]LoL[Harm
03-18-2010, 10:52 AM
Corporations Part II – Public Forum
One of the founding fathers I respect heavily, Thomas Jefferson, had this to say in a letter in 1816:“In this respect England exhibits the most remarkable phenomenon in the universe in the contrast between the profligacy of its government and the probity of its citizens. And accordingly it is now exhibiting an example of the truth of the maxim that virtue and interest are inseparable. It ends, as might have been expected, in the ruin of its people, but this ruin will fall heaviest, as it ought to fall on that hereditary aristocracy which has for generations been preparing the catastrophe. I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country”Revisiting the point made in Part 1, where I was discussing the differences in limitations between a real person and corporate personhood, another I would like to visit is limitations in resources. We have heavily limited resources in direct comparison to a corporation (which is almost absurdly obvious due to a corporation being a collective entity). Take one of our greatest freedoms, speech. The amount of power a typical citizen has in the exercising of their freedom of speech in the realm of influencing people or governmental policy is almost always limited by money, which is one thing the corporate model excels at in creating. In this regard the power of speech often escalates with how much money you have to put behind it. This creates inequality, which has always existed between the rich and the poor, but at a much heavier tip in the scales. What we have at this time is a massive power, the corporations, who control through their enormous wealth, the majority of the public forum in this country. What breaks the scales is the efficiency in which corporations are able to lobby, which is an extension of our 1st Amendment rights which reads“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” We as the people have the right to lobby our government for redress, but with our lack of money our small under-funded voices are drowned out amongst these giants of wealth. Lobbying itself is a perversion of the 1st Amendment. It states we have the right to seek redress of grievances. Redress for the most part means to (according to dictionary.com)1. to set right; remedy or repair (wrongs, injuries, etc.)
2. to correct or reform (abuses, evils, etc.)
3. to remedy or relieve (suffering, want, etc.)
4. to adjust evenly again, as a balance.
In context, since the word ‘grievances’ is included in the wording, it is easy to assume that the redress the writers of that amendment are referring to is one of the first three definitions.
Is it logical to give this right to a corporation, that in the event that they are wronged by the government they then have the ability to seek redress for that wrong? Of course, a business should be able to seek redress of a wrong. But did the writers of the Constitution mean that this right permits any entity to setup multibillion dollar groups in our capital that have the sole purpose of influencing decision making? I’m not a Constitutional expert and I’m not a Supreme Court Justice whose job is to interpret the Constitution, but I think it is easy to see that the current interpretation of how this right for redress is being used is a blatant mutation and corruption of the way our government is supposed to function. I don’t believe for a moment that the means of seeking redress was to petition law makers before a law was even signed. One would think the way you would seek redress was either through the courts or by petitioning your representatives after a wrong had occurred. It is in fact logically impossible to redress something when it has not even occurred.
Moving beyond the logical application of redress and looking at just the general ability and perhaps right of people to influence our government decisions. Do I believe that a person should have the right to influence a law before it is ratified? Of course, though through the proper channels, such as your representatives in Congress. Do I believe a corporation should have that right? I most certainly do not, first because they don’t have a home and community like a person does, the most influential corporations are housed in multiple states and therefore have multiple “voices” when it comes to policy votes, and secondly because the freedom of speech and the ability to use that speech to influence people and policy has always favored those with money. However, in the past those who attempted to influence policy were people themselves subjected to limitations that corporations don’t have, and though they most assuredly worked towards self-serving goals, those goals in the end were still ones that benefited people.
This is not true with corporate influence. How they use their 1st amendment rights is to not better the laws for people, but to change or pervert the laws to better those first three assumptions. How can this be seen as a healthy thing for our country when the goals of a corporation have nothing at all to do with the betterment of our communities, of people, or of our nation? This has become even more of a troublesome thing as corporations become more global, which in the end means that those with strong influence on our laws are increasingly not from, or living within, our country.
