-Caveat Lector-
Click Here: <A
HREF="http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/lsf/nesteruk23.htm";>NEW
NARRATIVE FOR CORPORATE LAW</A>
-----
Legal Studies Forum
Volume 23, Number 3 (1999)
reprinted by permission Legal Studies Forum
A NEW NARRATIVE FOR CORPORATE LAW
JEFFREY NESTERUK*
INTRODUCTION
There is something intriguing about the way science—with its hegemonic
claims to truth—has inspired such a rich genre of fiction. Intriguing because
this fictive genre reminds us of the embedded character1 of science’s
empirical claims. The facts of science only fully reveal themselves in the
stories we tell about them. Science fiction—far from being the antithesis of
science fact—can, at its best, disclose what is most meaningful for us about
scientific truths.
Something analogous occurs within the law. The truth of a judicial
opinion is indeterminate at the time of its writing, because it too has an
embedded character. It is situated in a common law tradition with settled
precedents and future interpretive possibilities. The meaning of a judicial
opinion depends on the future stories lawyers and judges choose to tell about
it as they interweave precedent and possibility.
In both science and law, stories provide moral frameworks for the truths
they reveal. “It is from the ‘is,’ from the story told a certain way,” writes
James Boyd White, “that we get our most important ‘oughts’: our sense that a
particular story is incomplete without a certain ending, which we can supply.”
2
In this essay, I wish to explore a particular intermingling of a story
of science and a story of law. I am aiming for what White would describe as
an “integration”—“a kind of composition, and that in a literal and literary
sense: a putting together of two things to make out of them a third, a new
whole, with a meaning of its own.”3 Integrations of this kind are, to my
mind, fundamental to the value of this special issue exploring “Law,
Literature, and Science Fiction.” Bringing together “law,” “literature,” and
“science fiction” should allow us to perceive both
[281]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
an as yet unseen whole with new meanings in each of the whole’s constitutive
parts.4
The integration I have in mind will focus on the moral frameworks of two
stories, and focus on them in a particular way: my interest is in how one
story can reveal to us what the other story leaves out. All stories have this
exclusionary feature (“all languages are limited”5) that gives rise to “the
most profound obligation of each of us in using his or her language...to try
and recognize what it leaves out, to point to the silence that surrounds it.”6
By looking at one story to see what another story leaves out, I hope to show
how the moral framework of the former can be used to reframe the latter,
exposing new normative possibilities.
As a former corporate law attorney, I have an interest in what corporate
law “leaves out,” in the “silence that surrounds it.” Such silence may be
broken by bringing together the law’s story of corporate personhood with its
science fictional counterpart:7 the story of the android, Lieutenant
Commander Data, from “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”
Both the modern corporation and Data are cases of artifactual
agency—actors created by artificial means. As such, their claims to
personhood—that is, to being moral agents with the same rights and duties as
their human counterparts—are problematic. But the story science fiction tells
of Data’s claim to personhood is markedly different from the story the law
tells about the corporation. Data’s story reveals the “silences” in the
narrative of corporate law, replacing them with dialogue. In revealing such
“silences,” Data’s story brings into view an alternative moral framework for
the law’s struggles with corporate personhood, a new “ending, which we can
supply.”
[282]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE NARRATIVE OF CORPORATE PERSONHOOD
The narrative of corporate personhood springs, I have argued elsewhere,
from the dichotomous character of the legal universe the corporation inhabits.
8 It is rooted in the basic opposition within our legal system between
“person” and “property.” Elaborating on the dichotomous character of this
context, I argue that:
The distinction, roughly put, is one between that which “acts” and that
which is “acted upon.” The essentially active nature of the person is evident
from the law’s conception of the person as the subject of rights and duties.
