"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." 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: Further reading below. Links are underlined Web Sites Corporate Personhood @ Reclaim Democracy
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 The Supremacy of the Super-Citizen Controlling Corporations and Restoring Democracy Gulf firms losing contracts to "large, out-of-state corporations." Corporate Control of Democracy Oregon corporations' stealth tax break "Public Use" for corporate profit Telecom Corps are "well connected" Books
1) Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: John Perkins 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
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