An article in ABC News reports that Romney was at a campaign event yesterday when he uttered: “Corporations are people, my friend,” and “everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people.”
He went on to justify his remark saying:
“Where do you think it goes?” Romney asked. “Whose pockets? People’s pockets,” he said, smiling. “Human beings, my friend.”
Mitt Romney’s utterance exposes the deep philosophical divide between the “reform” and non-“reform” community. Although this divide extends well beyond the topic of campaign finance law, it is particularly relevant when framing the discussion of what role corporations should play in our electoral process.
To reformers, corporations are more often than not faceless behemoths that serve one goal: creating profits at all costs, even at the expense of the little man. This does not seem right to reformers, and therefore should be fixed through government intervention.
To someone like myself, corporations are organization composed of real, living people who are driven towards the ultimate goal of becoming more successful than their competition and increasing the wealth of their shareholders. Most of the time, this is accomplished by providing services or goods ranging from necessary for survival to improving quality of life. Corporations come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from the enormous New York City based C corporations (that the reform community would have you believe are the only “corporations”) to the small, locally owned S corporations that provide the economic backbone or main street America. In this view, having winners and losers are essential because it encourages society to operate more efficiently, while the government upsets this efficiency by artificially distorting the market.
These two very different views are the underlying source of the inability for “reformers” and non-“reformer” to reconcile their positions on campaign finance law.
Corporations may not literally be people, but they are literally composed of them. The Constitution protects the right of people, even assembled into groups, to express their opinion. Although a corporation is not primarily a political entity, it is a group of people who deserve the same rights to participate in political debate as every other peaceably assembled group in America.
