Attorney here!*

The relevant part of the First Amendment states (emphasis mine):

"...OR the right of the people peaceably to assemble, AND to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

This is preceded by a semicolon, making this clause a compound clause. The right to petition the Government is conferred both on individuals and on assemblies (organizations), and has been since the nation was founded. And this principle has been taken as gospel in law as interpreted by our Courts since the nation's founding.

(*IAAL but this is not legal advice. Seek licensed counsel in your jurisdiction if you need legal advice.)

I do that too!

(Long time no see, old friend.)

Excuse me? Is the former chairman of Sears on hacker news?

But the type of organization that is a corporation didn't exist when the constitution was written. Much like nuclear arms (and chemical, and biological) didn't exist when the constitution was written so we don't consider them covered by the second amendment.

It certainly did. Among others, the Virginia Company, the Plymouth Company, the British East India Company all featured tradeable shares, perpetual lifetime, limited liability and legal personhood.

What makes the modern economy so different is the democraticization of incorporation. Prior to the 19th century it took a specific legislative act to incorporate.

Maybe that's something we need to bring back -- limits on how many and how large corporations can be? Before they take over running all of society?

Right now you can create infinite corporations, with little to no traceability as to who's really responsible. Maybe there should be some limits?

British East India company had its own army and literally did run a big part of society. Amazon doesn’t have an army at least. Maybe we are trending in the right direction.

We don't consider nuclear warheads to be covered under the second amendment because they are munitions, not arms. What you're saying is a little ridiculous - do you expect that something written on the Internet is not covered by the first amendment, simply because it didn't exist at the time the amendment was written? Of course not. Technological progress is easily covered by the Constitution.

The English East India Company was set up along lines pretty similar to today's corporations, and that happened almost 200 years before the constitution was written (1600, to be precise). By 1720 you definitely have bubbles involving corporate stocks (see South Sea Bubble).

By the time you get to the late 18th century (i.e. about when the Constitution was written) you have publications with titles like "A Treatise on the Law of Corporations"; just keep reading the Wikipedia entry above. That was published 7 years after the US Constitution was ratified, but of course the laws and corporations it was talking abot had been around for _quite_ a while at that point.

Joint stock corporations predate the US constitution.

> The constitution applies to citizens

No, the Constitution applies to government.

But it generally protects people, (not just citizens) which in law included juridical as well as natural persons long before the Constitution.

What happens when corporations have more practical daily influence over people's lives than the government? This is a problem. Is it our Achilles heel?

I see that as a good thing. Macy's can't force me to do anything. The federal government can. I'd prefer Macy's to have more influence in my day to day life than the business end of a gun.

“Corporations” and “business end of a gun” are not mutually exclusive mechanisms of power.

> What happens when corporations have more practical daily influence over people's lives than the government?

Impossible, because while corporations are a vehicle through which private individuals act, they are a creation and extension of government power. While the power exerted through corporations is not proximately controlled by people who are particularly accountable to the public for their actions, it is nevertheless government power, and thus the power exerted by corporations can never be greater than that exerted by government, because the former is a subset of the latter.

You don't think that a corporation, even now, can exceed the ability of its employees to disagree with what it's doing?

Like lobby for legislation that protects (or makes paramount) the corporate interests, even though the people within the corporation might completely object to what is being lobbied for?

I think we underestimate how much people are willing to do what their employer requires to continue to be employed, and end up doing things that are totally legal, but not desireable in the long run.

> You don't think that a corporation, even now, can exceed the ability of its employees to disagree with what it's doing?

I'm not sure why you seem to have interpreted the word “government” in what I said to mean “employees of the corporation”?

I assure you that when I said “government”, I meant “government”.

The Supreme Court has determined that companies are granted some rights as citizens have. The first is one of the rights that is protected according to their rulings.

And it is widely believed to be a failure of the justice system. Companies are not expected to behave the same as individuals. They have different motivations and calculate risks differently. If it looks like a dog and barks like a dog, it isn’t a duck.

You can't say that the first amendment doesn't apply to companies when the law has found that it does. You can say that you believe it shouldn't, but legally today it does.

The issue is that the first amendment isn't absolute, there are in fact limits, those limits however have been effectively rescinded when it comes to corporations but are still in place for individuals. The disparity of power this affords in our democracy is destined to erode what is left of it.