The effects of our corporate dominated public forum are easily seen in many of our government policies or how policies are approached by our lawmakers. The current health care issues and the health insurance industry is an easy one to point at. Health insurers don’t currently operate under antitrust laws. So they were able to divide our nation up into geographic markets which aided in eliminating competition which has directly impacted quality, this is called market allocation in the business world. And for every other business out there it is highly illegal to work in this fashion. Lawmakers are now starting to take a look at this exemption and are moving towards possibly repealing it, which will aid in bringing competition back to the market. However there will be a flurry of lobbying activity, funded by the health insurers, using money that would be better served applied to their customer base, to attempt to prevent the removal of this exemption, and I for one believe they do not have this right because their interest conflict with the interest of the public.
It cannot be more simply stated. Only people should have the right to create, modify or influence laws. How to enforce such a thing is for a different discussion. And the argument can be made that corporations are made up of people, but this completely fails due to corporate goals. Corporations have no interest in the betterment of people; any who believe that a corporate entity cares about a person beyond the concept of a consumer is woefully idealistic. Corporations care about revenue, market shares and other things that directly tie into the first three assumptions.
Everything else, from customer service to quality of product can be sacrificed if revenue, market share and return on investments can be improved upon consistently. This does not mean that a CEO or a member of the board of directors doesn’t care about people, but their responsibilities are not to the public, their responsibilities are to the corporation and they act in that interest and they hire lobbyist to influence our Congress along those interests.
Entertaining any number of simple theoretical situations where a law is proposed that would aid people but hurt a corporate entity it is only logical to see the corporate entity attempt to minimalize the effectiveness of the law or subvert the law from being ratified. There are cases where fear tactics are used to push a state representative or senator to move against the best interest of their constituents for the sake of a business.
Businesses can threaten to leave a state if certain laws are passed, policies enforced or exemptions removed. (Sources: 1 (http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/12/syracuse_law_firm_losing_empir.html), 2a (http://www.housedems.com/news/article/simpson-announces-legislation-to-repeal-michigans-drug-immunity-law/plan-would-protect-michigan-residents-from-dangerous-prescription-drugs), 2b (http://blogpublic.lib.msu.edu/index.php/2007/11/18/michigan_s_drug_immunity_law_triumph_of?blog=5)). It is logical that the more you hurt a company financially, either through taxation or regulation, the less it is able to accomplish the first three assumptions of this discussion, which in turn force it to make cuts in other areas, such as in jobs, pay and possibly even relocating to a place where the taxes or regulations impact it less. This lack of loyalty and community responsibility can be shown in multiple actions a corporation takes in order to attain its goals, here is a single example (source (http://albuquerque.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/stories/2006/05/22/story1.html)): The New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department has upheld an $11.6 million corporate income tax assessment against Wal-Mart Stores Inc., saying the company cannot shield its New Mexico earnings by transferring them to an out-of-state holding company.
The issue has broad-ranging implications for many businesses and centers on how a corporation divvies up earnings between its subsidiary operations and its holding company. In the case of Wal-Mart, the department ruled that the corporation improperly shifted earnings to its Delaware-based holding company WMR Inc., for the sole purpose of reducing income it reported in New Mexico for its in-state stores. Delaware does not assess corporate income tax on its companies, so company earnings that can be attributed to a holding company there are not subject to state corporate income taxes. And this is what it boils down to, loyalty and community responsibility. We as people want to have a community that is prosperous, safe and healthy (environmentally and economically) and are willing to pay taxes to insure it remains so. However these things are often seen as barriers to corporations. We don’t want a place where the air is polluted which increases the incidences of asthma in children, however attempts to regulate the air quality or tax the polluters to offset the cost to aid those who suffer from the pollution are seen as attacks on a corporation instead of justified responsibility. This is not to say that a corporation wants people to have poor health, corporations don’t want to destroy America, that is not the message I want to convey. But what they are willing to do is to sacrifice things to a level that is not acceptable to the public, and that broadcasts exceptionally clear that they have little care for loyalty and community responsibility. With this in mind how then is it logical to allow them to influence state and federal law? And is it logical to allow them to dominate the public forum?
