Well, an organization can learn nothing because it is an abstraction. The employees of an organization can learn or forget, but the organization can not do anything of the sort. — Bitter Crank

Of course I don't mean that Organizations are literally capable of reason. The structure of any organisation is an abstraction. But you can't deny that people working in an organization are affected by it. And we can assume that they influence each other in many ways, some of wich are hard to percieve. For example being part of an organization can challenge your believes and maybe enlighten your believes. Make you a better, or worse person. If an organizaion consist of humans and depend on their deliberation and decision making, and if an engagement in an organization can change those delibarations and decision capability, they(the organizations) can change. They are not "boxes".

Again, "corporations" do not influence politics, or anything else. The board of directors, the operating management, and employees of a corporation influence politics... — Bitter Crank

But just because we can differentiate personal and professional believes, it does not entail, that they are always separated. A backroom meeting wouldn't be set up by rich person, just for fun, but most likely to further the interest of his corporation. All i am proposing is just, if the professional and personal political interest of a person if significant impact are aligning, it should be made official. The only way to ensure that, would be to held not himself responsible, because that would be to much to ask from any human, but his corporation.

As Lenin observed, "quantity has a quality all its own". — Bitter Crank

Exaclty, and as long as corporations are holding most our wealth and are in charge of the production of things we depend on, they have to be held socially responsible. Can't hold anyone responsible, without making their actions known, can you?

Since we are basically reasoning about buisiness ethics, and the legitimacy of political influence, I can definitely recommend you: Peter Ulrich. Sadly you wont find him in the english wikipedia yet. I should translate the german article. :)

Public for-profit corporations in the US have to issue regular financial reports. Non-profit corporations are not obligated to do so, and privately owned companies (even very big ones) don't have to, either. — Bitter Crank

Ah, ok that explains it. In Germany (if I am informed correctly) there is no distinction between corporation and privatly owned companies. At least not when it comes to making their yearly balance public. Every company has to do it, and their balance sheet will (in a simplyfied form) be made accissable by the tax authorities. That is why i can easly assume corporations as quasi-official legal entities.

But... as legal entities, corporations should not be counted as persons or citizens. [...] There is no reason to count a 'box' as anything more than a structure. — Bitter Crank

But why should they be trated as "boxes"? Are those entities not capable of change and reason? They shape our lifes as well, as we shapes theirs. You said yourself, that they are not accidental.

Of course there is a disticition to be made. Every citizen regardless of wealth of status of employment can be politically active or

chew on Paul Ryan's ear. — Bitter Crank

:D But you said yourself, that there is a big if, an antecedens, if you will. You need money! Because of that big if, isn't it more sensible to assume, that even so status and wealth of a person are part of his private-autonomy, a wealthy citizen can influence political officals more, than a poorer person would be able to? Wouldn't it therefore be safer to assume, that any person of considerable wealth and his political interests are of public relevance? And are therefore to be treated accordingly? The radius of impact a rich person has is far beyond any middleclass citizen can reach.

If wealth can influence politics (and we can assume it does), than wealth should be held responsible for its public stances. First then, one would need to decriminalise influences of corporations on politics, simply by creating an official channel. So they can express themselvs without fear of losing their face. And be held responsible if they don't act on their word.

An example: Mr. Levingston raises funds for an anti-child-labour campaign in the US(the fundraiser...not the child-labour). He therefore has proclaimed his political sance in that issue. But if there was evidence, that his company actions contradict his stance, the corporation should be held responsible. That way the priciple-agent-problem would be solved in a way, that it would shift legitimacy of action. Any action would then (to some extent) be legitimated not only by stake/stockholdes, but by the public.

At the moment corporations influence politics in backroom meetings, because it would invoke public outrage, they would lose coustomers and probably be in the center of a major shitstorm. By making their influence official, they could act as before, but the public would have chance to be involved.

PS:
Most of those arguments are stolen directly from Peter Ulrich's Integrative Economic Ethics

Well, I would totally disagree that corporations are accidental. They consist of humans after all, and are therefore the result of human endevour and human decisions.

