rights, but your arguments in support of those conclusions are so sideways to logic and basic experience, I am struggling just to make sense of them even if I was inclined to agree with you.
Re AML #39 — Yeah, we’re near an impasse here. I’m picking at a fairly academic point here, which is inherently frustrating for any normal person. That’s part of the problem, but you’re also nitpicking a bit (IE, you can go ahead and infer I mean a for-profit corporation based on my mentioning that several times previously and obviously intending it from context).
The basic point remains. Groups of people do not have unconditional rights to free political speech in our legal system and can be restricted (for causing a public nuisance, representing a foreign power, not having sufficient age, etc.). A democratic society has an interest in restricting the political influence of groups which don’t represent the interests of its citizens. And (for-profit!, widely held) corporations are a form of association which are not generally structured to represent the political preferences of their stockholders and stakeholders. Hence they are a group which any rational democratic society should at least consider restricting.
Your employer organizes you to pursue legislative causes where your interests align, or where it can otherwise persuade you to act for its benefit. This does not mean that your employer ONLY pursues political causes consistent with your interests, as you would acting alone.
My argument is not sufficient to establish that corporate speech should be restricted. It is not really intended to be. It is only designed to establish that corporate speech is not the first best form of group political expression, and hence might best be regulated by a society which values individual rights.
Casey #40 – ummmm – in a society which values individual rights, what need (or value) is there to restricting corporate speech as long as such corporate speech is not restricting individual speech ?
What prevents the individual pursuing individual speech while the corporation for which said individual works pursues corporate speech which may or may not match the individual speech ?
“A democratic society has an interest in restricting the political influence of groups which don’t represent the interests of its citizens. “ – you offer an interesting support for those of us who oppose Obamacare as a Bad Idea whose time ain’t come … you suggest that the US has an interest in restricting the political influence of the Democrat Party, especially given what they have done (or not done) and are doing (or not doing) to keep us (and the US) in this terrible economy … (grin)
Alasdair — a good question.
I will answer tomorrow. My fiancee is about to kill me for being on this blog 🙂
Groups of people do not have unconditional rights to free political speech in our legal system and can be restricted (for causing a public nuisance, representing a foreign power, not having sufficient age, etc.).
This is highly inaccurate. First off, we need to distinguish between formal group entities and informal group entities. The latter are simply notional categorizations on the part of the observer and do not actually matter; an informal group’s speech is simply the notional sum of its individuals’ speech — there is not actually a difference. As for formal group entities, they absolutely have the same speech rights as individuals: formal groups cannot yell Fire in a crowded theater, and neither can individuals; formal groups cannot advocate the overthrow of the US government, and neither can individuals; and even if individuals under the age of 18 cannot vote, they can still donate to campaigns — and thus so can groups (for profit or not) purporting to represent the interests of those under the voting age.
A democratic society has an interest in restricting the political influence of groups which don’t represent the interests of its citizens.
The problem with this statement is, who gets to decide whether or not a group is accurately reflecting the interest of its members, or whether those interests are positive on the whole for citizens as a whole? The Founding Fathers would be rolling over in their graves at your statement. I am fundamentally opposed to anyone being the arbiter of what citizens’ best interests are; that’s the whole point of political representation and the democratic process — it’s decided by votes and compromises. Deciding at the outset that certain groups shouldn’t even be allowed to have a seat at the table (or at least should be restricted in how they engage vis-a-vis the other factions clamoring for their interests) is anathema to democratic process.
And (for-profit!, widely held) corporations are a form of association which are not generally structured to represent the political preferences of their stockholders and stakeholders.
This is your belief — it is NOT an empirical fact, and I happen to think you are fundamentally wrong. My opinion is that, in general, for-profit corporations ARE “a form of association which are …generally structured to represent the political preferences of their stockholders and stakeholders.” As a general rule, I think corporations seek what’s good for their business, and what’s good for their business is generally good for their shareholders. Is this always true in each and every instance? Of course not. But I think, as a rule, it’s generally more true than the opposite, which is that the interests of the corporation are fundamentally not the interests of its shareholders. In either case, I am opposed to you or I or any body having the role of determining that a particular group (whether it be a corporation or some other group entity) is sufficiently representing its members’ interests, and therefore having its rights tailored accordingly. Everybody gets the same rights under the First Amendment — and that’s it! End. Of. Story.
And (for-profit!, widely held) corporations are a form of association which are not generally structured to represent the political preferences of their stockholders and stakeholders
This is not my belief, this is a direct implication of the model of the profit-maxing corporation. The wording could have been clearer. Again, I’m just trying to say that the decision rule of the corporation will almost always yield an inferior lobbying platform than that which would be determined by a free assembly. Inferior = less representative of individual preferences.
