Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Corporate Suffrage, the next step

Since the Supreme Court decision, striking down laws against corporations participating in politics, I've been lecturing on the value of corporate personhood in general.

Corporate stockholders are restless because of discrimination, and that great day of liberation, of equality is dawning.

For centuries, corporations have been denied the right to vote. It has been a long climb for us. Winning recognition of our companies' human rights, equal protections, and the principle that money is free speech, has taken us centuries. To be guarenteed by the supreme court, I mean.

But freedom and equality for corporations is still unfinished. Our companies, today, remain unequal to other persons, even to single individuals. And this has got to be fixed.

Those who block corporations from voting in elections are really trampling on the rights of shareholders. This prejudice is a form of ignorance. You cant blame people, up to a point.

Shareholders have a right to political expression. The key thing is, this right is a transitive right. It can be exercised through your company just as we exercise it through our realtors, or our bankers.

Just because you're exercising your political rights through your company, is no reason for society to block it. When society blocks our companies from voting it is the same thing as blocking the stockholders from voting-- and there are millions of stockholders. This is a monstrous crime.

All people are born with the right of private ownership, it's in the Constitution (and you know that can't be wrong.) Chldren must be taught that the title to things is an intrinsic property of matter, just like its weight or its temperature. What this means is all the universe, from the tiniest subatomic particle to the billions of stars above, falls under the dominion of private ownership even if the owner has not exerted their rights yet. This is in the Bible.

Most of the title to the universe has been settled, in fact, it is claimed more than once, by multiple people, in some parts of the world which is why they are all screwed up. God has blessed America with an unambiguous system where there is nobody left alive who is still disputing the ownership of things. The title to everything has been pretty much settled. And, eventually all title will be held by corporations, with eternal life.

What remains unfinished is to bring all the rest of the world under this marvelous system of title, which is also known as Freedom.

This principle is the key to wealth creation in our great, American economy -- seeing things in the universe, getting them into the private property system, acquiring them, getting people to buy and sell them, so these things can be migrated onto the balance sheets of corporations. The prophets Hernando DeSoto, Ronald Coase, Ludvig Von Mises, Michael Medved, etc. say this is inevitable.

The more time that goes by, the more critically important it will be that Corporations vote. First of all it is their duty as citizens; freedom isn't free, and it involves responsibilities. But over time, as the votes and the assets of individuals become less and less, the nation faces instability and turmoil without the enfranchisement of corporations. The stability and predictability of corporate stockholders' votes through corporations will gradually replace the arbitrary swings of individual votes.

Corporations will replace the earlier institutions where individuals have delegated their power (through the parties, who control elections and then through the people who win election to legislatures and congress. )

It is clear that corporations are a clear channel for expression of all stockholders' political interests since corporations are so democratically run. That's why we want the Directors to vote our shares, instead of the vagaries of elected representatives like congress.

I hope that this main point has come through.

Corporations are going to vote, and, they are going to be entitled to proportionate representation--- not just ONE vote. This is destiny. You can make this hard, and probably get yourself fired, or you can be reasonable, and be a responsible citizen, and end the discrimination against corporations!

In my next chapter I will discuss corporate poverty in America, and the economic assistance and affirmative action that will be needed on large scale to end the cycle of despair in corporate boardrooms,

As I have been saying, many people apparently assume corporations are all rich; that's certainly not the case. Many corporations are born into poverty and it goes downhill from there. Corporate poverty is the root of corporate crime, and it's getting worse and worse, something must be done about this grinding poverty an alienation in the boardrooms of America.

The problem has gone on so long that corporations have spun off, been acquired and disposed of so many times they've lost contact with their indigenous culture. Their cultural identity. It's like broken families.

For example hardly any corporations realize their personhood, guaranteed by the supreme court.

For example, all the larger corporations today work only thru other persons, through politicians such as Dick Cheney or Tom Delay. Instead of the full realization of corporate identity, these are mere people -- a degenerate form of political entity. They are not the pure expressions of corporatism. For instance they are greedy and avaricious for their own enrichment, whereas the corporation is a selfless expression for the enrichment of it stockholders. That is altruism. in corporations we have created entities as a pure expression of godliness.

