Immortal Invention

We live in the age of immortality for things invented by man.  Take for example the legal entity known as a corporation.  By definition, a corporation is a legal ‘person’ with rights and power to sue and be sued.  As with anything human-made, there are pros and cons.  And as with anything man-made, the manner in which the invention is used makes all the difference.

Today, corporations are all around us and we don’t always recognize them.  Every single ‘nation’ or country ‘exists’ as a corporation.  Many cities are also corporations.  The City of Los Angeles was incorporated in 1850, 308 years after it was ‘claimed’ by Mr. Cabrillo for Spain.  Prior to this ‘declaration,’ Los Angeles was populated and traversed by the Chumash and Tongva people.  Today, you can receive a citation for parking on L.A. streets at inconvenient times.  If you don’t pay or find a way to make that citation go away, the City of Los Angeles can remove your property ( vehicle ) from you… legally. 

The courts are also corporations.  Political parties are corporations.  Lawyers are corporations.  This is how these entities can exist for hundreds of years.  This is how these entities can immune themselves and those who work for them.

I was reading through a court case ( Price vs Stossel ) recently and read four years of wrangling over something that could have been resolved in a single day.  But how else would lawyers and courts stay in business if they wouldn’t shuffle through the litany of procedures, prolonging justice?  How else can a ‘justice system’ be legitimized if corporations can settle out of court while never admitting to wrong doing?

In that court case I was reviewing, I noticed that lying is easily justified thanks to mountains of corporate court procedure.