The folks at ZDNet (of all places) are starting to hear mutterings against the concept of corporate personhood.

Companies are individuals under U.S. law. But they can't be killed or jailed as real people can. Their interests are immortal. (The illustration is from a group trying to change this.)

Corporations were made persons by the footnotes to an obscure 19th century Supreme Court decision involving the Southern Pacific Railroad. All those involved are long since dead but the railroal company's interests survive as part of the Union Pacific Corp.

While the ZDNet post emphasizes the enormous power corporations now have over people, I find this last most compelling. Personal interests die. Corporate interests don't. Even the most egregious corporate criminals, like MCI, can declare bankruptcy and emerge clean to be fought over again and again.

In my opinion, the decision on corporate personhood is like the court's famous tomato decision. Regardless of its merit as law, it is false regarding the facts. Tomatoes were ruled vegetables but are, in fact, fruits. Corporations are called persons but they are, in fact, anything but.

What would it mean if corporations were not persons? It would mean that anything a company did was a privilege, something that could in fact be taken away. It would be a revolution.

It would take a political revolution to make this change happen. But political revolutions happen all the time. Especially when the advocates of an obscure position are seen as over-reaching.