Inspired by the thread on whether corporate campaign donations should be allowed, I thought I'd post an idea I had a while ago (thinking mostly about UK politics, but it still applies).

Companies pay taxes on their profits. It varies from one country to another (and, I presume, from state to state in the USA). The legal definition of a company is that they are a separate ;legal entity that is discrete from the staff that work there, the directors, and even the stockholders that own them.

So we have legal entities that pay their taxes at whatever rate applies(sometimes, when they can't manufacture enough spurious charges to offset their tax liabilities), yet they are not entitled to representation at the ballot box.

The bigger corporations can make donations in their own right, and smaller ones can club together into trade federations and associations, that can make donations on their behalf.

As has been mentioned on the other thread, individuals are free to make donations to parties they support. Generally, they donate to the party that they think best represents their interests. They aren't really allowed to demand things in return for their donations, but since they have votes, they can withdraw their electoral support as well as their funding.

Company donations work well as a source of funding when there is no expectation of having any influence, but because companies have their own interests, which may or may not be the same of the ordinary voters, we shouldn't be surprised if they try to exert influence. The expectations that individual voters attach to their votes - "do what you promise or I won't vote for you" - get attached to the donations that companies make "do what you promise or we won't let you get elected again". In one case, there are lots of other voters who might switch to a particular representative, but, especially with large corporations, there aren't many other that can replace the lost funds.

So, because the sums involved are so large, the elected representatives will usually find themselves wanting to do the things that their corporate donors want them to do, if not in response to direct requests, then out of their own self-interest (wanting to stay in office next time around, and knowing that they need lots of money to do it).

So, it occurs to me that a way to reform campaign finance in a way that removes the expectation of payback (which is the problem), rather than the actual donation of monies (which isn't, particularly), would be to enfranchise corporate entities by giving them the vote.

They would then have a route to legitimately express their expectation of reward in return for their support, because if their representative doesn't get them what they want, they can vote for someone else. (Rather than cutting off the funding of the guy who might be doing exactly what the citizen voters want).

There would have to be limitations - so I could imagine a situation where only limited companies, public or private, would get votes, to avoid situations where partners or sole traders would be able to vote twice (once as a citizen, and once as a company). Also, there's a debate to be had on whether charities and other interest groups might need to be included, or would carry on using lobbyists as now.

And there would only be one vote each. I could also see that it might be desirable that the votes of companies and citizens were kept apart, so maybe one person in each legislature would be a "company representative". The companies could be treated as an altogether different state, but I think that would be less desirable as it would separate them even further from the communities they sit within.

I haven't thought it through enough that I can foresee all the benefits and pitfalls, but it seems to me that it could be a way forward, so my debate questions are:

1. Should companies get one vote each?
2. If so, how might it work?
3. If not, why not?

Sorry it's a long post, I'm trying to pre-empt requests for clarification as far as I can (probably a doomed attempt, but there you go )

I do not think increasing special interest groups ( in your example, companies) use of money to affect how government behaves is a good thing. We should be increasing the status of individuals and their effect on how government behaves.

Companies should not be taxed, the people who own the companies should be taxed. Giving person status to companies is a problem. Do not give them even more status as if they were a person.