On 2006-05-02, Jay Honeck wrote:
Correction: the corporations are the masters, not the citizens.

And what are corporations? Large groups of people, each with a vote.

There's nothing wrong with corporations, per se. However, when they are
used by a minority of people holding proportionately very large amounts
of influence to buy legislation, things are getting rotten.

I'm always amused by people who use the word "corporation" in a
perjorative way. There are very few structures in the world more
democratic than a corporation

Corporations are only democratic to the extent you have a shareholder
interest in them. Is it right that I should have to buy probably
several hundred million dollars worth of shared in, say, Disney to
prevent Disney from buying Sen Fritz Hollings (D. South Carolina - now
people joke that 'D' no longer means Democrat, but Disney) and proposing
appalling legislation that would effectively prevent independent film
makers from being able to share their stuff over the internet, free of
control of the big film industries?

Corporations aren't democratic in the way a country is (supposedly)
democratic. In the US, every US citizen has the same vote. With
corporations, you have to be a shareholder, and the more shares you buy
the more power you have. In the context of running a corporation, there
is nothing at all wrong with this. However, when it results in these
same shareholders being able to purchase politicians via the company
boardroom to make laws for them that can be used to neuter the competition -
then there's something rotten, and the democratic principles of the
country are being undermined. The ability to buy legislation to impede
competition is also anti free market (i.e. anti-capitalist).

When it gets to the situation that the only realistic choices the
people have left to vote for in a given juristidiction are a few
corporate shills, all bought and paid for by various corporations,
then democracy has been subverted.

I am *PRO* the existence of corporations. However, I am *AGAINST* the
principle that large corporations should be essentially be allowed to
buy legislation to distort the market.

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