Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy: Amazon.ca: Ted Nace: Books

Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

Nace nurtured Peachpit Press from a home-based operation, writing and publishing computer guides, to a business worthy of acquisition by the Pearson conglomerate. The experience inspired him to study the nature of corporate power. He offers a breezy summary of the legal history surrounding the formation of corporations and the parameters of their power, putting an anti-corporate spin on the American Revolution and discussing how the early republic limited corporate power by enabling state governments to issue restrictive charters. But the tight controls didn't remain in place: after the Supreme Court's decision in an 1886 case involving the Santa Clara Railroad, corporations were assumed to be the legal equivalent of people entitled to equal protection under the law and, in subsequent cases, were guaranteed a growing range of constitutional rights. One of Nace's central arguments is that Santa Clara doesn't mean what everybody thinks it means: the original decision doesn't take any stand on whether corporations have constitutional rights; the question comes up in a subsequent version of the decision, but the Chief Justice acts as if it had been resolved in earlier decisions. Although Nace blames the Court's reporter for the shift in emphasis, he illustrates how another justice, Stephen Field, was already buttressing politicians' and financial titans' efforts to eliminate all restraints on corporate power, making their legal supremacy inevitable. Later chapters examine how corporations continue to wield their influence to prevent the government from regulating them too closely, but while the book offers plenty of details about the problem's existence and deftly introduces it, it offers little more than generalities about where to go from there.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Book Description

Surpassing even the state and the church, the corporation has become the core institution of the modern world, exercising might and muscle without regard to the often destructive effects on individuals, the environment, society, and the world. How did this happen? In this compelling expose, noted entrepreneur and activist Ted Nace scrutinizes the legal framework of the corporation and untangles questions about how and why the corporation evolved as it did. Nace traces the evolution of this institution through the behind-the-scenes figures who shaped it, including Thomas Scott, an obscure genius who invented the holding company; Stephen Field, the Supreme Court judge who developed corporate personhood rights; and many others. Including the latest research by historians, sociologists, political scientists, and legal scholars, this book is a dramatic narrative, an invaluable reference, and a blueprint for regaining control before it's too late.

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Inside This Book (Learn More)

First Sentence
IT'S NOT OFTEN that Americans get asked by pollsters what they think about corporate power. Read the first page

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5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended!, Mar 1 2004

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Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy (Hardcover)

This interesting book traces the history and development of corporations from the time of Queen Elizabeth I to the present day. Much of the book focuses on little-known episodes in the corporate chronicle - the cruel Jamestown settlement in Virginia, for example, or the British East India Company's depredations in India. About midway through, the book shifts from such tales to a close examination of Supreme Court justices who tilted the playing field in favor of corporate power. Breezily written and accessible, this book puts a lengthy and complicated history easily within reach of ordinary readers. Its bias is clear - the subtitle leaves no doubt that author Ted Nace is a foe of corporate power - and the closer to the present the story comes, the more accusatory the author's conclusions may seem. Nonetheless, We find this is a worthwhile read for those who seek background information on the dark side of the American corporate success story.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Tracing the roots of this phenomenon, Jan 12 2004

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy (Hardcover)

Gangs Of America: The Rise Of Corporate Power And The Disabling Of Democracy by Ted Nace is an expert and sharp drawn scrutiny of just how contemporary corporations have amassed more political and economic rights than ordinary citizens within America's legal system. Tracing the roots of this phenomenon, and warning of the dangers such preferential treatment could have upon American society as a whole if continued unchecked, Gangs Of America is an informed and informative analytical history of the origins and implications of a very real imbalance of political and economic power upon our judicial and legislative systems.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Smart White Men, Nov 13 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy (Hardcover)

If the hijacking of the 2000 presidential election by Stupid White Men incensed you, then take heed of the Smart White Men who have dealt a thousand blows to democracy over the past century. Ted Nace's "Gangs of America" is an intense history of corporate America's deliberate and relentless effort to empower itself aided by congressmen and judges entrenched in a sea of vested interests.

In a Matrix-like prequel, Nace carefully chronologizes the efforts of corporations to gain freedoms and protections as "persons" at the very expense of the people the U.S. Constitution was designed to protect. Even the self-serving ACLU cannot see the "real slippery slope is the ever-increasing tendency to treat corporations as though they were human beings."

Nace's witty and engaging tale compels the reader to follow the roller-coaster ride of corporate dominance which begins by going down the murky path by which the courts came to treat corporations as "persons." As the author of "Be Careful Who You SLAPP" I especially enjoyed Nace's treatment of corporate Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs).

Nace points the reader to the success of this concerted corporate effort to dominate as measured by the public image of the CEO who is once seen as the dutiful bureaucrat and is now transformed into the swashbuckling dot-com "hero" in the likes of Bill Gates. But as the corporate juggernaut rolls forward we find this local boy does good is soon testifying at his company's anti-trust hearing, one of the most egregious examples of corporate abuse of power of the 20th century.

Are we doomed to an Orwellian future where a large unaccountable "modern" entity enjoys more rights and freedom than the citizens who work its factories and offices? Can the same legal system that allowed corporations to add "field to field, and power to power" now check its unfettered growth? Can we as citizens tap into our human propensity for creativity and utilize the restraints that will morph the corporations into welcomed tools of society? Or is our future to be trapped in "The Matrix" where corporations and machines now control our reality?

Nace's answer is practical and inspiring. Just as corporations have bit by bit turned the tables on us, we citizens can take back our liberties by chipping away at the same old block - the legal institutions that have empowered them. One beginning is for each State to simply enact charter revocation by which modern day corporations can be tamed with the threat of dissolution as they once were.

Nace's "Gangs of America" is an insightful view of the basis for the sense of invincible arrogance that fueled Enron, WorldCom and others yet to appear on the public radar. Thanks to Nace, we know the trajectory of corporate America. It's not too late to redirect the flight plan.

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars enjoyable, readable history
I was expecting this to be a fairly dry read, given the subject, but I was so pleasantly surprised. As the New York Times said review put it, Gangs of America is a... Read more

Published on Nov 3 2003 by Earl A. Killian

5.0 out of 5 stars Putting the Dog to Sleep
GANGS OF AMERICA is a penetrating account of how the corporation came to claim the same rights and freedoms as citizens. Read more

Published on Oct 20 2003 by Panopticonman