One of the founding fathers I respect heavily, Thomas Jefferson, had this to say in a letter in 1816:“In this respect England exhibits the most remarkable phenomenon in the universe in the contrast between the profligacy of its government and the probity of its citizens. And accordingly it is now exhibiting an example of the truth of the maxim that virtue and interest are inseparable. It ends, as might have been expected, in the ruin of its people, but this ruin will fall heaviest, as it ought to fall on that hereditary aristocracy which has for generations been preparing the catastrophe. I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country”Revisiting the point made in Part 1, where I was discussing the differences in limitations between a real person and corporate personhood, another I would like to visit is limitations in resources. We have heavily limited resources in direct comparison to a corporation (which is almost absurdly obvious due to a corporation being a collective entity). Take one of our greatest freedoms, speech. The amount of power a typical citizen has in the exercising of their freedom of speech in the realm of influencing people or governmental policy is almost always limited by money, which is one thing the corporate model excels at in creating. In this regard the power of speech often escalates with how much money you have to put behind it. This creates inequality, which has always existed between the rich and the poor, but at a much heavier tip in the scales. What we have at this time is a massive power, the corporations, who control through their enormous wealth, the majority of the public forum in this country. What breaks the scales is the efficiency in which corporations are able to lobby, which is an extension of our 1st Amendment rights which reads“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” We as the people have the right to lobby our government for redress, but with our lack of money our small under-funded voices are drowned out amongst these giants of wealth. Lobbying itself is a perversion of the 1st Amendment. It states we have the right to seek redress of grievances. Redress for the most part means to (according to dictionary.com)1. to set right; remedy or repair (wrongs, injuries, etc.)
2. to correct or reform (abuses, evils, etc.)
3. to remedy or relieve (suffering, want, etc.)
4. to adjust evenly again, as a balance.
In context, since the word ‘grievances’ is included in the wording, it is easy to assume that the redress the writers of that amendment are referring to is one of the first three definitions.
Is it logical to give this right to a corporation, that in the event that they are wronged by the government they then have the ability to seek redress for that wrong? Of course, a business should be able to seek redress of a wrong. But did the writers of the Constitution mean that this right permits any entity to setup multibillion dollar groups in our capital that have the sole purpose of influencing decision making? I’m not a Constitutional expert and I’m not a Supreme Court Justice whose job is to interpret the Constitution, but I think it is easy to see that the current interpretation of how this right for redress is being used is a blatant mutation and corruption of the way our government is supposed to function. I don’t believe for a moment that the means of seeking redress was to petition law makers before a law was even signed. One would think the way you would seek redress was either through the courts or by petitioning your representatives after a wrong had occurred. It is in fact logically impossible to redress something when it has not even occurred.
Moving beyond the logical application of redress and looking at just the general ability and perhaps right of people to influence our government decisions. Do I believe that a person should have the right to influence a law before it is ratified? Of course, though through the proper channels, such as your representatives in Congress. Do I believe a corporation should have that right? I most certainly do not, first because they don’t have a home and community like a person does, the most influential corporations are housed in multiple states and therefore have multiple “voices” when it comes to policy votes, and secondly because the freedom of speech and the ability to use that speech to influence people and policy has always favored those with money. However, in the past those who attempted to influence policy were people themselves subjected to limitations that corporations don’t have, and though they most assuredly worked towards self-serving goals, those goals in the end were still ones that benefited people.
This is not true with corporate influence. How they use their 1st amendment rights is to not better the laws for people, but to change or pervert the laws to better those first three assumptions. How can this be seen as a healthy thing for our country when the goals of a corporation have nothing at all to do with the betterment of our communities, of people, or of our nation? This has become even more of a troublesome thing as corporations become more global, which in the end means that those with strong influence on our laws are increasingly not from, or living within, our country.
