Seriously. Not dystopian science fiction or a new novel by an AI version of George Orwell. Actual corporations — what America’s first Supreme Court Justice, John Marshall, in 1819 called “an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law” — are today voting in elections for everything from the mayor and town council to referendums on corporate taxes and limits on corporate behavior.
What could possibly go wrong?
There are, after all, more corporations than people in Delaware. They can now decide who’s going to run the government, what the laws are, and — through their votes to elect humans who’ll take corporate money to do what corporations want (something else that corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court legalized) — even what regulations companies must follow and what limits there are on their behavior.
“A judge in Delaware, where many big U.S. companies are incorporated, ruled on Tuesday that a small town that allows corporations to vote in municipal elections was not violating the state’s constitution. ”Delaware Superior Court Judge Craig Karsnitz said the beach town of Fenwick Island was not diluting human votes by allowing companies and other legal entities that own property to cast votes in municipal elections.“
Someone please look into this judge’s financials.
So I open a bunch of Delaware corporations and I can run an entire town?
Isn’t that how it’s always been?
Yeah, I believe that’s always been the plan.
That would be great if it weren’t Delaware
But now that you know, you’re Delaware.
That’s terrible. But also stupid. There’s nothing to stop each citizen from creating hundreds of corporations.
And they’ll collect a small fee for each one, profiting off an arms race to rig the election.
The corporations have to hold property within the municipality they’re voting in, I guess? So there would have to be some fuckery for the population to do that. But yeah if they can afford the fees for incorporation and get around that minor restriction I’m pretty sure this is explicitly the goal…
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They’ll need to give Delaware more votes in the electoral college as well to account for its massive dollar-weighted population of corporations.
How? What is the physical process by which they mark the ballot? Are voting booths going to have to be made to accommodate large buildings?
Citizens United was the death of what little democracy the USA had left.
oh, just finished reading the “article”. It’s kinda just an ad for Hartman’s new book, this has been going on for 140 years. There was just a recent ruling upholding it is all, Reuters has the actual article. Used to listen to Hartman a lot back in the day, sad to see him using a clickbait-inaccurate title.
Delaware court upholds voting by companies in small town’s election (actual correct article title)
The American Civil Liberties Union of Delaware sued the town, arguing it violated the elections clause of the state constitution. The group sought a court order blocking Fenwick Island from counting votes by “non-human artificial entities” in future elections. Nonresident voting in local elections has been permitted in Fenwick Island since it was incorporated in 1953, according to the court ruling. In 2008, Delaware’s General Assembly amended the charter to allow non-resident voting by artificial entities, including corporations, partnerships, trusts and limited liability companies, which must be chartered in Delaware.
Definitely shitty situation, but wtf Thom? From his opinion article:
Seriously. Not dystopian science fiction or a new novel by an AI version of George Orwell. Actual corporations
From the reuters article:
Karsnitz said he appreciated that the ACLU of Delaware might disagree with corporate voting. “Visions of faceless large corporations or even HAL controlling a small town are frightening and the stuff of science fiction,” he wrote
Is this just AI eating itself or like blatant lazy-plagiarism style writing to make an ad?
Let me get that for you: YES you ARE insane
Yes, insane and wrong.
Well, I have at least one corp registered there…time to look into how this works.
How very Shadowrun of you Delaware!
Nope been this way for quite awhile.
this is so absurd and will cause such a ridiculous result it will have to lead to reform. of course its going to be a real shitshow in the meantime. grab your popcorn, shits about to get weird.
Thats what they said about trump. Still waiting on those reforms…
It’s already weird. It’s been weird since Bush.
We’ve been insane for so long, everyone should read The Paranoid Style in American Politics for more on this
You should only be able to vote if you pay taxes. I’m pretty sure that would exclude most of the “On paper only” corporations that were formed for some sort of underhanded purpose (like to not pay taxes).
You should only be able to vote if you pay taxes.
This seems like a very weird proposition to me. So if you’re unemployed, no vote, but if you are a legal construct without a soul or a conscience, but you pay taxes, you’re welcome to vote? How is this sensible? It’s kind of discouraging and a little jarring to hear regular people valuing their fellow citizens by the taxes they pay. Paying taxes is certainly not the only way you can contribute to society, and shouldn’t be used to gatekeep your participation in said society.
Unemployed pay taxes on unemployment wages. They pay sales taxes. And countless other taxes… Only way to avoid paying taxes is not exist in society.
This is patently false; what if you are provided for by someone else? What if you are not eligible to collect unemployment benefits?
If someone manages to live without paying taxes, i think they’ll be perfectly fine not needing to vote cause they already living the dream.
Undocumented immigrants pay taxes
And therefore should have more protections under the law than corporations.
You should only be able to vote if you pay taxes.
If you pay taxes on income, not on profit.
