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The Power Behind the Throne: The Legalization of Corporate Personhood

Submitted by mark karlin on Sun, 08/16/2009 - 8:41am.

EditorBlog

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

By Mark Karlin

Of course, there is no simple analysis to understanding the forces lurking beneath the surface of political conflict in America today.

But a good place to start would be with the legal enshrinement in the late 1800s of a concept called "corporate personhood." In essence, this means a business institution has the same -- indeed, currently enhanced -- legal rights as individual American citizens.

Thom Hartmann outlined this brilliantly in his under-appreciated book of a few years back, "Unequal Protection."

As noted in a description of "Unequal Protection":

Hartmann then describes the history of the Fourteenth Amendment--created at the end of the Civil War to grant basic rights to freed slaves--and how it has been used by lawyers representing corporate interests to extend additional rights to businesses far more frequently than to freed slaves. Prior to 1886, corporations were referred to in U.S. law as "artificial persons." but in 1886, after a series of cases brought by lawyers representing the expanding railroad interests, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations were "persons" and entitled to the same rights granted to people under the Bill of Rights. Since this ruling, America has lost the legal structures that allowed for people to control corporate behavior.

As a result, the largest transnational corporations fill a role today that has historically been filled by kings. They control most of the world's wealth and exert power over the lives of most of the world's citizens. Their CEOs are unapproachable and live lives of nearly unimaginable wealth and luxury. They've become the rudder that steers the ship of much human experience, and they're steering it by their prime value--growth and profit and any expense--a value that has become destructive for life on Earth. This new feudalism was not what our Founders--Federalists and Democratic Republicans alike--envisioned for America.

Yes, the pockets of Republican and Democratic elected officials on Capitol Hill get stuffed with campaign contributions from corporate backers, but what is equally alarming is that corporations are equal to us in terms of their legal role in the legislative and legal process. Backed with huge war chests and legal funds, corporations are actually able to fix the system to where they have greater legal rights and legislative impact than people.

A new book expands upon Hartmann's incisive legal and historical analysis about how corporations used the legal system to leverage their power by gaining "personal rights" for businesses. In the just released "Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back," we learn how we have come to accept the worldview of corporations, even progressives. They have become the power behind the throne that controls D.C. and that even the President of the United States cannot force to heel.

It's very abstract for most people to get their arms around this concept, but we are going to have to choose between the interests of corporations and the interests of the American people.

And we are going to have to return corporations to their status as money-making institutions who seek profit at the expense of people while claiming to legal have the rights of personhood. It's caused this nation tremendous hardship, particularly to working class Americans.

Will it be "We the People" or "We the Corporations"?

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

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Great article!

Submitted by Alan8 on Mon, 08/17/2009 - 12:45pm.

Yes! This is the source of most of our problems. I'm glad you included both Republicans AND Democrats as being on the take. Maybe you'll reconsider BuzzFlash's policy of not reporting on third parties?

You Would Trust That The Constitutional Process...

Submitted by neoconned on Sun, 08/16/2009 - 7:09pm.

,,,would not be taken over by Sarah Palin and the Fundamentalists mdillard???

You have more trust than I do that the entire process wouldn't be hijacked and abused like the health care debate has been and abused to entrench a corporatist system that would be much worse than what we have now!

And once again....

Submitted by marlow on Sun, 08/16/2009 - 7:05pm.

...The generals leave the field, and the troops in the trenches. Really REALLY getting sick of this bullshit. http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/obama-picks-public-option-fight-with-liberals-2009-08-16.html

This Is Getting Old

Submitted by neoconned on Sun, 08/16/2009 - 7:10pm.

Once again Obama demonstrates that he would rather bleed than lead.

Public office

Submitted by Agenhippy on Sun, 08/16/2009 - 6:42pm.

Anyone among us going to incorporate and run for office? end CORPORATE PERSONHOOD

I'm still looking for change I can believe in...

Submitted by mdillard on Sun, 08/16/2009 - 5:40pm.

You need to realize that this is not a new problem. We lived in these times in the 1770's, until the people said that it wasn't right for 1% of the people to own 95% of the country. When the people realized that they were worth less than the rich's pets, they changed things.

