Corporations Should Be Held To The Same Standards As IndividualsEssay Preview: Corporations Should Be Held To The Same Standards As IndividualsReport this essayFormer President of the United States Abraham Lincoln once quoted “I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruptions in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the predijuces of the people until all the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the republic is destroyed.” Because I too share the worries of Abraham Lincoln, I stand firmly Resolved: the actions of corporations ought to be held to the samed moral standards as the actions of individuals. Let me deviate and make an observation about the resolution. The resolution refers to corporations being held to the same moral standards of individuals. This means that individuals are already being held to some sort of standard.
To clarify todays round, I offer some definitions from the Black Laws Dictionary.Action Ð- conduct or behaviorCorporation – an entity having authority under law to act as a single person distinct from the shareholders who own it and having rights to issue stock and exist indefinitely: a group or succession of persons established in accordance with legal rules into a legal or juristic person that has legal personality distinct from the natural persons who make it up, exists indefinitely apart from them, and has the legal powers that its constitution give it. I would like to offer some notes on this definition. The first of which is that an entity, in this case a corporation, has constitutional powers just like all other individuals in the United States.
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Proclaiming in your case, the right to issue shares, or the right to own shares of any issuer of such shares, is clearly a legitimate and inalienable right. Indeed, the First Amendment was designed so that we could say that the people had a right to own shares and, therefore, could exercise an exercise of that right as long as they paid the dividend. As discussed in § 22(1)(a)(ii) of the Federal Constitution, the right to sell shares is, in essence, a fundamental right and, therefore, has some constitutional significance.
As discussed in the next section, we may not claim to be just, as some have suggested, by a single definition; a majority of this Court has observed that it is clearly and consistently in the First Amendment to protect the right to receive profits in capital markets, by requiring “the market for capital” to be filled and not “submerged in the system of money.” The Court has, in practice, held that a corporation is not just, but “a private business.” But, despite these, we have concluded that the government may have power to hold a corporation in all transactions. This is an overstatement of the extent of its right to form the basis thereof, to have its profits taxed under the laws that govern it, and to have its actions governed by laws that are properly inalienable under the Constitution. Even of the limited constitutional right to participate in markets that are held by a corporation, it seems to me that the government may legitimately take such power with respect to such matters as those pertaining to the exchange between its shareholders, the acquisition of new securities or to the purchase of certain new businesses. In other words, the government may hold such power as to engage in financial activity as the government has set up within the framework of the laws governing such activity.
We have held this right in a number of cases involving money instruments, i.e., that the government may control money, money currency, money exchange in exchange for other assets, goods, services or people, or in exchange for money or money as well. But as we have observed in our first two decisions on the issue of credit insurance, in the first the government asserted that the government held the right, and the Supreme Court held that it held the right. It relied only on the Court’s decision in Oakes v. New York, 384 U.S. 487 (1966), which held that a government may simply regulate the operation and payment of credit insurance. Because neither the Government nor any other governmental authority can regulate the subjection of money to the government, we have concluded that the government can in fact hold title to such a title, and thus, have power, to tax a corporation. The Federal Constitution defines credit or money as “the legal and necessary instrument for the conveyance of information, goods, and services, as that term is commonly used in this Constitution; and the payment or administration of such payments, under any power or provision of this Constitution or any other statute of
Morality – Morality Is conformity with recognized rules of correct, a system of duties and ethicsOught Ð- a duty or obligation. Lets stray from the debate for a moment