As a general rule, I think that corporations seek what’s good for their business, and what’s good for their business is generally good for their shareholders. Is this always true? Of course not. But I think, as a rule, it’s generally more true than the opposite…
I agree, and do not intend to contradict this. This gets closer to an argument as to why corporations should have political speech. My point develops out of the “not always true” part of the statement.
The Founding Fathers would be rolling over in their graves at your statement
I don’t mind pissing off zombies, however reputable they may be. But again, my wording is designed to be a bit passive. I’m recognizing the state has an interest in restricting the influence of certain groups; the Founders recognized that as well.
I’ll write a bit more later.
OK, @ Alasdair #40
I’m thinking of aggregate political influence like a big pie, where one person’s slice can only be enlarged if another’s is reduced. So if corporations have more political influence, they have to be diminishing the influence of someone else — in my setup, individuals.
Giving corporations more speech doesn’t restrict individual speech in the sense of physically shutting people up. It just diminishes the relative influence of individual speech, which is undesirable in a democracy. On that note…
@ AML (some comment way back there), I’ve been thinking a little bit about your point on the poorly representative nature of our two political parties. They really aren’t free assemblies either — our system of governance forces a two party structure on us, and the majority of individuals have to seriously compromise their own political preferences when affiliating with one party or the other.
It would be difficult to argue that, on average, corporations pervert individual preferences worse than the two parties do. That may still be the case — I just don’t see how to assemble real evidence one way or another. There are certainly still specific examples where corporate political influence is tremendously harmful and might be plausibly restricted (IE, lobbying to eviscerate a crucial regulatory agency like MMM, NRC, or SEC). But with the two party system in place, we’re hardly in democratic utopia, and I’ll concede that there are probably easier steps our country should consider before restricting all corporate speech if the goal is to maximize individual representation.
I do also seem to be at a loss to identify any case in the US where a group of individuals presently has different free speech rights than its individual constituents, and regulating corporate speech would create that situation. All I can say there is that precedent is not always optimal.
My very first point still holds, though — even if corporations are deemed just another group of individuals under the law, a society where corporations have huge political influence is functionally not a democracy because the decision rules which drive political outcomes have changed (centered on profit streams rather than individual preferences). To say (like Scalia) that corporations are just another group of guys is to miss a very important point.
Casey #45 – “I’m thinking of aggregate political influence like a big pie, where one person’s slice can only be enlarged if another’s is reduced. “ …
An interesting analogy … with some interesting consequences … who gets to decide *how* said pie is divided up ?
Generally, conservatives and libertarians will say that there ain’t such a pie – it’s actually a whole bunch of pies, and some like some flavours, and other like other flavours – and the voter (since they are political pies) gets to choose … and, if there isn’t a pie to your taste, why, get to gether with some friends and go bake the one you want …
The Dem/”current US liberal” side seems to favour more of a “Some animals are more equal than others” approach, whereby favoured flavours are to be subsidised and out-of-favour flavours are to be taxed/regulate/disincentivised … in these terms, the out-of-favour flavours will be banned as “harmful” or “fattening” or “politically incorrect” or whatever … so union lobbying Good – corporation lobbying Bad …
Okay Casey at #44 and #45, we’re finally getting to an argument I can properly weigh and value.
I’m recognizing the state has an interest in restricting the influence of certain groups… .
I think the point of the Founding Fathers was that the state exists based on a social contract with the people, and that the primary role of the state is to be the guardian of human liberty. Under this philosophical construct, even absent the way the Constitution / First Amendment is written, I do not see howit is desirable that the state ought to have an opinion or an ability to control or restrict one group’s liberties vs. another’s. The state’s “interest” is to ensure that all voices are protected — not some more than others.
I’m thinking of aggregate political influence like a big pie, where one person’s slice can only be enlarged if another’s is reduced. So if corporations have more political influence, they have to be diminishing the influence of someone else — in my setup, individuals.
The Founding Fathers’ prescription for this “ill” is something called Elections. If you don’t like the results of this influence on your representative’s behavior, vote him out of office.
Giving corporations more speech doesn’t restrict individual speech in the sense of physically shutting people up. It just diminishes the relative influence of individual speech, which is undesirable in a democracy.
Let’s be candid here. We’re really talking about money, not a platform for speech, and the ability of any individual to have much influence (either monetarily or verbally) is extremely limited and diluted*. The only way one can have a true impact is to band together with others and form a group. A for-profit group is simply one of many kinds of groups that tries to influence the process to further the interest of that group’s members.
