10 Reasons Corporations Aren't People

10. People have names, corporations have logos. 
It's a simple concept: people have names like Larry, Twiggy, Sigismund, Thorvald, Ranjeev, Dev Singh and Thaksin Chachavalpongpun. Corporations have logos with large red or blue letters and nifty tag lines in them, like this one:

9. People have nicknames, corporations have "alternative negative desciptors."
So,  for family members we might have affectionate nicknames like Dimple, Cupcake or Beeswax. Or the usual all-purpose sobriquets like Lefty or Gimpy, Butch, Bubba, Chief or Ace. None of these could be applied to a corporate entity with any propriety or plausibility, whereas some such descriptive phrase as "Murder, Inc." could only designate something called Blackwater USA whose logo says it less subtly:

8. People have families, corporations have subsidiaries. People have genealogies, corporations have histories of acquisition. 

7. When people sell drugs, they get arrested. When corporations sell drugs, they pay dividends.

 "No, no - it's hydroponic arugula, officer."

6. People marry, corporations merge. 
 (Although some marriages resemble mergers.)

"Then I think about how rich you are, and everything's all right again."
(Gahan Wilson)

5. People get hostile divorces, corporations manage hostile takeovers.

Never sell your company to a guy who wears a striped tie.

  

4. People get to vote. Corporations don't (yet).
Basic eligibility to vote is set out in the U.S. Constitution, which says that suffrage cannot be denied on grounds of race or color, sex, or age for citizens eighteen years or older. But it doesn't say anything about corporations being either citizens in the accepted use of the term, nor eligible to vote. I'm sure someone is working on that, though - a block of corporate votes could be ascribed based on net corporate worth. That way, things won't get out of hand again, like they did in Zucotti Park. 

3. A person cannot buy, purchase, hold financial interest in, inherit, appropriate, own shares in or in other wise own another person. 
At least that's what the 13th Amendment says. But you can own stock, shares or other interest in AT&T, ExxonMobil, General Motors, General Electric, and it's considered wise investing, not slavery or indentured servitude.

2. "No person, whether a citizen, naturalized citizen, resident or nonresident alien, may buy, purchase, rent, rent to own, exchange for equivalent consideration, franchise, let, sublet, lease, indenture, auction, or (inclusive of the foregoing) in any manner own, possess, nor hold in seizin, tenancy, socage or villeinage, nor inherit, engross, or appropriate for equivalent consideration, any member duly elected and currently serving elective office in the United States Congress, whether in the House of Representatives or the Senate."  

I think it says something like that, maybe not those words exactly, but it's somewhere in the Constitution. Isn't it? Did I just write that? So does this mean no subsidies for me again this year?

"Then I think about how rich you are, and everything's all right again."

 1. As of April 2011, Texas held 321 inmates on death row. As of August 2011, the state has carried out 234 executions. No member of either the detained or executed parties was a corporation.

"So shoot me."

The Elephant in the Back Room

It can hardly have escaped general notice that the world is currently in an election cycle. As happens every five years, it's time once again to elect the legislative assembly of Uttar Pradesh, one of India's larger and more populous states. The reigning party in "You Pee" (as the state is fondly known in India) is Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), whose symbol is the evocative and much-adored elephant, rendered exactly thus:

I say "evocative and much-adored" because the elephant, in the person of Ganesh, is patron of the arts and sciences, bestower of intellect, grantor of wisdom and learning:

"Four arms and a trunk - top that."

I say "in the person of Ganesh," presuming godheads can be persons. On the other hand, if corporations can be persons, particularly in an election cycle, then assuredly godheads can be as well, particularly since we've agreed to indulge in fictions. Be that as it may, the Indian nation holds Ganapati in high regard and shows it in many forms, not least of which is an affectionate ritual of waterboarding.

(Glad he has a long trunk)

As it happens, the party which has chosen the elephant as its symbol is a centrist party with socialist leanings and represents Bahujans ("people in majority"), the very lowest castes and various neglected minorities. Time reports that in Uttar Pradesh, "Workers had to cover nearly 200 statues of elephants . . . because the nation's election commission ruled that since the statues were built using public money, they violated rules for next month's election and gave the Bahujan Samaj Party an unfair advantage of added visibility." They were duly shrouded from view more or less effectively.

 "Ummm, let's see . . . catamaran? catamite?"