Rights and duties, after all, imply an active subject, one who may exercise
privileges and fulfill obligations. Similarly, the notion of property as an
entity “acted upon” or essentially passive is also readily apparent. Central
to the law’s definition of property is its susceptibility to ownership. The
traditional notion of ownership entails control. As a controlled entity,
property is acted upon by those who exercise control, i.e., its owners.9
Within this dichotomous legal universe, the narrative of the corporation
has a certain necessary structure. Given such a framework, the corporation
can only narratively appear as an anomaly. To continue the story:
The large, modern corporation does not fit neatly into this conceptual
scheme. This is because the person/property dichotomy offers no conceptual
framework for understanding property which has been artificially activated,
that is, has become an actor. But that is precisely what occurs though the
legal mechanism of incorporation. The corporation retains its status as
property, is owned by the sharehold-ers, and in theory is controlled by its
owners. However, the corporation also has an independent legal existence
which permits it to act in many significant ways, such as entering into
contracts, suing those who have wronged it, and even exercising its free
speech rights in political referenda.10
Situated in a dichotomous legal universe and appearing as an anomaly,
the modern corporation is enmeshed in a narrative structure that fosters a
particular terminus. It is a terminus marked by “silences.” With surprisingly
little analysis, the law simply declares the corporation’s
[283]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
status as a person. Chief Justice Waite’s famous announcement regarding the
applicability of the Fourteenth Amendment to corporations in Santa Clara Co.
v. Southern Pacific Railroad11 provides the quintessential example here:
The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the
provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a
State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of
the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it
does.12
Such a bald assertion of the corporation’s status as a person is striking
because of what it leaves out. Why, for instance, assert the corporation’s
status as person rather than as property? Certainly, the corporation’s
susceptibility to ownership would have allowed a contrary assertion. More
fundamentally, why not begin by calling into question the basic dichotomous
framework that forces such a choice?
THE STORY OF COMMANDER DATA
Commander Data’s story presents an alternative framework, one far less
constricted than the dichotomous legal context of the modern corporation.
Data’s universe is a cornucopia of life forms, encompassing entities as
diverse as Klingon and Borg and Q. Fundamentally, it is marked not by
dichotomy, but multiplicity. The story of Data’s artifactual agency has a
markedly different character. The corporation’s story, as we have seen, is
one of anomaly and silence. Data’s story, I hope to show, is one of
aspiration and dialogue. Such aspiration and dialogue arise from the
multifarious nature of Data’s universe.
The Next Generation series highlights Data’s story of aspiration and
dialogue in the episode, “The Measure of a Man.”13 In this episode, Data’s
status is the subject of a legal hearing. In order to avoid being
disassembled for scientific study, Data resigns from Starfleet. Starfleet
Commander Bruce Maddox challenges Data’s freedom to resign, claiming that
Data is the property of Starfleet and thus subject to its control. At the
hearing before Judge Advocate General Phillipa Louvois, Captain Jean Luc
Picard argues Data should be accorded a person’s freedom to choose. Appointed
by the Judge Advocate General,
[284]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Commander William Riker argues that as property of Starfleet, Data does not
have the right to such personal freedoms.
The first scene in which Data appears in “The Measure of a Man” centers
on a poker game among Data and other members of the Enterprise crew. The
scene foreshadows the episode’s focus on Data’s status by showing him trying
to master this human game. He comments that the game appears remarkably
simple given the limited number of possible numeric variations among the
cards. He is also disparaging of a fellow crew member’s need to sit at a
particular chair at the poker table for good luck. Despite his initial
confidence, Data loses the hand, fooled by Commander Riker’s bluff. When Data
remarks it made little sense for Riker to keep raising his bids given his
poor poker hand, Riker smiles. The other crew members explain that success at
poker requires more than rational calculation; it requires human instinct.
>From the start, we are introduced to Data’s aspirations to personhood and the
dialogue such aspirations engender with his fellow crew members.
But even more fundamentally, we encounter in this early scene a
community of individuals at ease with Data’s aspirational relation to
personhood. He is not yet a person, but his potential to be so is assumed.
Accustomed to encountering myriad actors in nonhuman forms, the world of the
Enterprise crew is one in which nonhuman actors may be persons. In such a
world, the crew must be open to the distinctiveness of new entities they
encounter, resisting the impulse for immediate evaluation and assignment to
existing categories. Condi-tioned by the world they inhabit, Data’s fellow
crew members readily accept a being such as Data aspiring to personhood.
The episode’s central conflict begins with the arrival of Commander
Bruce Maddox on the bridge of the Enterprise. He often does not address Data
directly, preferring to speak to Captain Picard and Commander Riker. He
refers to Data as “this.” Without analysis, Maddox assumes Data’s status as
property much as Chief Justice Waite assumed the corporation’s status as a
person. But unlike in the corporate law narrative, such silences are
untenable here. Picard immediately seeks an explanation of Maddox’s purpose.
Unable to convince Picard of the wisdom of disassembling Data for scientific
study, Maddox produces a Starfleet order overriding Picard’s wishes.
