A Brief History of the Corporation . . .

[OneBlueSky]

Excerpted from Culture Jam: The Uncooling of America
(Kalle Lasn,William Morrow/Eaglebrook, 1999)

snip

Then came a legal event that would not be understood for decades (and remains baffling even today), an event that would change the course of American history. In Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad, a dispute over a railbed route, the US Supreme Court deemed that a private corporation was a "natural person" under the US Constitution and therefore entitled to protection under the Bill of Rights. Suddenly, corporations enjoyed all the rights and sovereignty previously enjoyed only by the people, including the right to free speech.

This 1886 decision ostensibly gave corporations the same powers as private citizens. But considering their vast financial resources, corporations thereafter actually had far more power than any private citizen. They could defend and exploit their rights and freedoms more vigorously than any individual and therefore they were more free. In a single legal stroke, the whole intent of the American Constitution -- that all citizens have one vote, and exercise an equal voice in public debates -- had been undermined. Sixty years after it was inked, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas concluded of Santa Clara that it "could not be supported by history, logic or reason." One of the great legal blunders of the nineteenth century changed the whole idea of democratic government.

Post-Santa Clara America became a very different place. By 1919, corporations employed more than 80 percent of the workforce and produced most of America's wealth. Corporate trusts had become too powerful to legally challenge. The courts consistently favored their interests. Employees found themselves without recourse if, for example, they were injured on the job (if you worked for a corporation, you voluntarily assumed the risk, was the courts' position). Railroad and mining companies were enabled to annex vast tracts of land at minimal expense.

Gradually, many of the original ideals of the American Revolution were simply quashed. Both during and after the Civil War, America was increasingly being ruled by a coalition of government and business interests. The shift amounted to a kind of coup d'tat - not a sudden military takeover but a gradual subversion and takeover of the institutions of state power. Except for a temporary setback during Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal (the 1930s), the US has since been governed as a corporate state.

- more . . .

http://www.socialistfuture.org.uk/globaleconomy/The%20Issues/historyofCorporation.htm

[BlueEyedSon]

1. yes we must "revoke the personhood of the corporation"

[phusion]

2. Have you seen The Corporation?

It talks a little about this...great documentary.

http://www.thecorporation.com/

[yella_dawg]

3. My understanding of the 1886 decision

is that the "personhood" was actually in the form of a note inserted by a clerk rather than an actual element of the decision. Sort of a monumental transcription error.

Can anybody verify or dispute this?


on edit: spelling

[Robert Oak]

7. clerk error verification plus

http://www.thislandthemovie.com/story.html

Interview/reference with the guy who caught the error...

but guess what, doesn't matter that it was an error since so many
rulings after the fact have made corporations persons.

[orwell]

4. Damn activist judges! n/t

[Kansas Wyatt]

5. So are corporations sent to prison for criminal violations of the law?

If the corporation enjoys equal protection, than they should have equal punishment. Just like the blue collar worker who has fallen on hard times. Probably be kind of hard to stick an entire corporation in prison, so something just doesn't add up.

[BlueEyedSon]

8. Thay can be "executed" if they break the law badly enough

(i.e. forcibly disolved)

Right?

[bpcmxr]

6. Excellent!

A very interesting read.

[wuushew]

9. The problem is lobbying money not the structure of business

Organizations that are not limited by finite life or physical size can obtain greater economies of scale than smaller companies. As a society should not we promote efficency, especially if through taxation and other means we can redistribute the fruits of their labor?

[shockra]

10. I read the book "The Corporation"...

That the documentary is based on, and I agree that if the corporation is a person, it fits the description of a psychopath.

It's more than that though. It's a rich, white, male psychopath. Do you think the "person" a corporation was meant to be is a woman, or a black man? Heck no. Not ever. That would make it too vulnerable. It's an untouchable combination of gender, race, and class privilege. A psychopathic one.

[dbt]

11. How can a corporation be a person without either

soul or conscience?

[H2O Man]

12. Great Thread!

I think that this is one of the least undestood events in our nation's history -- hence, the significance is not appreciated. There was a thread on DU yesterday which I didn't read, but which rheorically asked if capitalism always leads to fascism .... because I find myself mildly frustrated by the absolute misunderstanding of what fascism actually is, I tend to avoid these discussions. However, your post builds the foundation needed to explain why capitalism can lead to fascism .... because making a corporation a "natural person" is the foundation of a fascist state.

I am having my son, a senior in high school, read your post. He has a very talented social studies teacher, and he'll get some "extra credit" for bringing this in. I thank you.