This was followed shortly by France following in our footsteps. It continued throughout Europe and Asia. One of the worst examples occurred in Cambodia, where the people were so disgusted at being treated worse than dogs, that they killed all their masters.

Throughout history the people eventually realized that if you have a disproportionate distribution of wealth the peasants will revolt. And sometimes they succeed. When this happens there always is blood spilled and most of it is from the peasants. But just think. If you are on an island with 1010 people.

Of this population 10 people own 99% of the island and the remainder is split between the remaining 1000. The 1000 revolt. In the resulting war for every one of the rich who is killed, 25 poor die. But wait, after only 250 of the peasants are dead, we are left with no more rich. And now the remaining 750 own the entire island.

My point is simple. We 95% ALLOW the rich to rule us. If we decide to change the distribution of wealth in this country we can do it either by voting and having our wishes met by our elected officials, or by picking up pitchforks, hammers or whatever tool is available and forcibly removing the elected officials who refuse to forsake their rich masters.

There is a very small window for peaceful change. If the 95% are further squeezed by the Masters, they will revolt. It will be signaled by citizens blowing up $5.00 gas pumps. Insurance companies. Pharmacies. Wal-Marts. All the price gougers.

If it happens, our nation will be doomed.

The Old Hippy

And remember Democracy is...

Submitted by neolibequlsplndr on Sun, 08/16/2009 - 5:36pm.

the derivative of a People but a People shall never be the derivative of Democracy. Mr. President, heres to a dead planet.

Yes Mark! Healthcare & Climate Change-the DETERMINING Battles

Submitted by Start Loving on Sun, 08/16/2009 - 5:19pm.

Great Mark - thanks. But there is a window for response, a narrow, not-to-come-again window of opportunity bounded by the presence of Pres. Obama, arousal of Left and Center, Legislative Calendar... NOW Mark, what's left of 2009 or NEVER. FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION for Healthcare and Climate Change Legislation. Help us focus. Help us unite. Help us MOBILIZE. HELP US RISE AND STAND WITH COURAGE AND SACRIFICE. Thanks for your indispensable work.

Thomas Jefferson and corporations

Submitted by RicKelis on Sun, 08/16/2009 - 2:43pm.

If I recall from Hartmann's radio program, corp. personhood is the result of a clerk writing something in a margin that was then attributed to SCOTUS. And that it has never really been adjudicated. One of the more interesting viewpoints from Jefferson is the idea that corporations should be dissolved every 39 years or so (just about the time he said we'd probably have a revolution - every 30 or 40 years.) He also said, apparently, that there should be an ongoing dialectic between capitalism and socialism. With both the American government and corporatist America lined up in tandem, it is very difficult to bring about such a re-establishment of such basic principles as those espoused by the Founding Fathers. But, being the wise guys that they were, they allowed for a way to circumvent both entities. That's by convening an Article V Constitutional Convention. The re-establishment of the basic will of that enlightened time would revert to the states, as it was originally done. No Fed, no corporations. We could fix a lot of things -- including re-writing the rules of the SCOTUS itself, which was not given any specific function at the time. The informed electorate envisioned by Jefferson is coming to pass, through social networks such as FaceBook and Twitter. Many things are possible, from the ground up. The People can regain control of the government and then get on top of the corporations -- although I'd prefer Jefferson's idea of disbanding them. But then I'm an anti-capitalist who traces most of the evils in the world to that infamous root of all evil -- money.

The smart thing is too become one

Submitted by moonman on Sun, 08/16/2009 - 12:29pm.

When people ask me, "Moon, what can I do to save money and lower my taxes? Budgets don't work for me." So right. Unless you net or take home at least 35% above the poverty line, budgets don't work. So, I tell them: 1. Become a corporation. 2. Eat at home. 3. Move all your depreciating so-called assets and service contracts into the corporation. Cars, cell phones, internet etc. 4. Support Buzzflash, Move-On, Ralph Nadar, Tom Hartman and others who would restore government of, for and by the People.

