The word “corporation” derives from corpus, the Latin word for body, or a “body of people”. Entities which carried on business and were the subjects of legal rights were found in ancient Rome, and the Maurya Empire in ancient India.[6] In medieval Europe, churches became incorporated, as did local governments, such as the Pope and the City of London Corporation. The point was that the incorporation would survive longer than the lives of any particular member, existing in perpetuity. The alleged oldest commercial corporation in the world, the Stora Kopparberg mining community in Falun, Sweden, obtained a charter from King Magnus Eriksson in 1347. Many European nations chartered corporations to lead colonial ventures, such as the Dutch East India Company or the Hudson’s Bay Company, and these corporations came to play a large part in the history of corporate colonialism.

Clearly this practice is thousands of years old. The corporation as legal entity predates the person.

The question becomes on what authority can the state affect person-hood. The answer is very little if any at all. Therefore Using criminal law to constrain their behavior is problematic As abstractions corporations have no Innate or Intrinsic capacity for behavior.

Only the behavior of Rational Mechanisms and Levers
can be constrained.

Corporations are constrained by corporate law. If you Want to limit corporate power then use corporate law to do so.

Nicely put. Cuts right to the core of what’s wrong with corporate political action of any kind.

I don’t see what the significance of this court case is. The horses have long ago left the barn. There are already millions and millions of corporate dollars flowing through our political system. Just look at the contributions of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries to our national political leaders. Do you think these dollars have no effect on the outcome of the health care debate? Whatever the decision here, the corporate dollars will continue to flow and will continue to have an outsized impact on political decisions. I do not think that the sine qua non of our political system should be the well being of corporations.

Why libertarians refuse to see the threat posed by the huge and unbridled power of large corporations to our freedoms escapes me.

Is there any wonder who gains the most from easy money policies and asset bubbles and how those parties have engaged in regulatory capture?

Reform campaign financing and curb lobbyism; that is the solution.

Fine, but that’s still not the definition of “pull” I was working with.

Moreover, adding the restrictions we place on media corporations deeply complicates your view. Many of the same people who favor campaign contribution restrictions also favor restrictions on broadcast ownership.

The question is whether YOU can more confidently say you are not brainwashed and have accurate beliefs than your counterpart, who would likely claim that his/her beliefs are perfectly sensible while yours are deranged.

Maybe that’s the question to you, but to me this scenario just demonstrates why thought experiments asking me to consult with selves in alternate worlds is just an inherently problematic and suspect idea.

This seems like asking whether the opinion of my alternative self after having undergone brainwashing should be trusted on the topic of brainwashing.
The question is whether YOU can more confidently say you are not brainwashed and have accurate beliefs than your counterpart, who would likely claim that his/her beliefs are perfectly sensible while yours are deranged.