Corporations Are People?
JEFF MORROW, INC.: Until January, it was impossible to just live life normally. People would ask me where I was from, and the minute I mentioned I was chartered in Delaware, but mostly work in New York… that’s when I’d get the look. Maybe it was just a raised eyebrow, a stutter at the beginning of the next sentence, but it was impossible not to detect what had just dawned on them: He’s a corporation.
It’s been this way my whole life. When I was 7 years old, I was told I could only be involved with the little league team if I wanted to be a sponsor. Could you imagine if they said this to any other 7-year-old? The law suits! But I thought that’s just how things would always be, and I put up with it.
God, my board of directors was so small back then.
And that’s how it was under law. Oh you can sue me, that’s fine with you. But when someone asked me my opinion on politics, I had to be silent. Ask my constituent members, I’d say, ask them one at a time. The Supreme Court has finally said that enough is enough, that I’m a person, too. (No thank you, Justice Stevens.) I am entitled to free speech just like any other citizen.
And suddenly my future seems different. I never used to think I wanted to create subsidiaries, because why should they have to suffer, too? I never thought politics had anything to offer me. Now I have plans, hopes, and dreams. I’ve got a song in my heart that can only be sung with $150 million in quarterly earnings and, finally, people are going to hear it.
I only wish my parent corporation were still in the United States to see this day.
MOLLY SCHOEMANN: I don’t understand why everyone is so concerned about the fact that corporations are now free to donate massive sums of money to promote the political candidates of their choosing.
Corporations are an enormous and hallowed part of American life! We spend our lives wrapped tightly in the warm embrace of a colorful range of different companies. They feed us, entertain us, teach our children what is important, tell us what to drive and how to dress and where to shop. I ask you, where would we be without the guidance and leadership we enjoy thanks to enormous conglomerates and their hundreds of faithful CEOs, boards of directors, advertising executives and other employees? What would we do without them?
Why this sudden indignation at the idea of giving corporations the same freedoms and rights as people, anyway? Corporations already have personalities which we all know and love! You know as well as I do that Disney is the amiable, heartwarming and child-friendly but still evil one. PepsiCo is the dark horse with the evil heart of gold. Frito-Lay is its cheerful, friendly subsidiary that makes evil snacks. Fox is the sneaky evil conservative one. Kraft Foods is the gross one. And on and on! Please—we KNOW these corporations! They are like family to us! Why not give them a seat at the table when it comes to the leaders and issues who shape the rest of our lives?
Corporations already know how to advertise—it’s what they DO! Why stand in their way? I’m sure they’re going to be able to create some extremely compelling political advertisements! It will be a welcome change from the drab, amateurish quality of most commercials we see now a days that are financed by wussy little candidate support groups. How can we lose by letting Philip Morris inject some mystique into a politician’s ad, or allowing a little of GE’s maudlin sensitivity tug at our heartstrings as it convinces us that clean coal is the future?
Finally, I don’t see how we can say no to the desire of corporations to help us out in the political arena. It isn’t as though we’ve been doing a great job choosing leaders ourselves lately! Why not give our corporate friends the chance to get in there and help us make decisions about our leadership? ExxonMobil knows how much we like to drive– maybe they can remind us that we need to support a candidate who can make sure we continue to obtain as much oil as we can from wherever we can get it. Wal-Mart already knows how much we like cheaply made goods at rock-bottom prices; maybe they can help steer us toward a politician who is going to relax restrictions on child-labor laws to keep down the prices of imports. Now we’re talking! If we can help corporations, they’ll help us! Just like they’re doing now, only even more so.