Faced with Maddox’s Starfleet order, Picard summons Data. Picard tells
Data, “[W]e have a problem.” Picard’s recognition of the problematic nature
of the Starfleet order reveals something of the world in which they live.
Justice Waite saw no problem in corporate personhood and thus imposed
silence. But having regularly encountered novel creatures, Picard recognizes
the need for dialogue on the issue. The
[285]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
uncertainties of his world generate in him the need for continual
conversation.
Reflecting the multiplicity of the universe in which he lives, Picard
makes an effort to refer to Data in a carefully nuanced way, speaking of
“beings like yourself.” Working from a richer perspective than the
person/property dichotomy of our legal system, Picard begins not with an
attempt to classify Data as person or property, but rather trying to gain a
deeper appreciation of Data’s distinctive status.
Data is also careful in the way he refers to himself, saying only, “[I]
am not human.” Outside our law’s person/property dichotomy, Data’s statement
has a precision unmuddled by what would otherwise be its implication: that
his nonhuman status means he is property. In a world filled with myraid life
forms, Data’s self-reference only initiates the analysis and conversation
about his status.
When Maddox confronts him directly, Data attempts such a dialogue by
emphasizing his distinctive status. Data claims his existence has “added to
the substance of the universe.” He can not allow himself to be disassembled
because then “something unique, something wonderful will be lost.”
In this dialogue with a hostile interlocutor, Data reveals another
important aspect of the role dialogue plays in his aspirations to personhood
status. Data’s dialogue is not only an aid to his own development, as we saw
in his attempts to master the game of poker. Such dialogue also contains the
possibility of developing his interlocutor’s perspective. (Something Justice
Waite’s stance does not allow.) While he is not immediately successful, the
dialogue Data initiates with Maddox ultimately prevails.
As the dialogue over Data’s status develops, Captain Picard turns to the
language of rights. In a prehearing appeal to Judge Advocate General Phillipa
Louvois, Picard asserts of Data, “He has rights.” Picard also emphasizes the
connection between personhood and rights in a later confrontation with
Maddox. Maddox points to the utilitarian benefits of disassembling Data,
citing the potential gains of scientific knowledge. He stresses that
Starfleet might even be able to make large numbers of Data-like androids to
serve Starfleet’s goals. Challenging the utilitarian perspective of Maddox,
Picard states, “Data is a Starfleet officer. He still has certain rights.” In
this way, the dialogue over Data’s status develops a particular focus that
will ultimately allow its legal resolution. At the core of personhood is the
bestowal of rights. A being who is a person acquires a dignity able to trump
utilitarian considerations.
[286]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the legal hearing, Commander William Riker offers dramatic
demonstrations of Data’s property status, first removing Data’s fore-arm, and
then even shutting him off. Riker picks up on the utilitarian argument Maddox
made earlier. Data’s purpose, Riker declares, is to serve human interests.
Worried by the effectiveness of Riker’s presentation, Picard asks for a
recess.
Puzzling over his next legal move, Picard enters into a conversation
with another member of the Enterprise crew, Guinan. Noting the multiplicity
of life forms in the universe in which they live, Guinan emphasizes the
ever-present danger such differences among species pose. The danger is that
some come to be regarded as “disposable creatures” who do “the dirty work.”
With such creatures, Guinan continues, we need not think of “their welfare”
or “how they feel.” In the episode’s revelatory moment, Picard sees the
larger issue posed by Data’s status. The issue, he says, is slavery “obscured
behind the comfortable, easy euphemism: property.”
The danger of slavery is the fundamental reason to maintain an openness
in the evaluation of newly-encountered forms of life. An unreflective
application of familiar preconceptions to other kinds of beings creates the
risk of missing their dignity as life forms and assigning them a secondary
status. Failing to recognize them as persons leads to a denial of rights and
ultimately their enslavement in one form or another.
Returning to the legal hearing, Picard begins his response to Riker’s
presentation. He does not deny many of Riker’s claims, allowing that Data is
a machine created by a human being. But then Picard calls Commander Maddox to
the stand as a hostile witness. With Maddox on the stand, Picard continues
the dialogue with Maddox begun earlier by Data. Reminding Maddox of the need
to attend carefully to “all life forms,” Picard asks Maddox to state the
requirements for qualifying as a sentient being. Maddox appears unsure but
mentions the qualities of intelligence, self-awareness, and consciousness.