A new Constitutional amendment is needed

Submitted by ETS on Sun, 08/16/2009 - 11:23am.

The only surefire method of breaking the grip of corporate personhood is a new amendment to the United States Constitution overturning the 1886 Supreme Court decision in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, the subject of Thom Hartman's book.

Now Article V of the Constitution provides an outline of how to get the process started:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress;

But do not, for a minute, expect Congress to get the ball rolling. This will have to be a true grassroots movement and it will have to start in state legislatures. Certainly state legislators are almost as beholding to corporate interests as the federal Congress, but not quite. State legislators are much closer to their constituents and, therefore, more sensitive to pressure from those constituents.

One can also hope that ending the myth of corporate personhood will be an issue that both the progressive left and libertarian right can agree, as corporate personage is an impediment to innovation and entrepreneurship.

ET Spoon

What's needed more is

Submitted by willymack on Sun, 08/16/2009 - 8:09pm.

A Constitutional Convention to eliminate corporate personhood once and for all, the electoral college, and dividing regions by political party. What's also needed are several new amendments, including right to work, voting rights, public funding (only) of elections, universal health care, and universal education through college. If this sounds like Socialism, so what? Several nations have gone this route, and PRESERVED THEIR DEMOCRACIES. What's capitalism done for most of us besides bleeding us dry, anyway? Screw the neocon bastards.

The constitution

Submitted by godistwaddle on Sun, 08/16/2009 - 12:36pm.

The constitution, written by the richest men in America, guarantees the rights of rich people to continue to govern.

Then how do we get from point A to point D

Submitted by ETS on Sun, 08/16/2009 - 2:39pm.

Are you prepared to dust off the tumbles and guillotines?

Are you prepared as Mao Zedong says:

A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.

Your reply says you have already given up. Surrendered.

I hope there are not more of your kind.

ET Spoon

Mao was right...

Submitted by marlow on Mon, 08/17/2009 - 2:34am.

...But the security apparatus of the US in the 21st century, linked with media and crushing corporate dominance makes Chiang Kai Shek look like... nothing.

Corporate citizenship has

Submitted by Clemsy Diggs on Sun, 08/16/2009 - 10:03am.

Corporate citizenship has been, is, and will always be the single greatest threat to the American Republic. My fear is that the Rubicon has been crossed and it's way too late to put the genie back in the bottle. (Sorry for the mixed metaphors.)

Unfortunately, you're wrong when you say corporations "are equal to us in terms of their legal role in the legislative and legal process." We have only the illusion and vocabulary of equality.

Colonel Sanders is firmly in charge, and he has enough chickens making sure it stays that way, for all the clucking you hear from town hall meetings. Ignorance is the greatest tool in the Colonels arsenal, and he's using it to great effect through the mouths of Rush, Glenn, Sarah, et al. The tragedy is that those who should know better are behaving as if ignorance is a valid perspective that deserves equal time. The only way to turn this around is to acknowledge that George Carlin was right, the owners don't care about us, and start demanding a modicum of common sense before giving anyone a microphone.

If Corporations are persons

Submitted by dugjakes on Sun, 08/16/2009 - 9:59am.

Why are they not prosecuted for slavery? It is still illegal for one person to claim ownership of another, thus controlling their actions and reaping the benefits of their labour and ingenuity. Why, then should one corporation be allowed to own another via share purchases?

Slavery, hell. Murder

Submitted by smchris on Sun, 08/16/2009 - 11:43am.

That was actually asked at a White House press conference when the listeria in Ball Park Franks killed off some people. To the effect, "Bush has endorsed capital punishment. Does he support capital punishment for corporations that negligently kill consumers?" OF COURSE, the press secretary said it wouldn't be a proper topic for the president to respond to.

Not Slaves but Zombies

Submitted by Freedem on Sun, 08/16/2009 - 10:09am.

Even a Slave has their own mind and preferences. Wholly owned subsidiaries have no such thing and can be maneuvered into any action including their own destruction to save their masters, as the Enron case most vividly pointed out (though the actual list is endless)

If the Gang Of Pirates think that the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat, it is not any part of Bipartisan to accommodate them and roll over and play dead.

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