Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights [Hardcover]

 

 

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Hartmann calls for a values based USA and less emphasis on big business in this book.He sets out to show how the way things are currently are inimical to economic growth of the ordinary folks of the USA. A must read.

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Prior to the first century no court applied constitutional rights for corporations. In 1886, Santa Clara County verses Pacific Railroad, in a head note explain the case the author implied that "corporations were persons" as a reason for the court administering a 25 dollar fine to the corporation. The foundation for "personhood" gave rise too a constitutional claim of equal protection of the law for corporations. Using this precedence, Corporations were quick to fight for constitutional protections for 1. Free speech (1st amendment) 2. privacy protection (10th amendment) 3. Freedom from search and seizure (fourth amendment) 4. double jeopardy (5th amendment) 5. Self-incrimination (5th amendment) 6. and anti-discriminations (14th amendment). It seem corporations had done the impossible, they had received the same scrutiny or equal protection as race. Over the century, the vast number of 14th amendment cases has been equal protection claims against anti-discrimination policies for corporations. Corporations have established civil liberties and constitutional rights protected by law.

So why not let the corporation vote? One could argue, in a republican form of government a small governing body holds representation of power and decision-making; so, why not let corporations vote? Corporations represent the wealth, resources, and jobs of America. Further one may observe that the vested interests of the corporation could be represented, if they were given a vote. So why have corporation not been given the power to vote?

If corporations received the same protection as a person the democratic process would be destroyed. Apparently the founding fathers did not want to give corporations this level of power over the people, so no constitutional provision or implication was made to give corporations an elective vote for selection of a candidate or local law. Do corporation remain powerless or silent on this issue of voting constraint?

Corporations vote with money. In an election year politicians receive tens of millions of dollars to their party, which in my opinion is a loophole. Political campaigns were designed too be limited in the contribution amounts to safeguard against buying an election.

The magnitude of financial difference between corporate donations and people donations is staggering. Persons give hundreds or thousands of dollars too politicians, whereas, corporations give millions to politicians. This allows corporations too buy favorable legislation manipulation. However, the people still have the power too elect their government officials and this fundamental power gives the people the ability too prevent government representatives from being completely controlled by the corporations. If the elected official performs contrary to the people opinion they have the right the next election to select a different representative. The people have the power to select their representatives. The representatives have the obligation to listen to the interest for the people. The representatives are too account for good and moral decisions, while in office. It is the job of the people are too voice their concern, as poor legislation becomes law.
However, once in office, special interest lobbying applies pressure too government representatives for support to their viewpoints. These viewpoints may not be confined to America. Since, corporations are global entities and represent global interests, corporations can own more than one corporation; corporations often campaign for inter-continental interests in their campaign for rights, interests, and support with the government representatives. These corporations can span multiple countries, whereas, a citizen must reside in one country. The fact that corporations can represent viewpoints for various countries and receive legal and political recognition, as a person in this country seems grants foreigners a new level of leverage with the American political process.

If corporations have constitutional rights, do they have responsibilities to other citizens? Corporations have migrated from state privileges to constitutional rights. Corporations are expected to act like good citizens: pay taxes, obey the laws, keep the environment clean, and pay a living. Citizens are expected to operate under moral constraints, whereas, corporations are expected to make money. A corporation is not expected to operate on moral constraints. What that means is the corporation may apply force since no moral guardian stands in the way from them achieving their goal of profits. If no legal constraint exists, the corporation plows forward to make money without consideration of any moral constraint. For example, the liberal media corporations claim the right to freedom of expression. This means the corporation is free to sell media with high levels of sexual content, violence, and degrading morality. The impact can span generations. The selling of produce can span many decades because a corporation exists in perpetuity.

The produce is subject to taxation, protection under copyright law, and free commerce between states and other nations. Laws and regulations force the media companies too have movie content rated. Since companies have similar protections as persons, the first amendment rights extend too the corporation.
The first amendment includes prohibitions against the government from censoring speech and freedom of expression and this gives the corporation a tremendous liberty to sponsor lascivious and immoral content in movies.

