]LoL[Harm
03-18-2010, 10:42 AM
The below was posted on my site (http://www.legionoflions.com/www.facemybookspace.net)a while back, but I didn't get any feedback so I'm throwing it to the LoLers :).
Corporations Part I – Personhood
“We may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing its end.
It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood. . . .
It has indeed been a trying hour for the Republic; but
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes
me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war,
corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places
will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong
its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth
is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.
I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety
of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war.
God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless.”
-President Abraham Lincoln Nov. 21st, 1864 (letter to Col. William F. Elkins)I’m throwing this out there to spark debate, if there is any to be had. I can state without hyperbole that there isn’t another country in existence, nor has one ever existed, which has such a thin line between powerful corporations and a nation’s government than that of the United States of America. This is easy to state since at no other time in history has a corporate heavy economy had so much global power and so much centralized wealth, the only other historical comparison I can fathom is the Roman Catholic Church and how through wealth and their monopolistic hold on religion controlled multiple European and the English governments. And though in the perspective of a person, the thinning of this line between corporate power and their influence on our government has been slow, in historic perspective the corporate ascension to power that heavily flavors the state of our nation today has been incredibly fast.
The following things are the foundations or assumptions that must be agreed upon prior to addressing the rest:
1. A corporation’s primary goal is to provide consistent positive gain in shareholder value.
2. A corporation strives for the betterment of their position in their respective market(s) which aids in the strengthening of the company which helps fulfill their primary goal.
3. A corporation attempts to maximize means of control over required resources to better create efficiencies in maximizing profits, which aids in fulfilling the previous two priorities.
4. Quality of product in a market has a direct correlation to competition and regulation. As dominance eliminates competition and regulations are not there to enforce a specific level of quality, quality can be (but it is not compulsory) sacrificed in order to maximize profits.
Adhering to the above assumptions we can move forward in the discussion of current corporate rights and the concepts of privatization. If you cannot agree to the above assumptions feel free to explain why. This is a lengthy discussion and in order to make it easier to discuss I will be breaking it in to three parts, one on corporate personhood, one on the effects of this personhood in the public forum and the last section is on privatization.
Part One: Corporate personhood
One of the largest issues and to me one of the fundamentally flawed portions of our law is that corporations are identified as persons under the 14th Amendment. It appears that in 1886 in the court case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company the first legal precedent was set. A summary of which can be found here (http://www.tourolaw.edu/Patch/Santa/). Since this case, others have arisen to solidify this legal assumption that corporations are people and have all the rights of a United States citizen, this is termed by some legal experts as ‘legal fiction’. Multiple court cases have utilized the precedent and I won’t go into those cases here, but instead let us focus on the idea of corporations as people.
As persons we have limitations. We have a set of morals that are infused in us not only by our parents but by the community we live in. It is easily assumed that since corporations are run by people that the morals of those that lead the companies will be reflected in the decisions that the corporations make, this however has been shown to not always be true. In fact, there are numerous psychological tests that show that with layer in between you and those you affect, that some terrible things can be done with little rationalization or guilt. It is this primary difference that causes me the most difficulty in stomaching the current way law grants corporations our rights. They don’t use the rights to insure they are not subjugated by our government, or to insure they can worship where and who they will, or if the government makes a law that infringes upon their god given rights that they have a means to challenge those injustices. They instead use our rights to further their priorities, and those are listed above in 1 through 3 of our assumptions.
Do I think that a corporation should be denied all of our rights and left to the mercy of the government that can then search the corporation at will, deny them the ability to speak publicly, prohibit them due process in court? No, of course not, but the current system is colossally flawed. The flaw is that a corporation, which remember is a person under law, is also not a person right when it matters most, when it commits a crime.
Here’s a good synopsis of what a corporation can get a way with by merely paying monetary fines when caught (this was quoted from this source (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3735/is_199904/ai_n8836370/pg_3/?tag=content;col1)): “A corporation may cause death, injury, disease, and severe physical pain by decisions resulting in pollution, poor design, inadequate quality control, plant safety, and working conditions. Corporations also may impose severe deprivations of income, well-being, and effective personal freedom by decisions on hiring, firing, employment practices, and plant locations. Finally, corporations may exercise influence, power, control, and even coercion over employees, customers, suppliers, and others by manipulating expectations of reward and deprivations, by advertising propaganda, promotions and demotions, not to mention illegal practices.”
Many of the above committed by a real person would be in jail and once they had served their time, prohibited from attaining a position to where they could commit the same crime again and be on some type of restricted life style (probation). For instance if I hired someone to dump a chemical outside of regulated means and contaminated miles of soil that caused birth defects in hundreds of people I would not only be personally responsible for the pain and suffering of those impacted but I would also be banned from gaining access to that chemical ever again on penalty of re-imprisonment and in this day and age most likely labeled a terrorist. However this does not occur for corporations, at least not in a way that impacts them heavily enough to prevent future willful acts.