Pressed as to whether Data possesses all of such qualities, Maddox again
indicates his uncertainty.
Having illustrated the uncertainty arising in a multifarious universe,
Picard raises the danger of slavery, of “thousands of Datas,” “a race”
serving the bidding of others. This case, Picard claims, “could significantly
redefine the boundaries of personal liberty and freedom.” Picard notes the
founding purpose of Starfleet—“to seek out new life.” Seeking new life
requires a willingness to reconsider old conceptions, to know what we do not
know. In this way, Picard’s argument reinforces
[287]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
not only the need to allow for the aspirations of entities to personhood, but
the need for dialogue in evaluating their progress.
In rendering her decision, the Judge Advocate General states Picard and
Riker have in their presentations skirted the main issue. The central issue
is: Does Data have a soul? But, she knows, they have skirted it with good
reason. Such an issue is one of “metaphysics,” something “best left to saints
and philosophers.” The truth is, the Judge Advocate General concedes, that
she does not know the answer to the question of Data’s status. Therefore, the
law should embody the openness appropriate to this uncertainty. There must be
a legal space for Data’s aspirations to become a person. “I have got to give
him,” she concludes, “the freedom to explore that question himself.” She,
therefore, rules in Data’s favor.
Thus, in a significant sense, the Judge Advocate General decides not to
decide. Such an approach acknowledges how the multiplicity of Data’s world—a
multiplicity of diverse life forms and myriad actors—allows for an
aspirational model of personhood. In a community of individuals willing to
acknowledge their own uncertainty, a being such as Data can seek the status
of person through dialogue with others.
AN ALTERNATIVE NARRATIVE FOR CORPORATE LAW
By reframing the silences surrounding corporate law, Data’s story
exposes the silences embedded in the law’s story. Corporate law’s silences
surrounding its assertion of corporate personhood are rooted in the
dichotomous character of the legal universe in which the corporate narrative
begins. With only two ill-fitting choices open to it—person or
property—corporate law’s encounter with the anomalous nature of the
corporation requires “silence” as part of its justification. Silence is
required because neither the concept of person nor the concept of property
adequately captures the reality of the corporation. The underlying choice in
corporate law is “silence”: silence regarding the property-like character of
the corporate entity if the characterization of person is chosen or silence
regarding the person-like character of the corporation if a property
characterization is given priority.
Along with reframing the narrative of corporate law, Data’s story helps
make the crucial connection between personhood status and the bestowal of
rights. This occurs dramatically in the dialogue between Picard and Maddox
regarding the utilitarian benefits of disassembling Data. Even more
fundamentally, it arises in the revelatory Picard-Guinan dialogue on slavery.
During this dialogue, Picard realizes
[288]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
that what is at stake in Data’s case is a new slavery “obscured behind the
comfortable, easy euphemism: property.”14 In a legally concrete way, what
lies at the core of the question of personhood is the issue of rights.
The emphasis in Data’s story on rights is significant for two reasons.
First, it reorients the question of Data’s status: from the stubbornly
metaphysical question of personhood to the more legally manageable question
of rights. Second, in the context of rights, the question of personhood
becomes subject to gradation. Instead of the all-or-nothing character of the
philosophic debate, a particular right may be approached, case by case, on an
individual basis, with one right being affirmed and another denied. Entities
thus may have more or fewer rights depending on where they are situated on a
person/property continuum.15
A legal universe that recognized a fundamental multiplicity of actors
would not experience the modern corporation as an anomaly in the way current
law does. The distinctive character of the corporate entity would have a
different salience in a world of many actors of differing characters. In a
universe in which all are in some sense anomalous, no one is distinctively
so.
