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Unexpected things that are people

bengoldhaber.substack.com

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Re: Unexpected things that are people

#31

Post by roywiggins »

9rx wrote: post #29
roywiggins wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This concept is called legal personhood: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_person When it's not a natural person (ie, a human being) it's called a juridical person: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juridical_person "Person" is in this usage a piece of legal jargon.

> "Person" is in this usage a piece of legal jargon. There is no usage of "Person" here. It says "People". The plural of "legal person" is "legal persons", so clearly nobody is talking about that.

The entire rest of the article is about legal personhood.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#32

Post by 9rx »

roywiggins wrote: post #31
9rx wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Person" is in this usage a piece of legal jargon. There is no usage of "Person" here. It says "People". The plural of "legal person" is "legal persons", so clearly nobody is talking about that.

The entire rest of the article is about legal personhood.

That's all well and good, but we're not talking about the rest of the article. Only the bit that says "It’s widely known that Corporations are People" — which is not about legal personhood. "People" always refers to those found in the flesh. Which, like before, is why the law is careful to use "legal persons" instead of "legal people" when the plural form is relevant; to not confuse non-human legal entities as being people.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#33

Post by roywiggins »

chemotaxis wrote: post #5

Wouldn't personal property in the US fall under the same criteria, in the sense that the government can sue the property itself (civil forfeiture)? But I think the boring answer here is that we sometimes need legal abstractions. If they don't exist, Microsoft is no longer a distinct entity; it's 200,000 people who for some reason talk to each other, and you can't really audit their finances, punish them collectively,…

Property can't enter into contracts or own bank accounts, which is probably the big marker for traditional corporate personhood. It might be possible to sue property but property can't itself sue, so it's not the same type of thing as a corporate person, which can.

You wouldn't need "in rem" jurisdiction if there was a legal person to sue, you'd just call it "in personam" like normal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_rem_jurisdiction

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#34

Post by markerz »

robot-wrangler wrote: post #7

Thought provoking. Most people who (quite reasonably) hate corporate personhood would probably have a knee-jerk reaction that personhood for a river can/should be normalized. The thing with temples stems ultimately from fairly practical matters if they hold such treasure, but it's a magnet for strife, and actually kind of surprising that in the case-study mentioned they resisted the opportunity to justify abuse of po…

For those unfamiliar, personhood status for environmental protection is real (beyond what the original blog mentioned)

NYTimes: In Move to Protect Whales, Polynesian Indigenous Groups Give Them ‘Personhood’ https://archive.is/H5fq8

Nat Geo: This Canadian river is now legally a person. It’s not the only one. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/these-rive...

I wonder how our mental model of nature will evolve over the next decades. For example, in the early 1900's, the United States had more laws protecting animals from overwork than it did for children. That feels unfathomable in today's United States, where animals are treated more as property than people. Perhaps something similar will happen, where we will understand everything as a "legal entity" that has protections.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#37

Post by robot-wrangler »

altruios wrote: post #23
robot-wrangler wrote: post #7

Thought provoking. Most people who (quite reasonably) hate corporate personhood would probably have a knee-jerk reaction that personhood for a river can/should be normalized. The thing with temples stems ultimately from fairly practical matters if they hold such treasure, but it's a magnet for strife, and actually kind of surprising that in the case-study mentioned they resisted the opportunity to justify abuse of po…

> Most people who (quite reasonably) hate corporate personhood would probably have a knee-jerk reaction that personhood for a river can/should be normalized. Three replies now, all saying that this is nonsense (including this one). I would venture to say it's the other way around: if you are okay with a river having 'personhood' then that logically leads to being okay with a group of people having 'personhood'. Eleph…

Personhood for non-persons is definitely absurd. But if you're actually stuck with a broken system, then the most logical thing to do is at least apply your broken logic consistently. That's an important part of the difference between rule of law and wild corrupt barbarism. Of course it's much better to actually fix absurdities, but if you can't or won't, inconsistency still has to be forbidden or else the whole thing is a farce

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#38

Post by JackFr »

robot-wrangler wrote: post #7

Thought provoking. Most people who (quite reasonably) hate corporate personhood would probably have a knee-jerk reaction that personhood for a river can/should be normalized. The thing with temples stems ultimately from fairly practical matters if they hold such treasure, but it's a magnet for strife, and actually kind of surprising that in the case-study mentioned they resisted the opportunity to justify abuse of po…

> Most people who (quite reasonably) hate corporate personhood

Most people understand that incorporated businesses need to own property, enter into contracts and act as either plaintiff or defendant in lawsuits.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#40

Post by umeshunni »

jama211 wrote: post #39
zkmon wrote: post #35

You should change the title to "Unexpected things that are legal entities ", to make it less click-baity.

I think it’s fine because it plays off the commonly stated “corporations are people” sentence that exists in the world.

I usually use that as a bozo filter
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