The real challenge here is not that one group has more speech weight than the other, it’s that corporations tend to have very specific skin in the game compared to the average voter (or group of voters — i.e. a faction). So whereas a voter might base his vote on feelings about abortion, or economic policy and tax rates, or the size of government, or other government priorities, corporations’ interest typically is narrowly focused to, we want this regulation rewritten to say X and not Y. That is tough to “restrict” — you either allow corporations speech and influence, or you don’t. And frankly, as much as it’s a bad idea to have a regulatory agency be “captive” to the industry they regulate, it’s even worse to have a regulatory agency operate with zero regard to what industry regards as being the best policy.
And in the end, this is just another flavor of the age-old political science problem of an interest group using the political process to benefit a particular group at a cost spread lightly over the many — similar to the issue we have with tax deductions for mortgage interest and the like. Addressing these cost/benefit imbalances should not be done via restricting anybody or any entity’s speech rights or ability to participate in the democratic / legislative process.
*This is accepting the notion that political contributions can be limited, which currently is constitutional according to SCOTUS in Buckley v. Valeo, but I don’t necessarily agree with that interpretation. It might very well be that Citizens United v. FEC is the first step to returning jurisprudence on this topic to where I believe it ought to be.
… [E]ven if corporations are deemed just another group of individuals under the law, a society where corporations have huge political influence is functionally not a democracy because the decision rules which drive political outcomes have changed (centered on profit streams rather than individual preferences).
I do not see how the farmer, the banker, and the baker are necessarily placing their votes based on “individual preferences” rather than on what politics they sees as being most generous to their personal “profit streams”. Not to mention, a lot of corporations (e.g. Google and many other Silicon Valley businesses) claim to have altruistic corporate motives and values beyond just what might make them more money as a corporation (typically these values are left-of-center, I might add). So again, I think you’re making a distinction without a difference.
“The state’s “interest” is to ensure that all voices are protected — not some more than others.”
The point being that if you give corporations the same rights as individuals, it is a defacto removal of the individuals rights. Not a hard concept to understand.
The point being that if you give corporations the same rights as individuals, it is a defacto removal of the individuals rights.
Only in the fantasy world you live in. In the real world in which I live, GlaxoSmithKline has their legislative prerogative, I have mine, and things are all sorted out politically in the end — just as the Founding Fathers designed it.
AMLTrojan – perhaps, as a relative newcomer, I can translate #48 from Davidkian into American …
“If corporations can express their voices freely, people will pay less attention to *myyyyyyyyyyyyyy* voice !”
David seems to be forgetting that even he, himself, doesn’t seem to pay attention to what he himself says, never mind the rest of us …
(innocent grin)
# AML 48 — I’m working from a premise that individuals make decisions that maximize their own welfare. So they express themselves as individuals, and pursue a corporation’s interests when their incentives persuade them to do so. There are pretty powerful theories in Econ like the Weak Axiom of Revealed Preference which can be interpreted to make this premise almost universally applicable, no matter what sorts of weird logic an individual professes to use (it can apply to addicts, gamblers, altruists, normal folks, etc).
It is possible for an individual to identify politically with a single profit stream. However, if you just allow one of their preferences to vary randomly from that of the business over a continuous range, then an individual identifies with a business with probability zero.
Put another way, human nature is so variable, and the optimal politics of business are so specific, that the two should never meet (though they can come very close).
I would explain Google’s politics as 1) they’re doing what they think is necessary to retain human talent, or 2) branding. I’m with Milton Friedman on the point that corporations are not designed to be socially responsible, and should not be expected to be so.
There are many impediments to full democratic expression out there. There’s the ability of narrow groups to derive huge benefits from small costs distributed widely; there’s the volume that wealth adds to political speech; there’s the high cost to voters of becoming well informed (almost none do); the two party system, media bias, et cetera. All of these intersect with the problem of excess corporate political influence. But it’s too complicated to get at them all, which is why I keep harping on the fundamental way in which corporations distort individual preferences.
One more quick point — elections do little to diminish the influence of corporations that contribute to both parties.
Whoops, that’s AML #47. That would make me the first person ever to confuse David for AML.
And (obviously) it’s also entirely possible that Google’s managers are distorting Google policy to suit their personal preferences.
Hey Al, when are you going to admit you were completely off base above when you claimed people were talking about outlawing corporations? You can’t even read, why should we take into account what you say?