If the modern corporation did not present to our legal system such a
distinctive anomaly, there would be less systemic need for law’s silence. We
might replace silence with choice and aspiration. Just as Data has made
choices in aspiring to become more human, the choices of corporations could
have a significance in the law’s characterization of such entities. Within
such a framework, the law could set certain minimal standards that corporate
entities must meet to be accorded the legal status of person, granting to
corporations that met certain standards the rights appropriate to the status
they have achieved.16 Instead of responding to the anomaly presented by the
contemporary corporation in silence, the law could consider the aspirations
of
[289]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
corporations to personhood. Open to corporations in this way, the law could
engage in a dialogue with individual corporations aspiring to this legal
status. Before such a dialogue can take place, law must first articulate the
norms of personhood appropriate to the corporate entity. Thus, while we can
not expect corporations to exhibit human emotions,17 we can, for example,
expect their conduct to be respectful of the worth and dignity of other
community members. Like their human counter-parts, corporations might be
prompted to better consider the effect of their actions upon others.18
Presented with legally-articulated norms of personhood, the onus would
shift to individual corporations to show how their corporate organizations
embody such norms. Much as Data continually converses with those around him
in attempting to master such human attributes as humor, dance, music,
romance, and artistic creativity, corporate managers could consult legal
authorities as to the kinds of development needed by a corporation to realize
the corporate aspiration to person-hood.19
Corporate aspirations and dialogue to personhood would provide a much
richer framework than the rigid dichotomy of current law. Instead of having
only the two ill-fitting choices of “person” and “property” available,20
corporate law, taking its cue from Data’s world, might reflect corporate
potential along a graduated continuum with the concepts of person and
property representing the two extremes.
[290]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Corporations would then be legally characterized as more person-like or more
property-like depending on their aspirations and achievements regarding norms
of corporate personhood. Reconceptualizing the question of personhood as an
issue of the bestowal21 of rights allows for a finer, more textured legal
treatment of corporations. It allows the law to bestow selective corporate
rights, granting some and refusing others, rather than tacitly assigning
rights in toto through the characterization of “person.” It also makes
possible a more subtle evaluation of individual corporations, with a fuller
range of rights being given to those corporate entities that have more fully
achieved the legally-articulated and socially approved norms of personhood.
But most importantly, this approach would provide a corporate law regime
that institutionalized dialogue to replace silence. Just as Data and his
fellow crew members gain a deeper understanding of themselves and their
humanity through their dialogue regarding Data’s aspirations, so the law can
gain a richer comprehension of corporate entities and their proper regulation
through promoting exchange regarding the nature of corporate personhood. Such
a dialogue would go beyond legal concepts and principles; it would include
investigations into the actual day-to-day behavior of particular
corporations. Such a mixture of theoretical inquiry and empirical
investigation would foster the development of a richer legal system and a
more humane corporate law regime. Given the increasing reach of corporate
power, the conversation proposed here is long overdue.
In this way, a dialogue enters the picture that is strikingly absent
from the current scheme of corporate law. The dialogue arises as decision
makers in the legal community seek a more developed notion of legal
personhood and its implications, and as corporate actors seek the granting of
personhood status for the rights accompanying such status.22
[291]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONCLUSION
My proposal of an alternative narrative for corporate law is only that—a
different way of telling the corporate story. I have intentionally argued
neither for specific norms of personhood the law should adopt nor the
particular rights that should follow from the achievement of such norms.
Moreover, I have left the practical implementation of the dialogue I hope for
unexplored. The power of this new story lies in the fact that it is
“incomplete without a certain ending” and the ending is one “we can supply.”
The “we” here indicates the social character of the task at hand.23 There is
value in this alternative narrative of corporate law if we are engaged by it,
asking new questions not only of the ending we might supply but of who we
become in the process. Thus, in the end, the value of this new narrative
resides in the stories we will choose to tell about it.
[292]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
{Editorial note: "The Measure of a Man", STTNG, episode 35, is available on
Paramount Home Video)
ENDNOTES
* Associate Professor, Franklin & Marshall College. My thanks to Bruce
Rockwood for his close reading and helpful comments on this essay.
1. In speaking of the “embedded character” of these empirical claims, I
emphasize how the meaning of such claims is often dependent on a larger
context or framework. For example, the moral meaning of cloning depends on
placing empirical findings within the framework of ethical principles.
2. James Boyd White, HERACLES’ BOW: ESSAYS ON THE RHETORIC AND POETICS OF THE
LAW 175 (1985).
3. James Boyd White, JUSTICE AS TRANSLATION: AN ESSAY IN CULTURAL AND LEGAL C
RITICISM 4 (1990).
4. White writes, “In this process the elements combined do not lose their
identities but retain them, often in clarified form; yet each comes to mean
something different as well, when it is seen in relation to the other.” Id.
5. Id. at 81.
6. Id.
7. This is not to deny the dissimilarities between the contemporary
corporation and Data. Indeed, such dissimilarities would provide the basis
for a future development of the analysis offered here. For example, the
corporation is an organized group of individuals while Data is a single
entry. Comparing Data to the modern corporation might therefore illuminate
the kind of integration and unity necessary for organizational personhood. It
is also significant that Data has a physical presence—a body—while the
corporation lacks a physical character. The corporation is, in Chief Justice
John Marshall’s famous description, “an artificial being, invisible,
intangible, and existing only in the contemplation of the law.” Dartmouth
College v. Woodard, 4 Wheat. 518, 636 (1819). This opens up the larger
question of the relation of personhood to the material world.