There are cases out there that do show that criminal charges can be brought against CEO’s and other decision makers in a corporation but the outcomes are comical in many instances, such as US v. Park, where rodent infested warehouses were noted by the FDA, letters were sent to the CEO to clean the mess up, the warehouses were never cleaned up and the company and the CEO was taken to court. The jury found him guilty (the company pleaded guilty, the CEO (respondent) pleaded not guilty) and fined him $50 per incident; I believe there were two incidents but the filing is hard to understand in that regard. However this “massive” fine was never paid, the case was appealed and overturned and the CEO was never stuck with what should have been a failure to comply with FDA regulations, removal from his position and further actions taken against the company if the new CEO did not comply. This is almost the poster-case in all legal actions taken against companies. The company itself will often get stuck with the burden of guilt but those in the decision making positions are rarely fined, incarcerated or in many cases even fired from their positions. This constant defense through dispersion of responsibility apparently is impossible to tackle given our current legal system.
It is also well documented that flouting FDA regulations, even when caught and fined, barely makes a dent in a pharmaceutical corporations profits and since it doesn’t impact their profits and no one goes to jail, well they just keep doing it, almost assuredly with the approval of the shareholders, board of directors and CO’s all of whom are never held accountable. Source (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a4yV1nYxCGoA&pos=10) This ineffective “wrist-slapping” is a joke and a heavy injustice granting more power to a corporation who can easily disperse responsibility than any one individual has since there isn’t anyone else to whom you can shift the blame.
A solution, if they wish to have our rights, they must be treated like a person at all times, there must be legal repercussions when their actions would be illegal for a person to do, and beyond just monetary fines. The board of directors and the chief officers (and other management) all need to be directly held accountable for any action that can be proven to have been preventable through their direct or indirect actions, doubly so for those that they have been previously warned of, such as in US v. Park.
In addition to the above solution I propose the removal of the legal fiction,, because the Constitution was never written to apply to corporations and any attempt to do so is a willful warping and corruption of the foundation of this country. Businesses should be protected and have many similar rights that we do, but not under the US Constitution. The removal of this legal fiction would go a long way in correcting the issues discussed in the second portion of this write-up, how corporate personhood impacts the public forum.
Corporations Part I – Personhood
“We may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing its end.
It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood. . . .
It has indeed been a trying hour for the Republic; but
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes
me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war,
corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places
will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong
its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth
is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.
I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety
of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war.
God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless.”
-President Abraham Lincoln Nov. 21st, 1864 (letter to Col. William F. Elkins)I’m throwing this out there to spark debate, if there is any to be had. I can state without hyperbole that there isn’t another country in existence, nor has one ever existed, which has such a thin line between powerful corporations and a nation’s government than that of the United States of America. This is easy to state since at no other time in history has a corporate heavy economy had so much global power and so much centralized wealth, the only other historical comparison I can fathom is the Roman Catholic Church and how through wealth and their monopolistic hold on religion controlled multiple European and the English governments. And though in the perspective of a person, the thinning of this line between corporate power and their influence on our government has been slow, in historic perspective the corporate ascension to power that heavily flavors the state of our nation today has been incredibly fast.
The following things are the foundations or assumptions that must be agreed upon prior to addressing the rest:
1. A corporation’s primary goal is to provide consistent positive gain in shareholder value.
2. A corporation strives for the betterment of their position in their respective market(s) which aids in the strengthening of the company which helps fulfill their primary goal.
3. A corporation attempts to maximize means of control over required resources to better create efficiencies in maximizing profits, which aids in fulfilling the previous two priorities.
4. Quality of product in a market has a direct correlation to competition and regulation. As dominance eliminates competition and regulations are not there to enforce a specific level of quality, quality can be (but it is not compulsory) sacrificed in order to maximize profits.
Adhering to the above assumptions we can move forward in the discussion of current corporate rights and the concepts of privatization. If you cannot agree to the above assumptions feel free to explain why. This is a lengthy discussion and in order to make it easier to discuss I will be breaking it in to three parts, one on corporate personhood, one on the effects of this personhood in the public forum and the last section is on privatization.
Part One: Corporate personhood
One of the largest issues and to me one of the fundamentally flawed portions of our law is that corporations are identified as persons under the 14th Amendment. It appears that in 1886 in the court case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company the first legal precedent was set. A summary of which can be found here (http://www.tourolaw.edu/Patch/Santa/). Since this case, others have arisen to solidify this legal assumption that corporations are people and have all the rights of a United States citizen, this is termed by some legal experts as ‘legal fiction’. Multiple court cases have utilized the precedent and I won’t go into those cases here, but instead let us focus on the idea of corporations as people.
