(Untitled)

Jan 26, 2010 14:25

I did not write this, but those who did apparently wish it to be spread around. I agree with them.

Circulate freely ( Read more... )

politics

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arisrabkin January 26 2010, 21:51:40 UTC
Couple thought questions.

1) Could the government constitutionally prohibit individuals from spending unlimited amounts of money to print political pamphlets?
2) Could the government prohibit some subset of individuals from spending any money on printing political pamphlets?
3) Could the government constitutionally prohibit newspapers from printing editorials, or certain kinds of editorials?

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auros January 27 2010, 01:27:06 UTC
The answer to #2 is clearly yes; those who hold certain civil service or military jobs are explicitly forbidden from engaging in public political debate, as a condition of their jobs. (Keeping publicly neutral regarding political issues is also often a condition of private employment -- a friend of mine had to resign as an officer of the Peninsula Young Democrats when she got promoted to a VP level position at a biotech firm -- and I don't think there's any jurisprudence suggesting employers can't enforce such requirements ( ... )

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arisrabkin January 27 2010, 04:27:18 UTC
What is the difference between The New York Times Corporation spending money to print newspapers, at a loss, with editorials, and a corporation spending money to print pamphlets? How about when MSNBC runs editorials on a cable news show? How about when the GE board of directors tells MSNBC what the editorial position is?

I think that if you want to have freedom of the press mean something, that means allowing some corporations to spend their money on advocacy. And I think treating media companies differently from other companies is unsustainable and a bad idea.

The union-corporation analogy is imperfect, because shareholders often have more choices and more control than union members. Selling stock is generally much less painful than quitting your job.

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arisrabkin January 27 2010, 04:31:24 UTC
By the way, I believe you are mistaken as a matter of law about fiduciary duty of corporate officers. I can set up a for-profit corporation with any charter I like, and I need not make maximum profit my goal. Certainly, shareholders can and do have other goals that they push management towards via their proxy votes.

There is no difficulty with a corporation having "corporate values", chosen by the shareholders, with compliance supervised by the Board of Directors.

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