How is it that corporations have come to exert so much power and influence over our everyday lives, to have rights and privileges unavailable to individuals, to take so much from, and return so little to, the general wealth both of this country and the rest of the world?
Thom Hartmann traces the history of corporations from their Elizabethian inception in the East India Company to the present; he describes in some detail the changes in the relationship among corporations, their governmental patrons and their societal prey. Historically corporations were granted charters by governments subject to their being monitored, controlled and mandated to provide for the general good in exchange for specific commissions and concessions. In America's early history, this principle was understood and effectively implemented to control the excesses of corporate behavior. Then in 1886, the US Supreme Court ruled on arguments in the case of Santa Clara County[CA] v Southern Pacific Railway. A clerical misstatement in the court reporter's notes, separate and distinct from the formal decision, led to the interpretation that the Bill of Rights was intended to apply to corporations, not just individual human beings. Although Jefferson had cautioned specifically against the power of corporations unrestrained, thenceforth their lawyers have succeeded in prizing successively greater concessions from and precedences over the rights of individuals.
Acceptance of corporations as 'persons', entitled to the same rights and restrictions as human beings, has come to be capriciously applied. Corporations buy, sell, trade, dismember, even kill other corporations - the corporate equivalent of slavery - without being held accountable as they would if corporations were human beings. There are other glaring inconsistencies in the logic of corporate 'personhood' but our law is governed more by precedent, than by logic, or common sense. Once entrenched and established, no matter how egregiously erroneous, the tradition of corporate personhood would take an act of Congress, or an amendment to the Constitution, to rectify the mistake.
There are a number of fallacies in the assignment of 'person' status to fictitious, fictional entities such as corporations. A principal function of good government is to level the playing field between the weak and powerful, to protect the weak from the predatory ravages of the strong. Although all 'men' are presumed equal, in rights if not in innate abilities, corporations are clearly, intrinsically, manifestly vastly more powerful than any one man or small group of men. As Hartmann shows, this difference in power is important yet our present governance fails utterly to protect the populace from the ravages of corporate rapacity and indifference to the plights of its victims.
Although the purpose of government is to provide for the general good, while minimizing harm to the weak and minority interests, the purpose of corporations is to accumulate wealth for its management and stockholders without regard to the source of that wealth. The wealth of a few individuals is not coincident with the general good. Nor are the managers and stockholders of a concern, a tiny subset of the general populace, coincident with the general population. Thus the purposes of good government in general do not coincide, indeed are often at odds, with the purposes of any given corporation.
Further, the activities of corporations in the aggregate - concentrating and focussing wealth for their individual stockholders by taking it from the general population - does not result in general good for the population. The myth that entities acting in unrestrained pursuit of their self-interests somehow produce the greater general good is amply disproven by the history of the American experiment. Rather the general wealth and good is redistributed, concentrated and focused to the benefit of the most powerful and the detriment of the least. Left to themselves, corporations parasitize the general population, suck the wealth out of it for corporate gain while often degrading the environment and denuding the resources employed to accumulate that gain. Corporatism results not in shared wellbeing for the general population but concentrated and focussed wellbeing for a few in a sea of general deprivation.
In other chapters, Hartmann describes the effect of Free Trade and the supranational World Trade Organization: to ravage national economies for the benefit of Corporations, to degrade the wellbeing of the middle class and workers in developed countries, only minimally to improve that of those in developing countries, while enriching the beneficiaries of corporations. Wealth and wellbeing are transferred from those who need it, to those who have it already.
Mussolini defined fascism as the merger of state and corporate power. It appears that America, indeed the entire planet, is well on its way to becoming a fascist state. Ruled by corporations, our 'elected' leaders and representatives are beholden and accountable principally to the interests of their various corporate contributors, only secondarily to the public. It is perhaps ironic that Hartmann, a self-confessed 'founder and former CEO of seven corporations that have generated over a quarter billion dollars in revenue', concludes this fascinating book with proposed grass-roots intiatives to unravel the tangled skein of corporate dominance. He offers no alternatives to the corporate model for the management of production and the distribution of wealth and wellbeing. Rather he advocates the return of effective control and regulation of corporations to the people, making them less the victims of corporations and more their overseers and regulators; and he and offers model actions to be pursued at the local level. But the present processes of government from legislatures to the courts are seemingly similarly enthralled to business interests intent on maximizing profit, not the general welfare. Whether or to what extent anything can be done to reverse this state of affairs is unclear. Readers will be provoked to wonder whether there are other means of advancing the general good and wellbeing than increasing the disparity in both for the general populations. Rather than a definitive solution to the problem of corporatism, this book provides a clear, readable and provocative depiction of the extent of that overwhelming problem.
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5.0 out of 5 stars The Ascent of the Artificial Person
The story that Hartmann tells is one that everyone should know, but nobody does: how the corporation came to have the power it now has as an institution in the United States... Read more

Published on Mar 15 2004 by Jeremy Raymondjack

5.0 out of 5 stars Read the book, then judge it....
I have some doubts that "danielclark" actually read the book before he summarily passed judgement on it. Read more

Published on Jan 29 2004 by Evolver

5.0 out of 5 stars Response to that Moron "danieleclark"
Response to that Moron "danieleclark"

Get an education!

Our political system isn't a true Capitalistic-Democracy. Read more

Published on Jan 18 2004

4.0 out of 5 stars Mr. Hartmann milks curious teethers.
I consider Thom Hartmann to be a thoughtful, intelligent man. He continues to impress many (including me) with his broad knowledge of many issues. Read more

Published on Nov 21 2003 by StarGazer

1.0 out of 5 stars Marxist Garbage
Typical Marxist nonsense wrapped in a neat little package for socialists to love. I have some news for you socialists:

- Economic rights are the greatest "human... Read more

Published on Nov 20 2003 by Dannyboy

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read.
This exceptional book will change the way you read the newspaper and understand world events. The author is not against big business or against corporations in general. Read more

Published on Nov 13 2003 by Ralph A. Weisheit

4.0 out of 5 stars More accurate than I wish.
Well, I'm forced to admit it. When I found that the book was written by a psychotherapist, I feared it would be loaded with psychobabble and self-righteousness. Read more

Published on Nov 9 2003 by Timothy P. Scanlon

5.0 out of 5 stars I loved this book
Like The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, I like this book because Thom Hartmann writes not only about what is going wrong today, but really puts in all the history that brought us... Read more

Published on Oct 18 2003 by Roberto Giannicola

5.0 out of 5 stars The Perils of False Personhood
Ignore other reviewers of this book who use narrow-minded pejoratives like Anti-Corporate, Anti-Capitalist, or even Communist in condemning this book. Read more

Published on Oct 15 2003 by doomsdayer520

3.0 out of 5 stars slightly off balance...
As some reviewers have mentioned, the writer is not a lawyer. While his consultations with lawyers may have been helpful there does to seem to be some basic misunderstandings of... Read more

Published on Aug 4 2003 by Andrew

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