A corporation is an exemplary creation because it is the incorporation of an actual fictional person. Now if that sounds contradictory, actual and fictional, I'm going to explain that sometime. But any lawyer will confirm to you, a corporation is a legal fiction. Most people can't hoist it in because they have so much other crap on deck, so many other beliefs they can't let go of. So they throw it overboard.

So what we have is, an actual fictional person of superhuman character, which lives forever, and has realized his cultural heritage as a corporation. Every corporation has a divine form, which is one with all other corporations. and sometimes they reveal their divine form, just like Lord Krishna on the battlefield of the Bhagavad Gita. The new breed of corporate person who speaks for himself! Corporations, have freedom of speech and know how to use it.

So if anybody in the audience asked me about the divine form of Corporations, I would have to admit that I am not that close to the Personhood itself, although without apology since I don't think anybody else is either. You see, corporate personhood is a profound mystery. It is not a physical thing of course. Is your personality a physical thing? Of course not. It is an abstract thing, and it rides upon the physical body and brain, and the mind.

I have medicated myself at the feet of this royal personhood and I have seen the divine form although I seldom talk about it in public. It is not a he or a she. Personhood of a corporation is beyond time and the limitations of liabilities, er. I mean, the physical dimensions. So it is a kind of blasphemy to talk of a particular corporation as if it were a human, although, we sometimes trivialize that in the teaching children, you know, just as they do with religious stories for children in other religions--to teach children about other things that cannot be completely revealed.

Like I was saying, the key problem is corporate poverty -- and the cancer and the rot in corporations, executives attacking other executives, that has to stop.. But the key distinction is that these executives and stockholders are mere humans and the corporate form is divine.

Note that the stockholders are billionaires, that's not the problem, there's no problem of poverty among billionnaires --among american stockholders. The corporations are broke because they have transferred all their money to the stockholders while leaving the liabilities behind.

So it's important that the right and the left both should understand, the only way to solve this problem is A) first of all, targeted tax credits for all officers or directors of corporations, to alleviate their cash flow problems that are making them drain so much of the money from corporations they control, loot the companies. But most of all, B) corporate welfare programs-- I mean this is an old idea --- but with responsibility, not just giveaways- -- to qualify, corporations would have to be current in all their debt payments to banks, and their dividend payouts, and find some other way to break out of their cycle of poverty --for example they should fire all their unnecessary employees. Also the incentive to work must not be undermined. To qualify for corporate welfare, corporations would have to hire other corporations, maybe. I mean, they would have to transfer some of the federal money to other corporations. That's how corporations "work". Like I said, a corporation is a very abstract thing.

Now I want you to look closely at this gold watch. I want you to put everything out of mind.... See it swinging, rythimically, from side to side. Your eyes are getting heavy You are feeling sleeeeeeeppppyyyy. You are asleeeeeeeepppp.....

TOdd

2 comments:

DocRichard said...

Love it.

Of course, if corporations are persons, they should be subject to the same tax rate as persons, shouldn't they? I don't earn as much as a corporate-person, but I'm on 40%, so I reckon they should be on >60%.

In Ireland they're on 12%, and UK ~23% I blieve. So applying individual tax rates to corporate persons will help our budget deficits no end...

Todd Boyle said...

I would like to deduct the payments made to related parties, like corporations can do. Thereby, all of the costs having a spouse, children, etc. would be deductible. Furthermore, it would be nice if we could deduct from income all the costs of transportation, clothing, and the meals necessary to work. In fact, all food, shelter, house, healthcare, etc. are ordinary and necessary business expenses. So was college. I took an accounting degree, obviously the *only* reason I invested the time and money was for work. Graduates should be able to deduct their costs of college, especially in this era when they are paying vastly higher tuition on a social theory that they are the beneficiaries of higher salaries.