The effects of our corporate dominated public forum are easily seen in many of our government policies or how policies are approached by our lawmakers. The current health care issues and the health insurance industry is an easy one to point at. Health insurers don’t currently operate under antitrust laws. So they were able to divide our nation up into geographic markets which aided in eliminating competition which has directly impacted quality, this is called market allocation in the business world. And for every other business out there it is highly illegal to work in this fashion. Lawmakers are now starting to take a look at this exemption and are moving towards possibly repealing it, which will aid in bringing competition back to the market. However there will be a flurry of lobbying activity, funded by the health insurers, using money that would be better served applied to their customer base, to attempt to prevent the removal of this exemption, and I for one believe they do not have this right because their interest conflict with the interest of the public.
It cannot be more simply stated. Only people should have the right to create, modify or influence laws. How to enforce such a thing is for a different discussion. And the argument can be made that corporations are made up of people, but this completely fails due to corporate goals. Corporations have no interest in the betterment of people; any who believe that a corporate entity cares about a person beyond the concept of a consumer is woefully idealistic. Corporations care about revenue, market shares and other things that directly tie into the first three assumptions.
Everything else, from customer service to quality of product can be sacrificed if revenue, market share and return on investments can be improved upon consistently. This does not mean that a CEO or a member of the board of directors doesn’t care about people, but their responsibilities are not to the public, their responsibilities are to the corporation and they act in that interest and they hire lobbyist to influence our Congress along those interests.
Entertaining any number of simple theoretical situations where a law is proposed that would aid people but hurt a corporate entity it is only logical to see the corporate entity attempt to minimalize the effectiveness of the law or subvert the law from being ratified. There are cases where fear tactics are used to push a state representative or senator to move against the best interest of their constituents for the sake of a business.
Businesses can threaten to leave a state if certain laws are passed, policies enforced or exemptions removed. (Sources: 1 (http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/12/syracuse_law_firm_losing_empir.html), 2a (http://www.housedems.com/news/article/simpson-announces-legislation-to-repeal-michigans-drug-immunity-law/plan-would-protect-michigan-residents-from-dangerous-prescription-drugs), 2b (http://blogpublic.lib.msu.edu/index.php/2007/11/18/michigan_s_drug_immunity_law_triumph_of?blog=5)). It is logical that the more you hurt a company financially, either through taxation or regulation, the less it is able to accomplish the first three assumptions of this discussion, which in turn force it to make cuts in other areas, such as in jobs, pay and possibly even relocating to a place where the taxes or regulations impact it less. This lack of loyalty and community responsibility can be shown in multiple actions a corporation takes in order to attain its goals, here is a single example (source (http://albuquerque.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/stories/2006/05/22/story1.html)): The New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department has upheld an $11.6 million corporate income tax assessment against Wal-Mart Stores Inc., saying the company cannot shield its New Mexico earnings by transferring them to an out-of-state holding company.
The issue has broad-ranging implications for many businesses and centers on how a corporation divvies up earnings between its subsidiary operations and its holding company. In the case of Wal-Mart, the department ruled that the corporation improperly shifted earnings to its Delaware-based holding company WMR Inc., for the sole purpose of reducing income it reported in New Mexico for its in-state stores. Delaware does not assess corporate income tax on its companies, so company earnings that can be attributed to a holding company there are not subject to state corporate income taxes. And this is what it boils down to, loyalty and community responsibility. We as people want to have a community that is prosperous, safe and healthy (environmentally and economically) and are willing to pay taxes to insure it remains so. However these things are often seen as barriers to corporations. We don’t want a place where the air is polluted which increases the incidences of asthma in children, however attempts to regulate the air quality or tax the polluters to offset the cost to aid those who suffer from the pollution are seen as attacks on a corporation instead of justified responsibility. This is not to say that a corporation wants people to have poor health, corporations don’t want to destroy America, that is not the message I want to convey. But what they are willing to do is to sacrifice things to a level that is not acceptable to the public, and that broadcasts exceptionally clear that they have little care for loyalty and community responsibility. With this in mind how then is it logical to allow them to influence state and federal law? And is it logical to allow them to dominate the public forum?