The solution, if you have any historic sense of the development of the corporate body, is most definitely not providing them more access to the political process. — Benkei

Thats not what i intended at all. I do not want to give them access, because I assume, they already have it - see OP's bakers story. I just would suggest, to make this influence public and there accessable for citizens. At the moment corporate influence is mostly discussed in back door meetings. There is my problem. I did not mean to grant them right, quite the contrary, by making their political stances public any employee, or goverment offical can at follow their reasoning.

That a person is dependent on a corporation should not be confused with an alignment of interests. In general they are not. — Benkei

Explain, why you cannot assume, that this is actually the case? Many of friends are entrepeneurs in IT and finance. And over the last couple of years our discussion base shifted, from idealists, who wanted to make the world a better place, to more practical points of interests.

Anything that has any relation to you alters you. Your perception and your deliberation are in constant change, even of you do not notice it. So why should the relation between corporation-employees and corporation-goverment be any different?

That corporations, as opposed to small business, has become so important is a result of granting them to many rights. — Benkei

Which means, the alternative is to deny them rights and control them totally? If so only government offcials (since they cant be private obv. and not corporate) can influence corporation? Thats sounds familiar. I am considering myself a marxist as well. But in all honesty we are not ready for something like that. And of course, why should they be less corrupted, than corporate leader now?

Coporate is afraid to make their political stances public, because it would most likely invoke public outrage and complications. But as long es they are influencial, they should make their alignment known, like ther balance sheets. And should be hold responsable for that.

PS:
pls note, i don't know if corporate have to make their balances public, in every country. In my country they have to. And will face dire consequences if they are late, tempered with in form.

...Until the person is able to abstract and define rationally the idea of good, and unless he can run the gauntlet of all objections, and is ready to disprove them, not by appeals to opinion, but to absolute truth, never faltering at any step of the argument--unless he can do all this, you would say that he knows neither the idea of good nor any other good

For me the most important word here is "until". It means, that there is a process to be able to the light, the truth, or the good. Probably the most complicated process a human can dare to do. Immanuel Kant has most prominent written: "sapere aude!" Dare to think! And with it tried to describe the first step to enlightenment not only for one single agent, but for whole societies as well.
I therefore think a philosopher king is a sort of teacher. Someone who will guide despite the initial confusion and rejection by his peers.

Should such a King govern? Well govern comes from latin gauberare and means to control, rule and guide! I don't see why not? No intelligent man can hope to govern a sufficient complicated system on his own. And States and countries are just that, complicated systems. So a philosopher king needs to find help to so. Therefore guide other to position in wich they are able to.

A true Philosopher King is therefore someone who aspires to ensure the means of enlightenment, regardless of his own political office.

"The Corporation" isn't a citizen, isn't a voter, isn't a person, and doesn't have opinions or positions on political issues. — Bitter Crank

Actually, if you put corporation in a different perspective, they can have positions and be relevant in the democratic process.
It is true, that corporations are by any means nothing else but legal entities. But citizenship is a legal concept as well. Both are mainly distinguished by their (let's say) range of autonomy. For a private individual citizenship is a concept to grant him rights of freedom, trade, speech, etc. A bunch of complicated concepts that i will subsume as private-autonomy. Government, respectively office bearer, on the other hand have no such autonomy and are (in theory at least) confined to do as the corpus of citizen told them to. When acting as an office bearer you have no private-autonomy, as a principle.

Corporations on the other hand are neither nor. They cannot be perceived as official, because they are not elected, not part of the concept of citizenship. Therefore, as most people would argue, they cannot have a say in political business. And that of course holds true for all small and medium businesses. We don't want the baker to tell the governor what to do. But that doesn't necessarily holds true for big corporations. Because those are, as Peter Ulrich would put it, quasi-official/ virtually official. Simply because the main corpus of citizens directly work for them, or interact with them, more directly than the elected officials. Not only that, for most citizens the well-being of big corporations is more important than most anything, because their livelihood depends on them.

Long story short, one cannot deny the influence of corporations. Not because they are evil entities, that only look after themselvs. But because they shape citizenship. A good solution, can not be found in questions like whether they should or shouldn't expose their political influence, but whether or not it should be an integral part of any corporation to expose their political stance up front.