English 中文网 漫画网 爱新闻iNews 翻译论坛
中国网站品牌栏目(频道)
当前位置: Language Tips> Audio & Video> 新闻播报> Special Speed News VOA慢速

How a corporation is like a person

[ 2010-03-08 14:00]     字号 [] [] []  
免费订阅30天China Daily双语新闻手机报:移动用户编辑短信CD至106580009009

How a corporation is like a person

This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.

Recently the United States Supreme Court decided a big case about political speech. The question was this: With political speech, do corporations have the same rights as people?

By a vote of five to four, the conservative majority on the court decided yes. Companies, labor unions and other organizations may now spend as they wish on independent efforts to elect or defeat candidates.

The ruling is based on the idea in the United States and many other countries that a corporation is a legal person.

Historian Jeff Sklansky says a slow shift to personhood for American companies began with a Supreme Court ruling in 1819. It said states cannot interfere with private contracts creating corporations.

In the ruling, Chief Justice John Marshall described a corporation as an "artificial being" that is a "creature of the law."

The ruling was unpopular. It came as Americans resisted big corporations like the First Bank of the United States, chartered by Congress. Some states passed laws permitting themselves to change or even cancel corporate charters.

After the Civil War in the 1860s, the Fourteenth Amendment was added to the Constitution. It provides that no state may "deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law ... " If a corporation is legally a person, then states cannot limit corporate rights without due process of law either.

At first, corporations were not fully recognized as persons. But Jeff Sklansky at Oregon State University says that changed.

JEFF SKLANSKY: "The general direction of the Supreme Court and the federal courts in general was to recognize corporations as persons with the same Fourteenth Amendment rights as individuals."

Yet corporations have a right that real people do not: limited liability. For example, a corporation can face civil or criminal fines and individual lawbreakers can go to jail. But limited liability means the actions of a corporation are not the responsibility of its shareholders.

Jeff Sklansky says the 19th century development of limited liability helped shape the modern corporation.

JEFFREY SKLANSKY: "That is also crucial to allowing corporations a kind of independent personhood and separating ownership from control or ownership from management. So [the idea is] that I can invest in a corporation without becoming liable for all its debts. It's a really big deal. Without it, anything like the modern stock market, I'd say, is impossible."

And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. Next week, more on corporations and the law. I'm Steve Ember.

Related stories:

'I am deeply sorry,' Toyota chief tells US Congress

With loan guarantees, Obama looks to nuclear energy for jobs

A rough road for Toyota

Obama seeks limits on banks, condemns campaign finance ruling

(来源:VOA 编辑:陈丹妮)

 
中国日报网英语点津版权说明:凡注明来源为“中国日报网英语点津:XXX(署名)”的原创作品,除与中国日报网签署英语点津内容授权协议的网站外,其他任何网站或单位未经允许不得非法盗链、转载和使用,违者必究。如需使用,请与010-84883631联系;凡本网注明“来源:XXX(非英语点津)”的作品,均转载自其它媒体,目的在于传播更多信息,其他媒体如需转载,请与稿件来源方联系,如产生任何问题与本网无关;本网所发布的歌曲、电影片段,版权归原作者所有,仅供学习与研究,如果侵权,请提供版权证明,以便尽快删除。
 

关注和订阅

人气排行

翻译服务

中国日报网翻译工作室

我们提供:媒体、文化、财经法律等专业领域的中英互译服务
电话:010-84883468
邮件:translate@chinadaily.com.cn