It should have occurred to someone in the loyal opposition that wrapping acres of large elephant statues in bright colors might not be the best way to divert public attention. Turns out there are a good many elephant statues around You Pee - tarpaulins in any color have quickly come in scarce supply and tarpaulin funds have gone through the ceiling on the Hong Kong Exchange.

One can only applaud the fairmindedness and evenhandedness of the state's election officials, overlooking for a moment the negligible socio-economic status of the elephantine party's adherents. Such local custom can appear, in a more enlightened and (dare I say) developed country, to be a kind of electoral tampering. And it should come as little surprise that the noble elephant . . . 

. . . should, in a benighted nation, stand for adherence to a godless socialism, or symbolize wisdom, learning and intellect, for all of that - a nation of heathens who subscribe to erroneous creation myths, heterodox incarnations of the Divine, the carnal trafficking of gods with humans, and other like superstitions. . . .

Wait. I've seen that blank stare, the studied smile, the deathlike rictus somewhere before. Ahh . . .

Nonetheless, it seems creditable of India's national election commission to at least attempt to obscure from public notice anything that may unduly influence democratic process in the world's largest democracy. In this, India has taken a page from the world's oldest democracy, our own, where anything that may unduly influence democratic process is, with the wise indulgence of our highest courts, obscured from public notice.

Name It, You Can Have It

[My father's] opinion, in this matter, was, That there was a strange kind of magick bias, which good or bad names, as he called them, irresistibly impressed upon our characters and conduct. . . . How many Caesars and Pompeys, he would say, by mere inspiration of the names, have been rendered worthy of them? And how many. . .who might have done exceeding well in the world, had not their characters and spirits been totally depressed and Nicodemus’d into nothing?

   - Laurence Sterne, "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent." (Bk.I, ch. XIX)

The sports section in yesterday's New York Times features a reflection on Ted Williams's 70-year-old record .406 batting average, a neat tribute to Williams's prowess as "baseball’s greatest hitter." 

The Swing

What caught my attention, however, was this: "His batting average stood at .39955 with a season-finale doubleheader to be played the next day [Sept. 28, 1941] at Shibe Park, home of Connie Mack’s Athletics." That particular sentence stood out because, driving home through Denver a day or so earlier, I passed by Sports Authority Field, formerly Invesco Field, the home stadium of the Denver Broncos. (Sports Authority, since there's no way for most people to know this bit of trivia, is a Denver-based chain of sporting goods stores which purchased the naming rights to the stadium last month in a 25-year deal at $6 million per annum. Obviously, Invesco needed the dough in these troubled economic times.)

Where is this?

Anyway, reading this sentence, the name "Shibe Park" came back through the mists of a half-century, a nerdy kid glued to the radio listening to Yankees or Dodgers or Giants baseball games. Everyone in those palmier days knew where Ebbetts Field or the Polo Grounds were, and which teams played where. Comiskey Park and Fenway Park, Wrigley Field and Forbes Field, Briggs Stadium - the names of the venues went with the names of the teams. Some were obvious - the Indians played in Cleveland Stadium. 

But who on earth plays at Progressive Field? Or MetLife Stadium? The Packers still play at Lambeau Field in Green Bay - but who plays at M&T Bank Stadium? The 49ers play in Candlestick Park. Who plays in Qualcomm Stadium? Even a casual fan can probably tell you who plays at Soldier Field ("da Bears") or Coors Field. But Safeco Field? PETCO Park?

 Soldier Field (with classical neo-fascist facade) 

Admittedly, corporate sponsorship is nothing new. . .

"It's your coliseum, Boss . . . "

But - and not wishing to belabor the point - on the time-honored premise that sport is a metaphor for life, I've come up with a few of my own ideas for naming opportunities. I suspect these have already occurred to someone, but try them on and roll them around on your tongue.

 . . . the Frito Lay/Toys-R-Us 112th Legislative Session of the State of Texas

. . . the Nabisco/Hellman's Real Mayonnaise Presidential Bodyguards

. . . the Budget Rent-a-Car/QuickLube Presidential Motorcade

The high-stakes sponsorships, of course, are already taken.

The Koch Industries/Time-Warner-Disney Supreme Court of the U.S.

 The Cargill/ADM Senate of the United States

The Goldman Sachs Chair of the Federal Reserve

No, I'm not even going to think about it. Could never happen . . . .