A BRIEF HISTORY OF CORPORATE "PERSONHOOD"

A BuzzFlash interview via WorkingForChange:

History tells us that when corporate power is unrestrained, and corporations grow so large that the largest among them come to control and then stifle the marketplace, the result is the corruption of democracy followed by economic collapse. We saw it in the serial tax-cuts and deregulation of the Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover administrations, which led directly to the Great Depression. And we're seeing it writ large today, with the same consequences. Democracy is under assault and America is becoming impoverished.

The breakup of AT&T was the last significant enforcement of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, pushed back in the late 1970s. The result was an explosion of innovation as both the research division of AT&T and the "Baby Bells" became relatively autonomous. It paved the way for competition in the industry, dramatically lowered prices for consumers, and, interestingly, over a relatively short period of time actually increased shareholder value for former AT&T stockholders.

There are only a handful -- probably fewer than five hundred -- corporations that abuse or assert corporate personhood in the United States. Yet the harm they do to our economy and our republic is enormous. If they were denied personhood, we could root corruption out of government, get corporations out of politics, and make America safe and hospitable for entrepreneurs and small- and medium-sized businesses again, leading to an explosion in economic activity. And both the stockholders and the employees of these mega-corporations would benefit -- along with the rest of us -- if they were broken back down in size to where they were before the merger mania that Reagan allowed.

Click here for the rest.

Longtime Real Art readers know that I strongly believe that this sense of corporate "citizenship" is what's turned our fragile democracy into a plutocracy: corporate cash rules America now; voting is nearly useless when all the major candidates have vetted by the corporate powers in what some call a wealth primary--lobbying and campaign contributions are absolutely out of hand, which totally subverts democracy at the policy and implementation level. Both Democrats and Republicans are at the mercy of the corporate overlords. That's why I'm Green now; their bylaws prohibit taking any corporate money, and their overall mission is to return political power to average people.

Read this interview. It does quite a good job of showing how we got into this fine mess.

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