“Only in the fantasy world you live in. In the real world in which I live, GlaxoSmithKline has their legislative prerogative, I have mine, and things are all sorted out politically in the end — just as the Founding Fathers designed it.”
So you are saying that I have the same level of access to legislators and political movers and shakers as companies like GSK, Boeing, Microsoft, Halliburton, etc.? Apparently there is a line somewhere that I missed because I gaurentee you they don’t pay attention to individuals they way they do to mega-corps.
As Casey pointed out this is a zero sum game, the more certain entities get power and influence, the less others will have. Unlimited donations from corporations decreases the amount of influence individuals can have.
I highly doubt the founding fathers believed that for profit corporations should be able to influence policy in their favor to the detriment of the citizens was how things would shake out.
“Not to mention, a lot of corporations (e.g. Google and many other Silicon Valley businesses) claim to have altruistic corporate motives and values beyond just what might make them more money as a corporation”
And as we’ve seen in particular with Google those claimed altruistic motives only go so far. Google did business under restrictive Chinese policies for years and only fought back co-incidentally at the same time there were attacks on their servers, allegedly at the hands of the Chinese Government. Google’s also in hot water over scanning and storing wifi data its street view cars ‘accidentally’ picked up. Granted some corporations are more altruistic then others, but the pattern seems to be the larger and more influential the less altruistic.
Casey, you’re starting to talk theoretical nonsense again. The fact that corporations and individuals focus on different details of legislative politics (or that one focuses more on isolated details and the other is more concerned about general themes) does not mean they necessarily work at cross purposes of each other.
At the end of the day, if you as an individual care to get involved, it all boils down to asking your representative to support or oppose this or that bill, and if tens of thousands of constituents respond vocally on the issue, the representative will necessarily hear the message and take that into account when he votes. Similarly, if a corporation tells a congressman that tweaking the language in this or that bill will mean millions in profits or hundreds in lost jobs, he’s going to listen. Sometimes these two forces will be at odds on a particular bill and the representative will have to make a hard choice; other times they will be aligned and he can easily satisfy both parties.
It is simply not axiomatic that corporate interests are contrary to citizens’ interests, and neither is the opposite true. Plenty of opportunities arise where corporations and individuals have the same interests, and just as many arise where one party doesn’t have a dog in the fight and/or they are at odds with each other. Both corporations and individuals are participating in the process the exact way representative democracy should allow.
Apparently there is a line somewhere that I missed because I gaurentee you they don’t pay attention to individuals they way they do to mega-corps.
Let’s see, if I am a congressman, to whom should I grant more access and listen more to: the whiny constituents who have an ideological axe to grind; or the “mega-corps” who have major skin in the game and count for millions of jobs and trillions in revenue? That being said, if there are enough whiny constituents banding together and threatening my reelection prospects, guess who I am going to listen to instead? So the system works as intended.
As Casey pointed out this is a zero sum game, the more certain entities get power and influence, the less others will have. Unlimited donations from corporations decreases the amount of influence individuals can have.
Are we talking about speech, or are we talking about access? If you want to argue campaign contributions are a way to pay for access and influence, and that this is a bad thing, there are other ways to defuse that problem that don’t require denuding corporations of their free speech rights. And in either case, a corporation donating millions to a 501c3 (the subject of Citizens United has no direct nexus to gaining access to a representative. As it stands, however, I guarantee you that you can head to your local congressman’s office or visit his office in Rayburn or wherever and his staff will absolutely listen to what you have to say. You want access — I guarantee you that you already have it and you’re probably just not availing yourself of it sufficiently.
I highly doubt the founding fathers believed that for profit corporations should be able to influence policy in their favor to the detriment of the citizens was how things would shake out.
I am willing to bet they absolutely did and considered that integral to the process, they just probably never foresaw what that looks like when corporations rake in trillions in revenue and a congressman represents 700,000 people instead of just a few hundred wealthy white male landowners. In any case, the Constitution is what it is.
Casey #52 – you are by no means “the first person ever to confuse David” … he seems to do it, himself, on a regular basis …
Speaking of which – #54 – how about “A new leak of posts to JournoList, a listserv for liberal journalists and commentators, shows participants arguing the merits of shutting down Fox News, according to The Daily Caller’s Jonathan Strong. In one message, UCLA law professor Jonathan Zasloff wonders if the FCC could “simply pull their broadcasting permit once it expires,” Strong reports, concluding, “The very existence of Fox News… sends Journolisters into paroxysms of rage.” “ from here ?
(Although I was responding to #26 and #27 responding (sort of) to my #25)