8. Jeffrey Nesteruk, Persons, Property, and the Corporation: A Proposal for a
New Paradigm, 39 DePaul L. Rev. 543 (1990).
9. Id.
10. Id. at 543-44. See: First National Bank of Boston, et al. v. Bellotti,
435 U.S. 765 (1978), holding that corporations have the same political speech
rights as individuals.
11. 118 U.S. 394 (1886).
12. Id. at 396.
13. The Measure of a Man (Paramount Pictures)(broadcast on the week of
February 13, 1989)(quoted passages are all from this episode).
14. See the discussion of “old” and “new” property in Bruce L. Rockwood,
“Retakings: Perspectives on the Nature of Property and Politics from the Law
and Literature of Slavery,” in Roberta Kevelson (ed.), LAW AND THE CONFICT OF
IDEOLOGIES 211-236 (New York: Peter Lang, 1996).
15. Attributing rights to Data raises a problem unacknowledged in The Measure
of a Man. Data, like the modern corporation, is potentially immortal. This
raises the question whether immortal entities need the protections of rights
as do mortal agents. Certainly, applying the same rights to an entity with
perpetual life such as a corporation poses risks. With a perpetual existence,
the modern corporation has an advantage, for instance, in the accumulation of
wealth not shared by natural individuals whose lives will end.
16. For an earlier proposal tying corporate benefits to corporate behavior,
see Jay A. Sigler & Joseph E. Murphy, INTERACTIVE CORPORATE COMPLIANCE: AN A
LTERNATIVE TO REGULATORY COMPULSION (1988).
17. Peter French has, however, argued for the use of shame in corporate
settings. See Peter A. French, COLLECTIVE AND CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY
(1984).
18. by management scholars. See R. Edward Freeman, STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT: A S
TAKEHOLDER APPROACH (1984).
19. An analogy might be drawn here to the law’s treatment of children. The
law defers granting certain rights—for example, the right to vote—until
individuals have reached a certain level of development. My proposal differs,
however, in that it is never assumed that any particular corporation will
achieve the requisite level of development for personhood.
20. James Boyd White also tries to escape dichotomous thinking about
corporations when he warns of “a false opposition between the economic goals
of a corporation (expressed as an ultimately self-interested duty to enhance
‘corporate profit and shareholder gain’ and other corporate aims or
activities conceived of as public-spirited or philanthropic (including its
obligation to obey the law).” James Boyd White, How Should We Talk About
Corporations? The Languages of Economics and Citizenship, 94 Yale L. J. 1416,
1417 (1985). An “organic” model for thinking about the corporation, which
emphasizes both new technology and values, is found in Thomas Petzinger, Jr.,
THE NEW PIONEERS (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999). His suggestion that
corporations do well if they let employees have freedom to manage themselves
finds support in (and gives support to) the Judge Advocate General’s ruling
in favor of Commander Data.
21. It is important to emphasize that I am speaking of the law bestowing
rights only in the case of an artificial entity such as the corporation. In
the case of natural persons, I would raise the issue of rights arising
independent of a community’s legal and moral choices. Science Fiction
sometimes questions this assumption, as in the case for conditioning voting
rights on military service presented by Robert Heinlein in STARSHIP TROOPERS
(New York: Ace, 1987) (1959).
22. With the development of corporate personhood we might expect something in
the nature of corporate citizenship. Data is presumed to be a citizen of the
Federation, but is “stateless” since the colony where he was created has been
destroyed. Multinational corporations may be chartered under the laws of one
country, their subsidiaries under the laws of other countries, and so they
behave as if they were stateless with none of the obligations of citizenship
the law expects of natural persons. See generally, John A. Bonsignore, LAW AND
MULTINATIONALS (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1995).
23. Any given ending is, of course, subject to revision with the appearance
of a new case, chapter or volume, like the never-ending Science Fiction
“trilogies” or Dworkin’s characterization of the common law as a “chain
novel”; See: Ronald Dworkin, A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE 158-159 (1985)
-----
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
All My Relations.
Omnia Bona Bonis,
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
