"I
hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations,
which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength
and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
Thomas Jefferson - 1816
The
corporation has evolved. The precursor of the modern corporation emerged
in the 1500s as European trading companies. Initially the corporation
was a business venture created for a specific purpose, for a defined
time period, registered with appropriate government, under rigid regulation.
Now we have everlasting mega-corporations whose financial activities
dwarf those of many nations. The Bush administration's prime "value"
is the elimination of remaining controls over the public effects of
corporate activities.
Over
history the corporation has achieved the legal status of a person. This
allows corporations to share our free speech rights and, therefore,
to influence political campaigns. This has lead to the legal fiction
that money (the corporation's specialty) is speech. This corporate
participation in the political process has flourished, especially in
the last 25 years of "Reaganism."
Corporate lobbyists write legislation, lately, to abolish the government's
right to negotiate for lower drug costs. The individual's legal
access to courts for damages from harmful products is steadily diminished.
Environmental protection legislation is under attack to protect corporate
profit instead. And most pernicious of all, "wars of choice"
are launched as profit opportunities for favorite corporate donors or
even corporate employees, like Dick Cheney who gets as much per year
from his old employer, Halliburton, as he gets for his Vice-President's
salary.
Each
election cycle reveals more influence of corporate money in the process.
The problem, of course, is that the corporation, internally, is an entity
run in a clearly anti-democratic manner. Yes, stockholders do "vote
their shares" but this is simply the corporation's preferred
"one dollar-one vote" philosophy, which it has effectively
promoted to erode the "one person-one vote" pillar of our
political system.
International
"free trade" agreements grant corporations a right to profit
backed by a theory similar to our Measure 37: payment to the wealthy
to follow the law, or else suspend the law. The trade agreements state
that any law, in any jurisdiction, must be suspended if it interferes
with corporate profit. If the jurisdiction does not want to suspend
the problem law, then the corporation must be directly paid its predicted
profits by the local jurisdiction. Article
The corporate advertising machine promotes company products, to the
extreme. Obnoxious as products ads are, they are accompanied by massive
public relations programs to sell the corporate image itself. From childhood
we are bombarded with messages to create loyalty to the preferred "brands."
Worse, we are flooded with such fantasies as: large oil corporations
are concerned with preservation of the environment or Wal Mart is concerned
about its employees.
The
ultimate justification for the unquestioned acceptance of the corporate
mind set is that such massive companies provide so many jobs. The fact
is that small business provides the vast majority of our economy's jobs.
And, as the mega-corporations accelerate their exportation of US-based
jobs to foreign countries, they destroy any need for citizens to accept
the lies they have promoted for some time: that they continue to be
beneficial to the country, it citizens and its democratic process. We
fail our families, our communities, our country and ourselves if fail
to question the growing negative influence of the trans-national corporation
on the lives of American citizens.
Perhaps the first step is a constitutional amendment to establish that corporations are NOT persons!
This
link is to a preview of Thom Hartmann's book on the issue:
"Unequal Protection: The rise of corporate dominance and theft
of human rights" READ IT !!
Further
reading below. Links are underlined
Web Sites
Center for Corporate Policy
Corporate Personhood @ Reclaim Democracy
Corp Watch
Earth Policy Institute
News
1-31-06:
Oil executives refuse to testify at Senate hearings Reuters
1-31-06:
ATT protected by "security" issues? CNET
12-09:
Firestone's slave-condition lawsuit. One
World US
11-20:
Enron defense has its work cut out. USA
Today
Articles
Bush
clears way for corporate dominance
How
corporate America perpetuates the heath care crisis
It
Can Happen Here
They
thought they were free
The
Supremacy of the Super-Citizen
Controlling
Corporations and Restoring Democracy
Gulf
firms losing contracts to "large, out-of-state corporations."
The
CEO's Chief Justice
Corporate
Control of Democracy
Oregon
corporations' stealth tax break
The
Great American Jobs Scam
Growing
Up Corporate
Cuts
in foreign pofit tax
"Public
Use" for corporate profit
Telecom
Corps are "well connected"
Flood
of FEMA fraud
Books
1) Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: John Perkins
ISBN 1576753018
2) The Corporation: The pathological pursuit of profit and power, Joel
Bakan, ISBN 0-7432-4744-2
3) The Post-Corporate World: Life after capitalism, David C. Korten,
ISBN 1-57675-051-5
4) When Corporations Rule the World, David C. Korten, ISBN 1-8872-0804-6
5) Parecon (Participatory economics): Life after capitalism, Michael
Albert, ISBN 1-85984-698-X
6) After Capitalism: From managerialism to workplace democracy, Seymour
Melman, ISBN 0-679-41859-8
7) Eco-Economy: Building an economy for the earth, Lester R. Brown,
ISBN 0-393-32193-2
8 ) Plan B: Rescuing a planet under stress and a civilization in trouble,
Lester R. Brown, ISBN 0-393-32523-7
9) Myth America: Democracy vs. Capitalism, Willaim Boyer
ISBN 1891843192
