Sorry, Mitt — they still aren’t people

Mitt Romney tries the warmer, personal approach, trying to come across as a Nice Guy who (still) just thinks the Corporations (not unlike Soylent Green) are People.

At Wednesday’s town hall, Romney said: “Corporations — they’re made up of people. They’re just groups of people that come together for work. When you say tax corporations — the steel and the vinyl and the concrete, they don’t pay taxes. Only people do.”

Yes.  The premium shareholders.  The CEOs and top officials. They’re “just” people.  Making very, very big bucks from the very, very big megabucks that the corporations make.

But, of course, the point of corporations was to limit  personal responsibility (by people) in the liabilities of the company they formed.  The people who are receiving the largesse of the corporations aren’t actually the corporation themselves.  If Exxon-Mobil goes bankrupt, the creditors don’t get to go after the bank accounts of the CEO and the stockholders (though the company pension funds of the janitors and clerks are fair game).

So, no, Mitt — a corporation isn’t just the people that work for it.

Further, corporations are taxed on their profits, not their revenues.  So the “expenses” of, say, the company payroll  aren’t what a corporate tax is taking away from.  The folks most directly hurt are those who are in profit-sharing plans, and (I believe — and I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong) those who are getting dividends.

Now, those profits may be saved to some later time for investment in other business-expanding capabilities, or acquisitions, etc.  But while taxes can, in fact, affect a corporation in a negative way, and through it the society it operates in, to somehow make that the direct equivalent of affecting the poor, beknighted “groups of people that come together for work” is more than a bit disingenuous.

“I know there are people that don’t like business,” he said. “I like business. . . .

Business is useful.  It serves a societal role.  It serves society and the people of society.

It is not, itself, one of those people.  It is not drafted.  It is not endowed by its founders with the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Businesses do not cry, nor laugh.  If you prick them, they do not bleed.  They cannot be imprisoned, nor do they possess a soul (or qualia).

I like what business can do as a mechanism. Not as a peer.

If we go into attacking one another as Americans and criticizing and scapegoating businesses or enterprise or even the financial-services sector or banks, if we find people to go after, we will fall divided.”

Really?  Do we have examples of societies or nations that fell because businesses and banks were criticized?  Really?

Businesses are not people (though they are governed by people).  Businesses have no citizenship — they are not eligible to vote (yet), nor to run for office. They are governed by the laws of the nation, but hold no particular allegiance or nationality, except as might leach through from their founders or operators.

One cannot attack a business and be rightfully accused of attacking “an American.”  Business give no pledge to the flag; they simply operate by the laws of the land (in theory) and are subject to civil (not criminal) penalties should they break those laws.

On the other hand, I wouldn’t suggest “going after” Bank of America, or Goldman-Sachs, or BP, or Exxon-Mobile, or Wal-Mart, for anything in particular — because they aren’t moral agents. They act at the behest of their boards, their executives.  Those are the folks who bear the moral weight of the actions of the companies and the companies’ workers — and if there is a point to “going after” a given company, it’s to punish those who profit by it.

As for taxes on corporations, I wouldn’t impose them willy-nilly — to the extent that corporations are useful to society and the people as a whole (and only to that extent), I’m happy to see them prosper.

On the other hand, I think people should pay taxes, according to their ability.  And, in just that case, I would say that corporations should indeed be treated like people. If not moreso.