As persons we have limitations. We have a set of morals that are infused in us not only by our parents but by the community we live in. It is easily assumed that since corporations are run by people that the morals of those that lead the companies will be reflected in the decisions that the corporations make, this however has been shown to not always be true. In fact, there are numerous psychological tests that show that with layer in between you and those you affect, that some terrible things can be done with little rationalization or guilt. It is this primary difference that causes me the most difficulty in stomaching the current way law grants corporations our rights. They don’t use the rights to insure they are not subjugated by our government, or to insure they can worship where and who they will, or if the government makes a law that infringes upon their god given rights that they have a means to challenge those injustices. They instead use our rights to further their priorities, and those are listed above in 1 through 3 of our assumptions.
Do I think that a corporation should be denied all of our rights and left to the mercy of the government that can then search the corporation at will, deny them the ability to speak publicly, prohibit them due process in court? No, of course not, but the current system is colossally flawed. The flaw is that a corporation, which remember is a person under law, is also not a person right when it matters most, when it commits a crime.
Here’s a good synopsis of what a corporation can get a way with by merely paying monetary fines when caught (this was quoted from this source (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3735/is_199904/ai_n8836370/pg_3/?tag=content;col1)): “A corporation may cause death, injury, disease, and severe physical pain by decisions resulting in pollution, poor design, inadequate quality control, plant safety, and working conditions. Corporations also may impose severe deprivations of income, well-being, and effective personal freedom by decisions on hiring, firing, employment practices, and plant locations. Finally, corporations may exercise influence, power, control, and even coercion over employees, customers, suppliers, and others by manipulating expectations of reward and deprivations, by advertising propaganda, promotions and demotions, not to mention illegal practices.”
Many of the above committed by a real person would be in jail and once they had served their time, prohibited from attaining a position to where they could commit the same crime again and be on some type of restricted life style (probation). For instance if I hired someone to dump a chemical outside of regulated means and contaminated miles of soil that caused birth defects in hundreds of people I would not only be personally responsible for the pain and suffering of those impacted but I would also be banned from gaining access to that chemical ever again on penalty of re-imprisonment and in this day and age most likely labeled a terrorist. However this does not occur for corporations, at least not in a way that impacts them heavily enough to prevent future willful acts.
There are cases out there that do show that criminal charges can be brought against CEO’s and other decision makers in a corporation but the outcomes are comical in many instances, such as US v. Park, where rodent infested warehouses were noted by the FDA, letters were sent to the CEO to clean the mess up, the warehouses were never cleaned up and the company and the CEO was taken to court. The jury found him guilty (the company pleaded guilty, the CEO (respondent) pleaded not guilty) and fined him $50 per incident; I believe there were two incidents but the filing is hard to understand in that regard. However this “massive” fine was never paid, the case was appealed and overturned and the CEO was never stuck with what should have been a failure to comply with FDA regulations, removal from his position and further actions taken against the company if the new CEO did not comply. This is almost the poster-case in all legal actions taken against companies. The company itself will often get stuck with the burden of guilt but those in the decision making positions are rarely fined, incarcerated or in many cases even fired from their positions. This constant defense through dispersion of responsibility apparently is impossible to tackle given our current legal system.
It is also well documented that flouting FDA regulations, even when caught and fined, barely makes a dent in a pharmaceutical corporations profits and since it doesn’t impact their profits and no one goes to jail, well they just keep doing it, almost assuredly with the approval of the shareholders, board of directors and CO’s all of whom are never held accountable. Source (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a4yV1nYxCGoA&pos=10) This ineffective “wrist-slapping” is a joke and a heavy injustice granting more power to a corporation who can easily disperse responsibility than any one individual has since there isn’t anyone else to whom you can shift the blame.
A solution, if they wish to have our rights, they must be treated like a person at all times, there must be legal repercussions when their actions would be illegal for a person to do, and beyond just monetary fines. The board of directors and the chief officers (and other management) all need to be directly held accountable for any action that can be proven to have been preventable through their direct or indirect actions, doubly so for those that they have been previously warned of, such as in US v. Park.
In addition to the above solution I propose the removal of the legal fiction,, because the Constitution was never written to apply to corporations and any attempt to do so is a willful warping and corruption of the foundation of this country. Businesses should be protected and have many similar rights that we do, but not under the US Constitution. The removal of this legal fiction would go a long way in correcting the issues discussed in the second portion of this write-up, how corporate personhood impacts the public forum.