Prometheus 6

Sometimes I think about the whole “government of the people, by the people and for the people” thing and wonder what happened. So far, the greatest damage to that ideal has been caused by the foolish decision to extend constitutional rights to corporations. Corporations are collective entities, and as such have more force than any of the humans they compete with. They simply have the upper hand, economically speaking. Giving them constitutional rights insures they have the upper hand politically and culturally as well.

Opponents of "corporate personhood" believe that large corporations as juristic persons have enjoyed certain constitutional rights intended for natural humans as the result of a misinterpretation of an 1886 Supreme Court Case, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. Opponents claim that certain rights of natural persons, such as the right to political and other non-commercial free speech, are now exercised by corporations to the detriment of the American democratic process as provided under the Constitution. Some opponents point to the recent discovery of correspondence between then Supreme Court Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite, and court reporter J.C. Bancroft Davis as proof of a conspiracy among the railroad corporations to intentionally create a misrepresentation of that decision for the benefit of the railroads.

Proponents of corporate personhood believe that corporations, as representatives of their shareholders, were intended by the founders and framers to enjoy many, if not all, of the same rights as natural persons, for example, the right against self-incrimination, right to privacy and the right to lobby the government. Some proponents believe that these rights should continue to be extended to corporations regardless of any possible flawed interpretation of the Santa Clara Co. v. So. Pac. Railroad case.

I find it particularly annoying and somewhat offensive that the 14th amendment was used to give corporations citizenship rights Black people did not have.

There should be no dispute here as far as I can see...just as freedom of the press would mean nothing to me if I didn't own a press, freedom of speech should only apply if you have a mouth. That's not the way things are right now, though. Right now economic, political and social power is concentrated in the metaphorical hands of legal persons and they continue to accrue as much of each as they can.

The government is a collective, too. We've always agreed the job of a government is to handle those necessary things we cannot handle as individuals. Defending ourselves, our lifestyles against collective entities like nations and corporations in our economy (which has gone beyond competitive to antagonistic) definitely fits the description. With the massive changes coming our way, whether they herald a technological utopia or a peak oil dystopia, we need our government to act on behalf of its human citizens. We need it to be like a citizen's union.

Still those cries of socialism. Though I have no objection to socialism as a theory there's no need to give up capitalism if the government becomes the citizens union. Unions and collective bargaining has been part of our economy for a very long time. I realize you can't just say something like that as though it automatically sounds reasonable. So I'll explain why it is not only reasonable, but desirable.

Tomorrow.