Un artículo que revisa de manera interesante lo peligroso que puede ser que las compañías -o cualquier otra “cosa”- sean tratadas como personas, que tengan los mismos derechos que un individuo -como la ley estadounidense lo permite- y hasta menos responsabilidades que este.
Cuando he debatido aquí sobre la tauromaquia y otros temas relacionados al tratamiento ético de los animales, siempre he llegado a la conclusión -triste pero cierta- que los animales “no tienen derecho a tener derechos” (por definición de lo que “derecho” es). Con las corporaciones debería ser lo mismo.
Ya ni hablemos de otras cosas destinadas a operar de manera autónoma, como los robots (drones), que según este artículo de Slate también van por el mismo van camino…
Here’s what Judge O’Dell-Seneca said last year in the Hallowich v Range case:
Corporations, companies and partnership have no spiritual nature, feelings, intellect, beliefs, thoughts, emotions or sensations because they do not exist in the manner that humankind exists…They cannot be ‘let alone’ by government because businesses are but grapes, ripe upon the vine of the law, that the people of this Commonwealth raise, tend and prune at their pleasure and need.
To this list of attributes, MacDonald Glenn adds a lack of conscience.
“I’ve heard it said that if a corporation had a psychological profile done, it would be a psychopath,” she told io9. “ The concept of corporations was created partially to shield natural persons from liability; and it allowed individuals to create something, a business, that was larger than themselves and could exist in perpetuity. But it’s twisted reasoning to allow them to have equal or higher status than ‘natural’ persons or other sentient beings. A corporation cannot laugh or love; it doesn’t enjoy the warm breezes of summer, or mourn the loss of a loved one. In short, corporations are not sentient beings; they are artifacts.”
Similarly, solicitor general Elena Kagan has warned against expanding the notion of corporate personhood. In 2009 she said: “Few of us are only our economic interests. We have beliefs. We have convictions. [Corporations] engage the political process in an entirely different way, and this is what makes them so much more damaging.”
The New York Times has also come out in condemnation of the concept:
The law also gives corporations special legal status: limited liability, special rules for the accumulation of assets and the ability to live forever. These rules put corporations in a privileged position in producing profits and aggregating wealth. Their influence would be overwhelming with the full array of rights that people have.
One of the main areas where corporations’ rights have long been limited is politics. Polls suggest that Americans are worried about the influence that corporations already have with elected officials. The drive to give corporations more rights is coming from the court’s conservative bloc — a curious position given their often-proclaimed devotion to the text of the Constitution.
The founders of this nation knew just what they were doing when they drew a line between legally created economic entities and living, breathing human beings. The court should stick to that line.…
i_alcocer ████████ 